Now that we’ve got that out of the way, I plan on making this thing my St. Louis-centric baseball blog. I’ll post here whenever I feel like sharing something that’s on my mind that happens to relate in some way to baseball and related bat-and-ball games in the St. Louis area. Cool? Cool.

Now, a little bit about me. I’m 46 and live on the south side of St. Louis (Tower Grove South, to be exact). I’ve been a Cardinals fan since I was old enough to walk, most likely (although I really don’t remember when I first started taking notice). My dad was a long-time Cards fan and all us kids (six in all) were raised that way, too. I was the last of the bunch, arriving a whole dozen years after my next closes sibling. Growing up a Cards fan in the ’70s wasn’t particularly easy, but I did my best. We went to a few games a year, usually one of the giveaway days so I’d come home with a ball, a bat, a pennant, or a plastic souvenir helmet. I collected baseball cards like most other kids my age into baseball in the ’70s, and played little league, albeit not very well. I got better after finding a few neighborhood kids to play ball with in our own version of sandlot ball, which we played day-in and day-out  in a thin narrow strip of common ground area between our subdivision and a wooded area with a creek (this was out in St. Peters). I wish I had a dime for every ball we lost in those woods along the creek. We also played corkball and bottle caps when I was a kid. This was mostly at family reunions when my older relatives would get together. I recall my dad (who had played quite a bit of American Legion ball in Manchester after WWII with Hank Arft who was drafted by the Browns) being particularly good at hitting the ball—any type of ball—a really long way, even well into his 50s.

Some of my favorite players growing up were Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, Bob Forsch, Al Hrabosky, Garry Templeton, Bake McBride, Reggie Smith, Keith Hernandez and Ted Simmons. Then later, in the ’80s the team hired Whitey Herzog and things got quite a bit more interesting. Ozzie Smith, Willie McGee, Tommy Herr, and Silent George Hendrick were all favorites. I was 17 years old and a junior in high school at Parkway West when the Cards won their first World Series title since ’67. At the time, I never thought I’d see the day!

So, now here I am, some 30 years later, deciding to take a stab at actually BLOGGING about my love of the game of baseball. I’ve never been much of a blogger, so I’m not sure how well this will work out, but we’ll see, I guess. I’m at least willing to give it my best shot.

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading!