the world series 2011 :: st louis, mo

The World Series!  For those of you who may not know, I am a HUGE baseball fan and an even bigger St Louis Cardinals fan.  For those of you who aren’t into baseball, it’s been a crazy year for the Cardinals.  So many things had to happen for us to make it to the World Series, I’m still in disbelief.  As of the end of the season we were 10 games out of first place.  It seemed pretty hopeless that we even had a chance at the playoffs.  Somehow, the Atlanta Braves hit a losing streak and we wound up clinching the wild card.   We played better than I’ve ever seen versus the Phillies and the Brewers in the playoffs to make it to the World Series to face the Texas Rangers!

I was fortunate enough to have a wedding booked in St Louis this weekend, so I told my mother (an equally huge fan) that we should find some tickets and go!

Getting off the plane in St Louis to the cool crisp fall air, hats and shirts promoting the World Series greeted me the minute I exited.  “GO CARDS” signs line the changing leaf colored streets and a murmur of “the cardinals” is constantly whispered into the air.

Arriving downtown to the bustle of the red, the call for tickets, the painted faces and smell of peanuts is all suddenly magical.  We contently creep down the streets with the crowd taking in the excitement and enthusiasm as we pass painted faces and Pujols jerseys.  Clutching our tickets tightly in our hands we enter the stadium and are gifted a World Series pin and a rally towel and suddenly I have to let out a shout of pure joy.  I’m at the World Series, a evening that is sure to be a memory in my mind forever.

Even though in the end we lost this game, nothing will compare to the sight of every seat filled with red dressed bodies that whip white rally towels around their heads praying that a hit will lead to a Cardinals victory.  Or the sound of 50,000 voices all chanting “YADI” “YADI” “YADI” that fill the stadium with a near deafening roar.  It’s these moments that dreams and stories are made of.