World Series, 2006: My Story

My story is one of hundreds of thousands from the night the St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series. I was not in the stadium to watch the game but managed to be standing outside the gates when the final out was recorded. Here's what happened:

My roommate Ryan and I got downtown to Mike's loft on Washington just before first pitch of Game 5. We joined a fairly large group of friends in hopes of Jeff Weaver continuing his October mastery of opponent batters. We became nervous when we fell behind early. Sporting an assortment of Cardinals players' masks and a photoshopped Kenny Rogers face, we cheered them on and were rewarded when the horrid Tigers defense allowed us to pull ahead for good.

I motioned that we would all leave the loft and make the twelve block walk down to the stadium after the 7th inning. It was tough to pull away from being able to clearly watch a close game on TV, especially since the game was by no means out of the Tigers' reach. We arrived on Clark St, just outside the stadium and were joined by thousand of other jubilant fans waiting in anticipation for the moment. We were barely able to see a scoreboard inside the stadium to see the game situation. We mostly just reacted to the crowd's reactions.

With Busch Beer in hand at the gates of Busch Stadium, we cheered and waited, waited some more, drank some more, gave grateful fellow fans a drink or seven. Waiting, waiting and then...there it was. Unmistakable pandemonium as the game ended. We had no view of the field and no way to see the score or situation, but close to a hundred thousand screaming fans in the vicinity proved beyond a doubt that we had just won the World Freaking Series. Hugs and high fives, pushing and bumping and jumping, beer showers, confetti clouds in the air and a barrage of fireworks that lasted what seemed like five minutes set off just a few hundred feet behind us...

For some odd reason (perhaps Halloween quickly approaching), I had chosen to wear my Horse face mask the entire evening. I recieved many odd looks from fellow fans outside the stadium, but as one passerby cleverly noted, "Hey, why not?" My vision was obscured quite a bit by the mask, so I was quickly separated from my group of friends as the gates of the staduim opened and the crowd rushed in to view the postgame awards ceremony. So instead of going down as close as I could to the field to check things out, I decided to stand directly in the middle of the concourse behind the bleachers, rock my horse face mask and my So Taguchi jersey and hand out high fives to my fellow Cardinals fans. I believe I ended up standing there for about 45 minutes, giving non-stop high fives to Cards fans who were delighted to slap hands with a Cardinals-loving equine as the filed out of the stadium. I am not sure, but I may have personnally congratulated 500-1000 people.

Finally, my arms aching from the slapping, my friends reappeared. We headed out of the stadium, pouring into the exploding streets, complete with riot cops, horseback cops and plenty of rowdy fans. I was briefly separated from friends once again and happened to meet up with my sister Lynn and her boyfriend Rob, who were lucky enough to attend the game legitimately. We paused for a few photos with a banner I had made for her for the game. It was a personal message for Mr. Taguchi, in Japanese, and I thought for sure it would be shown on the Fox broadcast that night, but unfortunatley was not, to my knowledge.

As another odd twist to the situation, I had previously agreed to go rock climbing this weekend with friends at some cliffs five hours away in Northern Arkansas. We had planned to party after the game, then a sober Jon would point my Honda CR-V south and drive a car full of happily sleeping drunk Cards fans to hopefully arrive sometime around sunrise Saturday morning. After bidding good night to Lynn, Rob and some of their friends, I had to get moving to get back to Washington Ave to reconvene the car-pool. I ran a couple blocks north to Market St, high fiving and screaming at random. When I reached Market St, of course the street was bumper to bumper, no one moving an inch and no one minding that it was after 1am and they were sitting in traffic. Horns were blaring, windows wide open in the cold night and screaming fans provided a sensory overload.

Sensing an amazing opportunity, I got between two lanes of traffic and started my own victory parade. I ran into the stationary oncoming traffic with my hands out. The occupants of the noisy cars were happy to oblige as my high five score for the evening began to approach a couple thousand. I ended up running about seven blocks in total, all in the three foot gap between lines of stopped cars. My lungs and eyes burned from the CO2 intake, my ears were ringing from the yelling and the horns and I was nealry picked off by cross traffic as I crossed a surprisingly moving Tucker Blvd, but it was unreal.

Finally, I heard someone shout "FINGERHUT!" Perfect, it was Jon and Katie, who I would soon be travelling to Arkansas with. We walked the last few blocks back to the car and got set for the trip. I made a few sloppy calls to friends not fortunate enough to be born Cardinals fans for a bit of bragging, then hit the road. After a short gas stop in the suburbs and startling the late night gasoline patrons, we were on the road. Jon took the wheel, downed some Red Bulls for the long night of driving, and I watched the inside of my eyelids replay the night's unbelievable set of events.

St. Louis Cardinals, 2006 World Series Champions

+Some photos from the evening (Jenni B+
+Photo slideshow from Caitlin+
(more coming soon, if I recover my camera after that night...)