Peanut (M&Ms) and Cracker Jacks

  It’s October and October means one thing. Cardinal's playoff baseball. (Sure it also means Layla's birthday and pumpkin patches but not in this post.)
  In years past, this was the one time of year I actually got to watch games seeing as we are a bit out of market. But the past two years, we got smart and got the MLB package, allowing us to be a part of their winning season from the beginning. I cannot begin to tell you how many games we watched this year. It was a lot. And what a fun season to watch- our red birds have been on fire. So what? No more Pujols? No problem! We’ve got Carp, Beltran, Freese, Adams, Wainright, Wacca and we still have Yadi. And social media. I love having my personal Facebook Cardinal Nation on my phone watching the game with friends across the country, cheering together from our living rooms.
  When we moved to Colorado, we not only left behind family and friends, we left behind our team too. I don’t follow football or hockey or even baseball, really. I follow the St. Louis Cardinals. It’s not just baseball, it’s childhood, it’s family. I grew up in the magical time of Ozzie Smith doing back flips and Whitey Herzog small ball at its finest. Who grew up around St. Louis and didn’t hear Jack Buck’s voice on the radio while their dad grilled burgers and dogs? The thrill of going to Busch Stadium? The promise of junk food, green grass and cheering with complete strangers that somehow made you a part of something bigger than yourself and have a natural disdain for Cubs fans?  900 miles can’t touch these memories.
  All the games at our fingertips still can’t compare to going to an actual baseball stadium. So this year we decided to take Layla to her first. She was well primed, having baseball the backdrop to her entire summer. She loves Yadi (Yadi was one of her first words), Joe Kelly and Holiday and we’d practiced Take Me Out to the Ballgame. We were ready.
  Seeing the Cards play in Denver gives us a little taste of home. The stadium is almost embarrassingly full of red with all our fellow Cardinal fan transplants, as well as the KMOX phenomenon that stretched the Cardinals fan base far beyond St. Louis. But don’t fear Rockies, we were at the game, so you won. It’s a bit of a tradition, no matter what, the one game we go see, the Cards lose. And this particular September evening was no different.
  But even with our team losing we were all smiles. The weather was perfect we were with good friends and Layla was thrilled to be at the game she’d only previously seen on TV. She danced to the music, ate Cracker Jacks and peanut M&Ms and when it was time to stretch in the 7th, she thought it was pretty darn cool everyone in the stadium also knew the words to Take Me Out to the Ballgame. She didn’t even notice not everyone said ‘the Cardinals’ when it was time to ‘route, route, route,’ not as long as she was singing between her parents.

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