This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Oct. 12, 2012 - Dear Beaconites - This week, the Missouri Senate race heated up with Todd Akin slamming Claire McCaskill over federal payments to her husband's companies and McCaskill slamming Akin over his abortion position. Colleen Starkloff and David Newburger spoke movingly about the Starkloff Institute's next efforts to integrate people with disabilities more fully into everyday life. Our latest analysis of campaign finance reports clarified the picture of Missouri's political power players.
The Beacon covered all these important developments and more. But along with thousands of other St. Louisans, while doing our usual work, we couldn't help but turn our attention to baseball. Among several serious Cards fans on the Beacon staff, reporter Mary Delach Leonard, Washington correspondent Rob Koenig and features and opinions editor Donna Korando took the lead in finding new angles to share with Beacon readers.
The Beacon doesn't usually report on sports. The topic is thoroughly covered -- over covered, one might argue -- by others. But we do cover news that matters to St. Louisans. And how the Cardinals do this October matters to many.
For many St. Louisans, love of the Birds is a lifetime commitment. As each long season unfolds, they share stories, sighs and celebrations. Their moods swing with the team's prospects. You may be weary of the cliched use of sports analogies to describe politics, but consider the reverse. Using a political analogy to describe sports, we'd call these fans the Cardinals' loyal base. In St. Louis, it runs wide and deep.
In contrast, a few contrarians spurn baseball. Whether simply indifferent to the Cardinals' outsized role in public life or actively hostile, these folks just don't see what all the hoopla is about. In Cardinal Nation, they are nonvoters.
Love the Cards or hate them, both of these groups know where they stand. In contrast, I'm an ambivalent fan, baseball's perpetual undecided voter.
Entranced by the grace of the players, I'm still skeptical that they really deserve so much money and attention. Amazed by baseball's capacity to unite people across geography and generation, I'm still appalled at the way sports franchises exploit community good will for commercial gain. Appreciative that strangers can become buddies by talking baseball, I'm still annoyed that baseball talk sometimes becomes a way to marginalize those (often women) who don't want to join in or aren't welcome in the inner circle.
For most of each season, reason amplifies my doubts. Though surrounded by fans at work and at home, I can't quite share their unabashed enthusiasm. But who can resist the allure of a late season run and post-season glory? Come October, the Cardinals still matter to me.
If human beings were entirely creatures of logic, there would be no baseball. And if the Beacon chose what to cover based only on logic, there would be no Cardinals coverage. But this week, at a news organization that proudly embraces its reputation for being earnest and wonky, we listened to our hearts as well as our brains. With luck, the Cards will give us more opportunities to do so.
Sincerely,
Margie