Cards have breathing room
Day 4: Cardinals | Extra Innings
JUPITER, Fla. – It was over before it started, it seemed. Four games of futility and poof, just like that, what was the best record in the major leagues, what was a potent offense, what was a satisfying season was relegated to the World Series of embarrassment.
The St. Louis Cardinals entered the Series after 105 regular-season victories. They wouldn't get a single win against the Boston Red Sox. Instead, the team that averaged 5.3 runs a game managed just 13 hits in the final three games and got closed out quicker than a Keith Foulke fastball.
"You continued to try to make things happen, which is probably not good," said third baseman Scott Rolen, who, after hitting .314 with 34 home runs and 124 RBIs in the regular season, had a nightmare 0-for-15 Series. "The game wasn't coming very easily to us at the time. We weren't playing good baseball.
"You were playing a good ball club with the Red Sox, and they put a lot of pressure on you. You don't have a lot of time to make up for any error on the field.
"It kind of went by us before we took a breath."
The Cardinals now have had a few months to breathe, and if you want to know what makes this organization uniquely enjoyable in today's winning-is-everything sports world, all you have to do is spend a rainy Sunday morning here to see it is all blue skies and sunshine inside the clubhouse.
Ugly memories of last October have faded. The good ones of a wonderful season have cemented. And here in the soothing environment of Cardinaland, where professionalism, class and positivity are valued, where the local media and fan base are forgiving, the collapse of yesterday is lost to the promise of today.
"To think back on how poorly the World Series went, not a lot of guys can do that," reasoned Rolen, truly turning a negative into a positive. "We would have preferred a better outcome, but it was not for lack of preparation, not for lack of effort."
He shrugged a bit.
"That's the way it worked out."
Jim Edmonds, who after a brilliant season went just 1-for-15 in the Series, said he put the Series behind him almost immediately, focusing instead on other priorities.
"I was disappointed, I wish we had won," Edmonds said. "Maybe I'm not like a lot of guys. But in the winter I go home, I have [two] girls and school and [I have to] be a father. [Baseball] is important but it is secondary to my family."
Said reliever Ray King: "I don't consider it a bitter taste at all. I mean, how many clubs come into spring training and can really talk about the ability to play in the postseason?"
These are the kind of comments that would turn you into talk-radio fodder in Boston or New York, where a Series sweep would have set off a winter of discontent, curse talk and eventually entire books filled with analysis of the ass-kicking.
But in the heartland it all sounds quite reasonable.
No matter how poorly the Cardinals played in the Series, even in Game 4 there were only a smattering of boos in Busch Stadium. Instead of a city agonizing over what went wrong in the Series, St. Louis spent the offseason appreciating all that went right in 2004.
"The fans [have] a go-get-'em attitude," pitcher Jason Marquis said. "You have a bad day you don't get booed. You get a pat on the back and [they] say, 'You'll get them tomorrow.'
"It makes you feel good and want to come to the ballpark every day."
Added King: "In Larry Walker's first at-bat with the Cards, he struck out and they gave him a standing ovation. I've never seen that before.
"You know, I come out of the bullpen and you hear the cheers and the screams and it's unbelievable. It's like the first time your child says he loves you. It's just a wild feeling."
It may pay dividends for this group. Every team that suffers an unexpectedly demoralizing defeat says the key is putting it behind them, moving on and moving up.
Around here, you actually believe it is possible. The core of the team is back. The big three hitters of Edmonds, Rolen and Albert Pujols still are menacing. The solid starting pitching rotation picked up an ace when Mark Mulder came over from Oakland.
There is no reason to believe this team can't still be the best in the National League.
"I feel very good about this team," manager Tony La Russa said. "We were disappointed, but we can't do anything about it.
"This is a brand new season."
With the same old positive vibes.
