Joe Fan's
"Notes From The Recliner!"

"SUMMERTIME...AND THE LIVING IS EASY! "

Joe Fan and the National Game

If all goes as planned, this Thursday afternoon Joe Fan will be sitting in the stands at Busch Stadium with Alan Shelton, his best friend from the first grade. We will be watching our beloved Cardinals play the Florida Marlins, a team that was still 20 years away from being established when we first went to a Cardinal game in 1971. And, life...life will be good.

My first major league game was on a Saturday night. The St. Louis Cardinals vs. the Atlanta Braves. It was bat night and every kid in attendance got a bat with a signature of a Cardinal starter. I got a Julian Javiar and Alan and his brother, Dave, got Dal Maxvills. Not exactly the Lou Brock or Joe Torre we were looking for, but it didn't matter. The Braves were a strong team, the names Aaron and Cepeda stick in my mind. The Bravos led all the way, but the Cardinals won it in the bottom of the ninth, when Torre hit a base-loaded double to end the game. I don't remember the final score, but I was hooked.

It was not easy being a Cardinal fan in the '70s. After the monster teams of the late '60s, St. Louis fell apart. Augie Busch, angered by the union activists on the team, traded many of the more vocal team members away. There was also that Steve Carlton for Rick Wise deal. Carlton went on the become one of the most dominant pitchers of the next decade. Wise, well, he turned out not to be one of the most dominant pitchers of the next decade. Despite these developments, each night I would carry my transistor radio around everywhere I went listening the game. And, this was well before the Walkman. Transistor radios were not that small when I was a kid and it came with this earphone that was like a huge white mushroom. I had that big white earpiece in my ear so often, that many folk thought I wore a hearing aid. I didn't care though, because through that earpiece came the velvet voice of Jack Buck.

Jack Buck. It is safe to say (and a little sad), that I spent about 10 times more of my life with Jack Buck, then my own Dad. He was the soundtrack for my 70s (him, and Paper Lace). Sadly, the product on the field rarely match his ability in the booth, but my love never waned. Thanks to the glory of the internet, I still get to hear him on occasion. The years and cigarettes have taken their toll, but he still frames a game as well as anyone and he has an almost psychic ability to foresee the changes in the contest. However, I have to admit, in the late '70s, the losing starting to take a toll on my fandom. I was endanger of becoming a, gulp, football fan and leaving the pastoral game behind. But, things would soon change in the '80s. That change came in the form of the best manager in the history of baseball, Whitey Herzog.

Herzog, aka, The White Rat, changed the whole style of baseball in St. Louis. They went from a team of plodding farm mules to pure breed thoroughbreds. It was the antithesis of today's arena baseball. The Cardinals rarely hit home runs, but man, could they run. And run they did, to three World Series. They won one, was robbed in one and lost the third with a team missing their two big bats. The year they won, 1982, still ranks as one of the best years of my life. It has been 18 years since that Series, but the memories of that crisp October week remains vivid. It has yet to be recaptured.

It isn't easy to be a baseball fan anymore. The wars between the players and the owners, the gimmicks like interleague play and opening the season in Japan, fans in cities being extorted for new stadiums and corporate handouts. Not to mention, an unhealthy obsession with home runs. It is almost as if the slogan for baseball in the 2000s is "Singles Suck!" Ah, the list goes on. And, yet, like a battered spouse I return to my abusive mate.

My wise friend, Bill Blackburn, says that baseball is a dying game. The national "past-its-time." Today's youth bored by the pace, are increasingly turning to football, or even worse, to basketball. For years I argued the other side, but I have given up. He may be right, but on Thursday afternoon, between the brats and beer, it won't much matter.

Batter Up!

Joe Fan's"Notes From The Recliner!"

"SUMMERTIME...AND THE LIVING IS EASY! "

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Joe Fan's
"Notes From The Recliner!"