Opening Day for the St. Louis Cardinals is essentially the first day of a religious season. Now, I don't know if there's a such thing as a religious season. I'm pretty sure Lent is one. Christmas could be a season, too. I should have paid more attention in church. Anyway, when Opening Day hits the City of St. Louis, I have a tendency to want to be there. The Cardinals always make me wish I still lived in St. Louis. They're about the only thing that makes me wish that. And I have family and friends there whom I love dearly (and there just ain't much I love dearly). I think I'm digressing.
But I digress.
Anyway, yesterday I bailed on work and set up life at the apartment to sit on my fat ass and witness the beginning of a Cardinals' season with no expectations. Ordinarily, as many great sports writers have pointed out, losing feels worse than winning feels good. In other words, usually when your team wins, you had certain expectations of success, so when they fail it hurts.
I have no expectation of success for the 2008 Cardinals.
The 2008 Cardinals winning the World Series would be like going to jail only to run into an old friend of yours who wants to give you twenty thousand dollars. In other words, it won't happen.
But in an infinite universe anything is?
Oh, who the hell am I kidding?
The Cardinals outfield has played in like, a combined eighty games or so. Of healthy pitchers, their best one had one season at better than .500 (in his only season as a starter). The infield, with the exception of Cardinals-For-Life (or as long as they're healthy) Yadier Molina and Albert Pujols is made up of an injury case and a bunch of young kids (and Cesar Izturis, who is somewhere in between).
So basically, with no pitching, little established hitting and a total youth movement, the Cardinals really don't have a chance this year.
Which means there's no way they can break my heart.
Or so I thought.
You see, sometimes it rains.
The Cardinals scored five runs in three innings in their home opener, which was canceled due to rain. I watched it. Not only did I watch it, I left work for it. I fell asleep waiting for it to come back on. And it never did.
They say you can tell how a season's gonna go by the first game of the year. But they never told me if they meant the first official game of the year or the first time they tried to play?
Screw it. We're fucked this year.
But at least I expect to get fucked.
And that's better than rape.
Labels: Cardinals