The king is dead, long live the king!

[dmarx114]

Posting with house money.

[popcornmegaphone]

This is my first post.
I don't know how to attach images yet. But if I ever learn maybe I'll add them to the story I'd like to share below. Posted during the reign of Michael in GRB I (still August 12 here in PST).
I wrote it a few days ago when I learned that GRB was ending.
Thank you Michael, Kyle, and GRB community for together creating and continuing a great site. My first post! Into the tip jar.
Go Cards

-----------------------------

Hello,
many years ago I posted 2 - maybe 3 - times in Flashchat as Popcorn Megaphone - a reference to the red cardboard containers they used to sell popcorn in at Busch II back in the day. I have lurked on this excellent site nearly every day since.

I grew up in West County in the 1960’s-70’s, left home in the early 80’s, and return often to visit my family and go to Cards games together. I’ve lived in North Carolina and now California where I met my wife (a professional sports agnostic), and where our 2 daughters have grown up into amazing, beautiful young women / Cardinals fans.

Respect to all the posters on this board. I touch your feet.
As this manifestation of GRB ends tonight on August 12th, I feel a responsibility to do 3 things:

1. Thank Michael
2. Share
3. Post like a champion

I am a pilgrim here, before the alter of GRB.

1. Thank you Michael
I don’t know what all it takes to do what you’ve done for the past 10 years hosting Gateway Redbirds.com, but whatever that sum total is, I thank you for it and for creating this community.

2. The 2011 Game 6 / Game 7 Creed of a West County Catholic school boy
I believe in baseball magic, and the power of streaks - both the winning and losing kind. I believe the things I do and don’t do, what I wear and don’t wear, effect the outcome of the team I love. Not everything in my life revolves around baseball, but some of my best memories do.

As a kid I played hotbox and baseball with my brothers and sisters in our backyard using foam bases mom sewed herself. I would take a ruler and pencil, draw lines down loose-leaf notebook paper, and keep score in the columns and rows while listening to Jack Buck and Harry Caray - and then Mike Shannon - over transistor radio. I kept the sheets of paper in a 3-ring binder that my dad got - one for all of us. It had a picture of Stan the Man on the cover along with our names monogrammed in cursive red writing. I wonder where they are.

Like my friends, I collected cards of all sports but especially baseball cards. We bought them down the street at the Rexall Drug Store next to the Schnucks. My favorite was the Gibson card to which I had stapled my ticket stub to the game where we saw him strike out his 3000th K vs. the Reds - Geronimo I think, or maybe Concepcion. Bob Gibson is my favorite Cardinal.

Fast forward, summer 2006 in northern California. My kids were 8 and 6 and totally into Story Time at our local library. During one of our visits - it was my turn, I was looking through a book the girls wanted me to check out when a baseball card dropped out of it and onto the floor. Upper Deck Rookie Card - Adam Wainwright. There he is wearing #70. The last sentence of his bio on the back says, “The righty has five years of experience in the Minors and he should be prepared to make an impact in The Show in the near future.”
Oh yeah.

What a random, crazy find in early summer 2006, this Cardinals baseball card from nowhere. Here was an apparition, a portent of late October Cardinals baseball magic.

These past 10 years, the only place I’ve spent more baseball time than at GRB is on my phone, texting my friend Tom during ballgames and silently witnessing GameDay. Tom and his wife are from central Illinois, where most of her family are Cubs fans. I tell people we’re the two biggest Cards fans west of the Mississippi, even though I know we share the title with others including all western GRBers! Our kids have grown up together, and we travel together to see the Cards when they play the Giants.

So much of the 2011 season sucked. Much like losing 7-0 to the Reds sucked on Thursday. Then September happened, then Carp vs. Halladay, and sweet revenge against the Brewers. Beast fail. Then the World Series.

One of the first things I remember about the 2011 World Series is how much I liked the palette used on the Fall Classic logo. Earth tones and oak leaves. Every year since has been a rehashing of red and blue, but 2011’s colors really appealed to me and still do.

I had invested a great deal emotionally by Game 5. Tied in the late innings, I remember hoping and wishing the Cards to a win only to be utterly ruined by Craig-Pujols hit and run fail(s) and the LaRussa bullpen brainfart. The next day, both Tom and I began preparing ourselves for the worst. Down 3-2, no chance for another Carp start, we hoped for the best and rationalized away why one more loss wouldn’t be so bad.

We were lucky to get this far…what a great run…Albert will come back. With the rain out, we took an entire (very unproductive) work day to steel ourselves against outlandish thoughts of victory and suggestions of crushing defeat. Tom and I spent that Wednesday texting and calling each other until we agreed on an even-keel strategy. No matter what happens in Game 6, we’d keep an even keel. To do otherwise would lead to emotional ruin. I knew I could not go through the highs and lows of another defeat like Game 5 without deep and spiritual loss.

Thursday October 27, 2011.
I arrive at the office and text Tom that I’m finding it difficult not to freak out and be useless. Even keel.
At around 10:30am I get a call from my sister in St. Louis. She’s got two tickets available to Game 7.
What?
Two tickets. To Game 7.
If the Cards win tonight, could I get to St. Louis by tomorrow afternoon, and do I want the tickets?

All hell has broken loose. I remember running outside, pacing up and down the sidewalk while fumbling with the phone.
First I called my wife. “Absolutely!” she says, “you have to go.”
Then I called Tom and said, “Listen, you’re not going to believe this but what I’m about to say is real….”
It’s moments like this when instinct just takes over, and one needs to hope one’s actions are true.

We scrambled, calling siblings and friends - bless them all, and within an hour or two had put together enough frequent flyer miles to make it work. We booked plane tickets. If we win tonight, we fly to St. Louis. If we loose….

It’s now Thursday, 2:30pm. Within a 4-hour window, Tom and I had travelled into a different universe, our controls set for the heart of the Game 6 singularity.

There was a paralysis early on. After Cruz’s upper-deck homer, I switched to watching silently on GameDay while my wife and daughters listened to Shannon and Rooney in our kitchen. I grabbed my guitar and strummed mindlessly while watching my tiny cellphone screen.

In play, out(s).

We kept texting (all times Pacific):
4 SCREENSHOT PICTURES OF OUR TEXTS

My dad died last year. One of my most favorite memories is jumping and yelling for joy with him after a come-from-behind walkoff win vs the Astros. It was extra innings at Busch II, we had been down by a ridiculous score and won something like 11-10. I’d never seen him show such emotion and I’ll never forget how pure that was. Something similar took place in our house that night.

Freese at bat in the 11th. I see

In play, run(s)

just as I hear the girls screaming in the kitchen, followed by a convergence of out-of-our-minds Cardinals fans. 12-hours I’ll remember for the rest of my life.

Friday October 28, 2011.
It was easily 2am before I tried to sleep. I left for the airport at 4am and met Tom for our 6:15am flight to St. Louis. We were flying the colors and at our layover in Phoenix a young man got on and sat next to us. He’d bought a plane ticket that morning and planned to stand outside Busch during the game. If he could find a game ticket, great. But either way after last night the only place he wanted to be was downtown at the stadium for Game 7. We bought him a drink and toasted victory.

My sister, goddess of tickets, met us at Lambert a little after 3pm. At the curb with…wait for it…a fresh Imo’s pizza. She drove us first to my mom and dad’s place where Tom and I said hi and dropped off our bags, and then straight to the stadium. The rest is history.

They say Baseball Heaven. Well, yeah.

7 PICTURES OF GAME 7

3. In before the close
For years I’ve enjoyed following the myriad GRB threads - mostly the Baseball Talk ones. I hope good people you keep this forum, and continue to discuss Cardinals baseball. I would definitely keep following the conversation because I value in-depth understanding of the game, MS Paint savants, and the NSFW Babes pics thread.

At times - most times - I am awed by the good-humored BS expressed by the posters here. I don’t believe I’d be able to keep up - certainly not in real time.

Having lurked so long, enjoying what you the GRB posters have offered, here’s a story I’d like to share as a thing I hope is of equitable value.

Say hey Michael, and to the Mods, and the GRB community for this site and for reading my milestone first post. A personal tale I hope is better late than never.

Postcript
4. Thank Kyle

4. GRB II
Since writing my post I’ve learned Kyle will be taking over from Michael. Thank you Kyle, good luck new Mods. So long GRB I.
Go Cards!!

[lukethedrifter]

Today is my daughter's 16 th birthday. And GRB lives on. It's a good day.

[lukethedrifter]

That's a damn fine first post.

[CT Defector]

That's a damn fine first post.

+

[doe_boy]

Post like a champion...

[Donnie Ebert]

This post is sensational. Thanks for telling your story; I love any retelling of how Game 6 happened from a fan's perspective.

[heyzeus]

Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was.

[heyzeus]

This is an amazing first post. Wow. Only took 10 years.

I hope you stick around and join us for our new lease on life here. Don't make post #2 in 2026!

[Radbird]

Today is my daughter's 16 th birthday. And GRB lives on. It's a good day.

Wow time flies. Drivers license on Monday?