Welcome back, San Francisco. The postseason just doesn’t seem the same when you’re not here.
While some in the baseball world are squawking about how the Cards or the Giants have represented the National League in the World Series since 2010, we're good with it.
The Cardinals, who are the 2013 National League champs, have been to the NLCS for four straight years, including 2011 when they won the World Series. This is the third NLCS for the Giants since 2010; they won the World Series in 2010 and 2012.
Both teams can forget about being baseball’s darlings this year. That narrative belongs to the American League, where the Kansas City rascals, um, Royals, made it to the postseason for the first time since 1985, and are taking on the Baltimore Orioles who haven’t played in a league championship since 1997.
And we’re OK with that, too.
Game One of the NLCS is at Busch Stadium at 7:07 p.m. Saturday, with Cards ace Adam Wainwright and Giants lefty Madison Bumgarner on the mound. (See details on the pre-game schedule at the end of this story.)
In the meantime, we can watch this video again. And again. And again:
Matt Adams homers in the seventh inning of Game Four of the National League Division Series.
It just doesn’t get old -- “Big City” skipping down the first base line like an excited Little Leaguer after his three-run shot off Clayton Kershaw. The Dodgers ace had an incredible 21-3 regular season, with a 1.77 ERA, before being disrespected by Cardinals hitters in the seventh innings of Game One and Game Four of the NLDS.
Both the Cards and Giants won their respective division series 3 games to 1 on Tuesday night -- and both won with 3-2 scores. The pivotal -- and equally unlikely -- moment for the Giants also came in the seventh inning.
OK, let's watch that one, too:
Joe Panik scores the winning run on a wild pitch by Washington Nationals reliever Aaron Barrett.
So, here we ago again ...
As Jenifer Langosch, who covers the Cards for mlb.com, put it, this will be a series that “reeks of familiarity.” After all, no one's forgotten the 2012 Cards-Giants NLCS when the Redbirds lost three games in a row after being one game away from the pennant and a second trip to the World Series in two years.
As we go into Game One, a few thoughts:
Both teams belong in the NLCS.
That’s the consensus of sportswriters, whether grumpy fans in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, or Milwaukee like it or not:
* “Sick of the Giants and Cardinals in the NLCS? Tough. They deserve to be there and we better get used to it, “ says Craig Calcaterra of NBC’s "Hardball Talk."
* According to Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated, the Cards and Giants “play modern team baseball better than anybody else in the league.” A chart compares the teams in hitting, stolen bases and pitching.
* Ken Davidoff of the New York Post rates the Cards as the best franchise in baseball. He says “no one else comes close to the heights the Cardinals reach regularly.”
* Rick Hummel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch breaks down the Cards-Giants postseason history and warns that the Giants, who were a wild card-winner this year, will be a handful again this series.
Cardinals and Giants fans not only show up, they know baseball.
Cards fans dress for a Red October all year long, and Giants fans wear orange and black, even when Halloween is months away. All good colors for fall.
The real point is that both fan-bases show up -- all season long: St. Louis finished second in MLB attendance during the regular season, with 3,540,649. The Giants were fourth with 3,368,697.
And, writes Jorge Ortiz of USA Today, “The Cardinals will trot out the Clydesdales and the Giants will bring out Steve Perry or some other musical has-been, but the fan bases of both clubs are knowledgeable enough not to need some contrived creature to pump them up.”
If all the talk about “best fans in baseball” and “The Cardinal Way” has grown wearisome, Will Leitch, encourages Cards fans to enjoy it while it lasts. Writing at Sports on Earth, Leitch points out that dynasties (yes, we said the D word) don’t last forever: “Someday, the Cardinals are going to struggle for an extended period of time. This sort of bountiful harvest cannot last. And Cardinals fans will look back at this time -- this time when everyone was calling us horrible things, when Red Sox fans somehow felt morally superior to us -- and we will think of it as the best years of our fan lives.’’
Stan Musial and Willie Mays.
Here’s a little bit of trivia shared by baseball legends Stan Musial of the Cards and Willie Mays of the Giants: They were both All-Stars 24 times.
It’s only a game.
One of the must-read baseball stories of the year, “A Giant Friendship” by ESPN’s Steve Fainaru, isn’t about baseball, at all. Published on Sept. 30, the story details the friendship of Giants broadcasters Mike Krukow and Duane Kuiper, former Giants teammates known fondly by fans as “Kruk and Kuip.”
Krukow is battling a muscle disorder that has left his arms and legs so weak that he walks with a cane and falls down – a lot. Kuiper is determined to do whatever he can to keep Krukow safe – and in the broadcast booth.
The story is both heartwarming and upbeat, and well worth the time.
Go Cards!
NLCS Game One: Saturday at Busch Stadium
GAME TIME: 7:07 p.m. Gates open at 5 p.m.
PRE-GAME PEP RALLY: 3 to 6 p.m. in the parking lot of Ballpark Village.
PRE-GAME CEREMONY: Starts at 6:40 p.m. Cards Hall-of-Famer Whitey Herzog will throw the ceremonial first pitch. Forty thousand fans get rally towels. The National Anthem will be performed by the trumpet section of the St. Louis Symphony. Generald Wilson, a retired Navy petty officer, will sing “God Bless America.”
BROADCAST INFO: Televised on Fox (Channel 2). Play-by-play by Mike Shannon and John Rooney on KMOX (1120 AM).
SOCIAL MEDIA: The Cards suggest the hashtag #PostCards.
