Some call baseball just a game – St. Louis calls it life

The city of Saint Louis is a lot more than just that. When most outsiders of the city think about Saint Louis, Missouri, most think about the beautiful skyline above the Mississippi River, the Arch, and it being considered the gateway to the West—but when you are apart of the sacred family of Cardinal Nation – the Saint Louis Cardinals and baseball are a lot closer to life than just a game played for nine innings.

It all started out in 1892, and ever since then, the city of Saint Louis has been to myself, along with many other true die-hard baseball fans and Cardinal Nation, considered “Baseball Heaven”,  and for very good reasons and real luxurious causes.

Despite being overridden to the media nowadays due to everything being all about the East coast and the West coast, Saint Louis is in fact the home of Major League Baseball for the entire Midwest region of the United States—and I don’t see that changing in my lifetime—nor possibly, ever. In the case of you not believing my statement and opinion, go ahead and check it out for yourself—all doubt will end there.

Having grown up in the heartland of Springfield, Illinois—which is about an hour and a half from Busch Stadium—and about three hours from Wrigley Field, I have lived through the mixes of one of best and most underrated rivalries in all of baseball, and sports for that matter—the Cardinals and the Cubs.

Certainly around my parts, it is definitely a segregated mixture of about 50-50 with fans from each team—and one thing that I do just about every day, is take a second out to appreciate that my father got me into the Cardinals when I was a youngster (as he was from Saint Louis). I have been a die-hard Cardinals fan since birth pretty much—and that is one thing during my time here that will NEVER change.

Never mind the eleven world championships that the franchise has brought to the city, or all of the winning seasons these teams have had, or even all of the hall-of-fame players that we have seen from generation-to-generation, none of that comes close to embracing what “Baseball Heaven” is all about.

Don’t get me wrong, Cardinals fans have been blessed to see some of the greatest athletes the sport has ever endured—including the likes of Lou Brock, Dizzy Dean, Bob Gibson, Whitey Herzog, Stan “The Man” Musial, Red Schoendienst, Enos Slaughter, Ozzie Smith, Billy Southworth, Bruce Sutter, Albert Pujols, and many more hall-of-famers—while now being blessed enough to see Matt Holliday, Carlos Beltran, the amazing career of Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright—and now the rising of the likes of David Freese, Allen Craig, Matt Adams and some very potentially-great prospects in the making—and even that doesn’t compare to what it is all about.

Being inside or around Busch Stadium is one of the greatest feelings that I have ever felt—and it’s something that I do quite a few times each and every season—but still, it never manages to get old. Although it’s all true, being apart of this sacred family isn’t just about being at the ballpark or even in Saint Louis—we are everywhere, and when I say everywhere, I mean that sincerely.

Everybody knows that a regular season of Major League Baseball is certainly not a sprint—but more so of a marathon. Great things happen, good things happen, bad things happen, and even record-breaking moments in both good and bad ways happen—and the fact that no matter what in fact does occur, Cardinals fans stick together through thick and thin.

Being a blogger as I am, I have talked with many, many fans of different teams from different cities (whether it be at the stadium, on a vacation, through a message board, Facebook, or even twitter)—and with myself being as unbiased as I normally am, Saint Louis fans most certainly know our Cardinals baseball as well as our baseball in general. I’m definitely not saying there aren’t smart fans all over, but overall as a fan base, I would never question that we have the most dedicated and smartest fan base out there.

Not saying that it wasn’t something that I knew before last season, because I have always have, but last seasons miraculous eleventh world series title run showed the entire world just how sacred we really are. 10.5 games behind Atlanta for the final playoff spot for the Wild Card spot on August 25^th—ending in a World Series Championship, the city and the nation of Cardinals baseball endured possibly the greatest moments’ in all of baseball history. Following the Game 6 heroics that made a walking legend out of David Freese to the final out of Game 7 that captured the title, it really was a movie on broadway without all of the encore that goes into it.

Saint Louis Cardinals baseball will always be here—and the fans and the city of Saint Louis will as well. It doesn’t matter the name on the back of the jersey, the records and accolades that come along with you, nor the money that you make. This city is and will always behind the guys that wear the birds on the bat—and that my fellow fans, readers, and haters—will NEVER change. We are Cardinals baseball.