Trey Vaughan: A tradition has carried over and must carry on

Jul. 28—My family would make a trip to watch the St. Louis Cardinals play nearly every single summer as I was growing up.

I was in Busch Stadium by four or five months old and was back the next summer in 1998 for the popular Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa home run race.

As my parents recall, my love for the game was already evident as I woke up from a nap during the game and asked if McGwire had hit any home runs yet. He had hit two of them, apparently. Some fan I was. I got a chance to see two of Big Mac's 70 home runs during the race, and I slept through them.

I've gotten better. I got to witness No. 695 of Albert Pujols' career last year.

After being hauled to St. Louis many times, Kansas City multiple times and to different stadiums around the country, it has stuck with me as an adult.

It wasn't just a trip to watch baseball games, though. My mom would pack a weeklong vacation with fun and interesting things to do. But the vacation was always built around the baseball games. My mom would find things to do in whatever city we were traveling to for the Cardinals that summer.

A tradition that began before I was born is a tradition I've carried with me, and I will make sure it carries on. The reality of the tradition continuing with my own family set in last weekend.

As St. Louis began play in the second half of its season, the Washington Nationals came to town. After hearing a promotion on the Cardinals' radio broadcast a couple of times earlier this month, my wife and I decided it would be a good game to go to. So I bought tickets just over a week out from the July 16 game to get a Lars Nootbaar bobblehead of him riding a shark in honor of Shark Week coming up (this week). My wife is an avid Shark Week fan.

It was a fun weekend. We went to a Walmart before the game to get a poster and a Sharpie to make a sign for our almost 7-month-old son. We got to the game early, found our seats and soaked up every moment of the day.

The sign said "Tevin's MLB checklist" and showed that he got to meet Lars Nootbaar at 2 months old and made it to his first game at 6 months old. Then there were two things left unchecked: Get a game ball and a Cards win. He got them both.

Late in the game, Dylan Carlson — my favorite Cardinal — checked into center field for his defensive abilities. His first inning in the field, after he finished warming up prior to the start of the inning, he turned and looked in our direction in the outfield seats. I was holding Tevin and pointed to the back of Tevin's onesie jersey, which has the number three on it — also Carlson's number on his jersey. He appeared to look right at us and threw the ball.

The Cardinals won the game 8-4 as well.

In case you were wondering, Tevin got to meet Nootbaar during the Cardinals Caravan this winter. The Cardinals Caravan is an event every winter where players make a trip to Joplin so fans can see them up close and ask questions and kids get to have the players sign autographs for them.

It was so much fun to watch that game and get the entire experience as a family. From getting the ball, the bobblehead and even some cute Shark Week-themed pictures taken at the game, it was the start of our own little tradition.

I was able to make it to various cities with different MLB ballparks as I was growing up. We went to Colorado, Arizona, KC, St. Louis, Houston, Minnesota, Milwaukee and spring training games in Florida. I've added Cincinnati to the list since becoming an adult.

I hope to be able to take Tevin to all of those and more. Something I've always wanted to do is visit each MLB team's ballpark. Hopefully I can accomplish that with my family.

I'm not sure if my son will have the same love for baseball that I've always had, but if I'm lucky, I've got at least 17 more years to share my love for the game with him.

It was part of an obsession for me. I loved watching athletes on the teams opposite of the Cardinals as well. In Minnesota, I was able to see Joe Mauer hit an opposite field home run into the row directly in front of me. In fact, a kid with a glove directly in front of me caught the ball. I watched Todd Helton play in Colorado. I got to see Paul Goldschmidt in Arizona before he was a Cardinal. Ryan Braun was the star for Milwaukee at the time we went there.

I was only 7 in 2004 when we went to Houston, but I recall one game in particular vividly. I remember we got to watch Roger Clemens pitch. While writing this story, I had an image in my head of looking up at the big screen at Minute Maid Park and seeing Clemens for well over 100 pitches for the game. I found the box score from that May 28 game and he threw 123 pitches in seven innings. My other memory from that game is the Astros' closer Octavio Dotel blowing the game by balking in the winning run to make it 2-1. Lastly, I recall my brother and I screaming "Izzy" at the top of our lungs as we cheered on Jason Isringhausen to finish the game in the bottom of the 10th inning.

I hope Tevin has memories like these of his own one day to share with others.

Just for fun, I wanted to drop the similarity of Tevin's first season as a Cardinals fan and my first season. 1997 was the year Mark McGwire became a Cardinal and the team was struggling. St. Louis' 1997 record ended at 73-89. The Cardinals are currently 46-58 and look to be about to make some trades. What if they made a blockbuster trade for someone like McGwire similar to how they did in '97?