2007 Cardinals

Roger Dean Staduim, spring training home of the Cardinals and the Florida Marlins is conveniently located just 10 minutes north of where I was working in Palm Beach Gardens. So Friday morning, Kristina and I made the journey from our hotel to the game. We arrived about an hour early and checked out the Bud Light truck where they were excellently showing Game 7 of the NLCS last year. Quite appropriate as we were playing the Mets this day.

We got into the staduim and secured a good place to stand, standing room only on Friday. We were in the aisle about 20 rows up from the Cards dugout. I managed to get Albert Pujols warming up and didn't even realize what was on the scoreboard until I looked at the picture:



In about the third inning, a guy walking up from lower seats stopped and asked us if we wanted his seats up front. Hmmm, uhh yeah. We grabbed his stubs and settled into 3rd row seats within spitting distance of Tony LaRussa. Mr. Taguchi stood still and allowed me to shoot his good side:



We were also close enough to the action to get some pretty good shots of the players at bat:





The game was pretty good until the 9th inning, when Cards' reliever Josh Kinney gave up 3 runs and we ended up losing. One amazing aspect of the game: batting back to back to back in the Mets lineup that day were Julio Franco, Ruben Sierra and Sandy Alomar, Jr., aged 48, 41 and 40, respectively.

The next day we made it back to the park for the 1:05 game vs. the Marlins. Kip Wells was the starter that day, Dave Duncan watches him warm up:



That day, we sat in the bleachers in foul territory for most of the game. I met a guy there with his three kids who were from D.C. He decided he was going to raise his kids as Cardinals fans even though they had no direct ties to the St. Louis area. That's pretty cool.

I had hoped to get So Taguchi's autograph and perhaps chat with him, as accessability to players is much easier that you can ever consider during the regular season. But here, access was unfortunately limited. There was a section near the field that all the players inevitably stop at to sign autographs when they exit the game and make their way back to the clubhouse. To get into this section, however, you need a wristband. Taguchi left the game in about the 5th inning both days, so I was unable to get near him. Saturday, I did manage to get near enough to yell a few Japanese phrases to him, but he didn't respond. I did manage to get one of the Cards' top prospects to sign a baseball--Colby Rasmus. This 20 year old kid will likely spend the year in double A, possibly make it to triple A and is slated to replace Jim Edmonds in center field in 2 years. I think I'll hold on to that ball. I could have probably also gotten Tony's autograph, but settled for a picture instead:



We did end up spanking the Marlins on Saturday. It was a nice relaxing weekend with a little baseball thrown in for good measure. To see a couple more photos, click on any of the above to get to my Flickr photo stream.