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Health & Fitness

Cardinals are Late-Season Wonders

Cardinals post-season

It’s Friday morning in mid-October.  Do you know where your Cardinals are?

We sure do. 
Once again, they’re deep into post-season baseball and on the brink of
advancing to another World Series.  With their 8-3 victory over the San Francisco Giants Thursday night, thanks to a masterful performance by starting pitcher Adam Wainwright and the Cardinals’ surging offense, the Redbirds need just one more victory to propel themselves once again into the October Classic.

We are fortunate enough to live in a city with such a rich baseball heritage.  Only the heralded New York Yankees have won more World Series than the Cardinals, and only the Yankees have appeared in more post-season competitions in the last 20 years.

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The Cardinals have been a civic treasure for more than a century and a team to be reckoned with since they won their first World Series championship in 1926. The Redbirds were dormant in the 1950s, the ‘70s and most of the ‘90s, but they’ve been in the hunt often enough to be the envy of the National League.

Since the present ownership group led by Bill DeWitt Jr. took over in 1996, the Cardinals have played in eight National League championship series, with seven of those coming since 2000.  The Redbirds have been in the NL championship series more than half the time in the 21st century.  That’s truly impressive.

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Before the season began, the Cardinals lost their future Hall of Fame manager (Tony LaRussa), a certain future Hall of Fame player (Albert Pujols) and a pitching coach (Davd Duncan) widely regarded as one of the best in the game.  Not looking in the rear-view mirror, DeWitt and general manager John Mozeliak shrewdly used the money that ownership had set aside for salaries to sign veteran star Carlos Beltran to a two-year deal.

The Cardinals also threw the dice and gambled on a rookie manager, Mike Matheny, who had no professional managerial experience.  Matheny was a known
commodity to ownership, though, as a former Cardinal catcher and as a
knowledgeable baseball man with the kind of integrity and character that the
Cards appreciated.

Matheny made his share of mistakes this season, but his strong leadership skills set a tone for the team, whose back was always covered by its manager.  Just like last year, the Cards snuck into the playoffs virtually at the end of the
season.  Last year they snatched the wildcard slot away from the fading Atlanta Braves on the season’s final day.  This year, they claimed rights to the newly
created second wild card slot on the penultimate day, outlasting the Dodgers,
Brewers, Phillies, Pirates, Diamondbacks and Padres.  With the last game unnecessary, the Redbirds were able to save ace Kyle Lohse for the wild-card play-in game against the Braves, winning that winner-take-all contest.

Next came the surprising Washington Nationals, who ended the season with the Major League’s best record.  The Cardinals fought the Nats to a draw over
the first four games of their National League divisional series.  Then came the epic deciding contest, when the Redbirds fought back from an early 6-0 deficit to stun the Nats and their anxious fans, 9-7, including a two-out, four-run rally in the 9th
inning.

The Cardinals have willed themselves into the NL championship series against the strong and resilient Giants. The teams are similar in many ways, none more so than in their ability to come back when pinned against the wall, as the Giants did in winning three straight games against the Reds in Cincinnati to reach the championship series.

Being up three games to one is much preferred to being in the reverse position.  Still, the Cardinals know that they must continue to work hard, must continue to get key contributions from each of the players on their post-season roster, and
must continue to persevere in their quest for another World Series trophy.

Given how they played during much of the regular season, it all seems highly unlikely. Given how they have played in recent post-season competitions, though,
it seems like status quo.

Evan Makovsky
HOST, THE E-MAK SHOW
Weekdays 6AM-9AM Central
KXFN 1380 AM St. Louis, MO

http://twitter.com/followemak

www.emakshow.com

www.sportsradio1380.com

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