I admit that I’m a fair-weather fan; no dispute about it.  At the risk of incurring scorn by all of the true fans who have been buying $50 tickets and $7 beers all season, however, I’ve decided to come out of self-imposed sports-fan retirement in order to follow my home team’s progress in the so-called “World” Series. I paid almost no attention to the St. Louis Baseball Cardinals this year until the end of the season. That’s when the team, which appeared to be clearly out of the race (about 10 games behind the Braves for a wildcard spot) started making an extraordinary run for a spot in the playoffs. They clinched that spot on the final day of the season.

I’ve thus joined the biggest, loudest religion in St. Louis, in order to follow the progress of the Cards.  Against my better instincts, I seem to be caught up in the tribal felt importance of the moment.  This is time for a collective projection by the hometown fans of both the Cardinals and the Texas Rangers, so when they yell “We won!” I won’t interject, as did Jerry Seinfeld:

We’re a little too into sports in this country, I think we gotta throttle back. Know what I mean? People come home from these games, “We won! We won!” No, they won – you watched.

In honor of the success of the Cardinals and their impressive manager, Tony La Russa, I’m reaching back in history (about 1980) to post this video of La Russa making an appearance in a classic old TV game show, “To Tell the Truth.”