...and we're still happy that we did the whole marriage thing. Can you tell by the picture? The occasion for this picture was Game 7 of the 2011 World Series, in which the Cardinals clinched their 11th World Championship. We were there to see it and it was one of the happiest times of our marriage so far.
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Renee is a long-time serious Cardinals fan. I'm more of a casual fan, but Renee is the sort of fan that gets tickets to any and all home playoff games the Cardinals play. She has done this for many years. When I married her, I married the St. Louis Cardinals. Thus, we watched A LOT OF BASEBALL during the month of October. The Cardinals just kept winning and winning and before we knew it, we were buying World Series tickets.
Seriously! The Cardinals played in the World Series and won it in seven games. We got engaged a few hours before we saw our first Cardinals spring training game on March 23 and we were together as a married couple at Busch on October 29 when they won it all. When we watched the All Star Game from our honeymoon suite in Jamaica, how could we have known that the National League's gain of home field advantage via a win of that game would be such a big deal for us a few months later? In between that beginning, middle, and end, we saw a lot of baseball. The Cardinals played mostly average baseball this season and left us little hope of seeing them play in the postseason.
Surely you've heard the rest of the story by now. The Cardinals had no hope of catching the Brewers in the NL Central division and their only hope was to catch the Braves for the wild card spot in the playoffs. Well, the Braves collapsed, the Cardinals caught fire just at the right time to make up 10 1/2 games and won the wild card on the last day of the regular season. Renee and I had attended the Cardinals' final home game on a sunny Sunday afternoon when we beat the Cubs in the bottom of the 9th. I guess we should have sensed that something weird was going to happen but it still seemed unlikely that the Braves would continue to lose and let us in. Yet, somehow, they did, and we found ourselves playing playoff baseball.
Again, you know the story. The Cardinals beat the Phillies, Brewers, and Rangers in succession to gain their 11th World Series. They overcame dominant starting pitching, dangerous power hitters, and periodic mental lapses along the way. Each series was won in come-from-behind fashion. Whitey Herzog offered this prophecy in a newspaper story prior to the World Series, "I think the Cardinals will win it all, but it will be a strange, strange Series." How right he was. How strange is it for a bullpen to send the wrong relief pitcher into a game? After that happened to us in game 5 and the Rangers went on to defeat us to take a 3-2 series lead, I declared the Cardinals dead in the water. Renee restrained herself from throwing something at me. How strange is it for a team to come back twice from two strikes down and then win a game on an extra-innings home run hit by a St. Louis native? Renee and I saw it happen from the bleachers in game 6--we were there. I in my rally cap as a result of the drunken urgings of people sitting near us. Game 7--Renee and I were there in the bleachers, again. It seemed so unreal, but yet, it was. Allen Craig hauled in that final out and the unbelievable odyssey was complete. A World Series parade capped a weekend of celebration on October 30, and manager Tony LaRussa retired the next day. I've never seen a month of baseball like it in my life, and likely never will again. I missed only two home playoff games, and Renee just missed one but we were together at Busch for all of the others and we made memories that will last a lifetime.
So it's now November and we've resumed our previously-scheduled lives, already in progress. During Renee's annual family fish fry on October 29, we signed a contract with her cousin and his son to remodel the full bathroom in our house. Suffice it to say, it needed it. It's not been too much of a hassle to live with and it will be done by the end of this week. We've enjoyed the process of choosing new colors and fixtures together. We expect the end result to be quite pleasing.
from matlockjohn.blogspot.com
