Halloween Heart

I am happy for the Rams. I am happy for Coach Vitt. I am happy for Steven Jackson. Things are finally looking up at Rams Park. Sports are so weird sometimes. Games that are so tied to statistics, usually breakdown to something more. Joe Vitt used the movie Gladiator to rally the troops. This may seem silly, but in sports sometimes the smallest things can make the big differences.

I will always love Mike Martz and the excitement he brought to St. Louis every year and every week, but sometimes it was not the good kind of excitement. He is a great X's and O's guy, but he always seemed aloof and unexciteable. He never seemed able to instill the passion for the game needed to win the game. He obviously had it, but he could not communicate it.

As we may be seeing more as this season progresses, it is more about the heart than the head. Which is slightly ironic given that both Martz and Vitt had heart operations this season. But when players and coaches believe in their hearts that they can do something, it can be much more powerful than whatever is running through their minds.

It may be cheesy, but so is Gladiator. That worked.

I've Got the Blues

Once again we have left another baseball season with not much more than hope about next year. While Jocketty tinkers with the pitching staff and the outfield, we have nothing left to do for the winter. The Rams are in trouble again, and I wish only the best to Mike Martz. (I still give him most of the credit for turning this franchise around. Dick Vermeil is a cry baby.) Jamie Martin may know the offense, but that does not make him a good quarterback. Mizzou seems to be wasting another year. Our friend Brad Smith may just go down as another athletic, exciting to watch quarterback without the requisite skills to be a quarterback in the NFL. I guess he could become the next Hines Ward, but sometimes I feel like he could have been so much more.

And don't get me started about Mizzou basketball. Self-Proclaimed "Coach" Snyder did not build a new basketball stadium, the Walton fortune did. It can be a gray area, but maybe "Coach" just forgot that he got in trouble with the NCAA and has missed the tournament the past two years. Is it any wonder the new arena almost got named after a cheating failiure? Maybe he did build the new arena. Maybe it will fall on his oversized head. But I digress.

So all that I am left with, besides short interludes of St. Louisan Larry Hughes playing with King James on national TV, is The Blues. And since in St. Louis the NBA doesn't exist anyway, all I really have is the Blues.

The Blues are in an interesting place right now. The team is for sale. The current owners are trying to do everything they can to convince people that a hockey team can be profitable in the US, by cutting costs and trying to get rid of any unnecessary debt (read: no new long-term contracts). Where this leaves us is with a scrappy team that will probably miss the playoffs this year. To some this may not seem like a big deal, except that the Blues have been in the playoffs each of the past 25 years. I am of a generation of hockey fans that have never seen the Blues miss the playoffs. That's crazy. I'm 25 years old!

We may get to test a prevalent sports theory which entails that you must go through a rebuilding process in order to win it all. During the 25 year stretch, and actually during the entire history of St. Louis hockey, we have never won a Stanley Cup. So the question becomes do we need the requisite bad years to get the high draft picks needed to develop a core of strong young bucks to carry this franchise into the next stage of Blues hockey, which theoretically will bring a Cup through the Gateway to the West?

I don't know if there is a definitive answer to this. During this stretch we weren't always mediocre. We won a President's Cup, only to lose in the first round of the playoffs to those dirty San Jose Sharks, and we have progressed twice to the Conference Finals. We have had our share of talented players come through St. Louis, including, since I have been following them: Brett Hull, Scott Stevens, Curtis Joseph, Adam Oates, Brendan Shanahan, Wayne Gretzky, Chris Pronger, Al MacInnis, Pavol Demitra, Grant Fuhr, Keith Tkatchuk, Doug Weight, and Barrett Jackman. These came with a few notable awards, including two Hart Awards, two Norris trophies, a Calder, and two Lady Byngs. (Speaking of which, do players get ribbed about winning the Lady Byng award? Do opposing players check them into the boards and say things like "You gonna cry, you big girl," or "Wow, I just checked the bearded lady!") But anyway, there were a few years where we were one of the top teams in the league, but things just didn't come together for us. Whether because of injury, or because the stars weren't aligned well (both on the ice and in the sky) we just could never put it together.

Although we lost some guys, I see some hope. We seem to be figuring out the new rules, and Lalime seems to be getting more comfortable. My hope is, squeak into the playoffs, get bought by someone who cares about hockey and wants to win and wants to stay in Saint Louis even after the current lease on the stadium is up, keep the streak going, and add a Stanley Cup sometime soon. Will all this happen? Probably not. Am I going to keep hope alive anyway? You're damn right I am.

Go Blues.

New Era

Well, as a sports fan, and specifically as a St. Louis sports fan, today is filled with mixed emotions. I agonized once again as my favorite baseball team, the St. Louis Cardinals lost in the playoffs. The last time they won the World Series was in 1982, before I was old enough to realize what the difference was between a ball and a box. The first time I remember them in the World Series was when they lost in 1987, when I was not in St. Louis yet, and I thought that Kirby Puckett was cool. Sometimes I feel bad about this fact, but then I remember that it's just sports, and Kirby Puckett was pretty cool.

Now, though, not only is the Curse of Keith Hernandez still haunting the franchise, but we also have to say goodbye to Busch Stadium. Once criticized for being another one of the "cookie cutter" stadiums, Busch Stadium has become one of the most beloved havens for baseball fans in the country. After converting it to a full time baseball stadium, (it had shared time with such things as the St. Louis football Cardinals, the Beatles, and REO Speedwagon) and taking out the awful astro-turf, and adding a few upgrades and modern amenities, the stadium had really become quite a place. Fun for kids, beloved by true sports fans, enjoyed by everyone, it was great. Even after all the other "cookie cutter" stadiums (of which Busch Stadium was the first) were torn down, Busch Stadium seemed to be getting better.

Now it will be gone. The plans for the new stadium look nice. It's supposed to have more "good" seats. And there are plans in the works for a Stadium Plaza that hopefully will benefit a struggling downtown area. It will also take over the name Busch Stadium. To me it will always be the New Busch Stadium, even when it is old and cracked. However, that is better than some of the new corporate names that are out there.

I have some fond memories of Busch. I saw the Wizard do a few back flips there. I saw Big Mac hammer some balls. I saw the Great Albert Pujols play. I heckled Rickey Henderson. Ben Clark and I tried and failed to get some autographs from Orel Hershieser and Tommy Lasorda once when the Dodgers came to town. I booed Kenny Lofton in the playoffs. I learned how to use a scorecard there. I even witnessed a few baseball miracles. It was pretty cool.

Next year will be a new chapter for St. Louis. New ballpark, probably some new faces. And even though we missed out on a championship this year, maybe next year we can bring it home.