MY World Series
I was there in St. Louis in 1964. (I’ve written before on this blog about my dirty secret: I cheered for the Yankees. 
My only defense: I was eight years old and Mickey Mantle was one of my two baseball heroes [along with Willie Mays]). For many people 1964 was the year of the Beatles. For me, it was the year of Mickey Mantle, Roger Marris, and Bob Gibson.
I was there again in 1967. And 1968. And 1982. And 1985.
There were certain privileges to being in a newspaper family. Scoring World Series tickets was among them!
But this is my fantasy World Series. My favorite AL team (Texas Rangers) vs. my favorite NL team (St. Louis Cardinals). Many have asked me who I’m rooting for, and I can’t really decide. Maybe I’m leaning more into the Rangers because they’re our home team. But if they win, I hope it’s despite an amazing performance by Albert Pujols, the best player in baseball (go ahead: Google the words “best player in baseball” and see what comes up!) and one of the best players in the game’s history.
And yes, I’d love to go to a game with my sons. We’re keeping an eye on stub hub!
[10/21/11 update: tickets scored! Nosebleed section, but still in the ballpark.]
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Here’s a chance to bid on two tickets from Touch-a-Life:
I’m glad you see the value in a good contest. Even when I’m a fan of one of the teams playing a game, I don’t enjoy a runaway victory as much because it rings a little bit hollow. Go Rangers!
My totally unbiased prediction: Rangers in four.
My Grandpa Nanney — my mom’s dad — was a huge Cardinals fan, and I still remember him wearing a St. Louis hat when we visited my grandparents in the southeastern Missouri Bootheel.
But this 30-year Rangers fan dares to dream that Texas could win it all. Finally. My tongue-in-cheek prediction aside, I’ve been a Rangers fan long enough not to take anything for granted. For the Rangers, Murphy’s Law has been in play long before David Murphy joined the team.
Nonetheless, hope springs eternal.
Go Rangers!
My goal is to mess up Bobby Ross’ call! Not sure we can as Texas (my favorite AL Team) is full of brute force. About the only thing my Cardinals have going for them is Theriot and Punto…and maybe a few others.
Will be fun! I’m to be at game four Sunday night. Oh please don’t let Bobby be right!
Go Cardinals! I think we can do it in nine games.
Very generous, Terry. My fear was you seeing that I might actually pull for the Rangers. We’ve bonded over Cardinal fever for a long time. (I will say that my loyalty has not been quite as, umm, extreme as yours has.)
Now that I’m living in Abilene again, I want to be happy for the Rangers. I really do. They are my officially stated favorite AL team. But, it is hard for an Astros fan to see their instate rival playing their division rival in the WS. Jealousy, jealousy, jealousy…Here’s to an Astros/Rangers WS in the near future. Based on how things are looking for the ‘Stros, I’m looking at 2030? Optimistically?
The Houston Astros have about as much right to call themselves “rivals” of the Redbirds as the Texas Tech Red Raiders have to call themselves “rivals” of A&M. Headed for the SEC, Aggieland leaves the Raiders behind with a gaping *yawn*, and I expect St. Louis looks at Houston – if in fact St. Louis ever *does* look Houstonward – with that same kind of yawn.
qb
Thanks so much for the plug, Mike! Maybe you could bid on Touch A Life’s tickets?
Excuse me for commenting twice….but the topic is too endearing.
I must tell you of my first World Series experience in 1968. I was in St. Louis for the final game against the Tigers. Curt Flood was my great hero.
That was the game Curt let the ball get past him in centerfield. Due to that error the Cardinals lost the game and the series. When he made that monumental flub the crowd let out an awful moan. I heard it…didn’t see it…because that was the one time during the entire game that I was in the bathroom.
Of course.
I’m rooting for the Rangers for two reasons. First, they’ve never won a World Series, so it would be nice to see the franchise win for the first time. Second, I am an avid Cubs fan and Cub’s fans don’t root for the Cardinals to win.
The Yankees!? Do you mean that while I was sitting in the Field School auditorium watching the ’64 World Series on a black-and-white TV, rooting for the Cardinals with my toes and fingers crossed, you were rooting for the Yankees? My God, man; this changes everything.
Ok, Kim. I’m laughing my head off. Yes, we actually got to watch the games in the elementary school auditorium, didn’t we? The only other thing I remember getting to watch in there was Davy Crockett.
Does it help that by the 1967 Series, I was obsessed with the Cardinals and begged my parents to name my sister Orlanda (After Orlando Cepeda)?
Terry – Here’s something I wrote on this blog a few years ago about the 1968 World Series:
My insular world of Neosho, Missouri protected me from much of what was happening in 1968. That fall, I entered 7th grade at Neosho Junior High School and started my downtown paper route after school.
So much was happening in the world that year. The Tet offensive was launched in January. Martin Luther King was assassinated in April, and Robert Kennedy in June. Only later did the impact of the My Lai Massacre begin to sink in as we heard news reports about Charlie Company and Lt. William Calley.
Occasionally I’d get to watch “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In.” Goldie Hawn and Lilly Tomlin made quite an impression — in their own ways. Tiny Tim was singing, “Tip Toe Through the Tulips,” Mike Wallace was launching “60 Minutes” (Don’t you know some exec said, “It’ll never last”?), Peggy Fleming was skating, and Joe Namath was wearing a mink coat!
But in my world, it was Bob Gibson. My beloved Cardinals were headed back to the World Series (after their wins in 1964 and 1967), led by the greatest pitcher of his era. You may disagree — but, hey, start your own blog!
In 1968 Gibby won the National League MVP and the Cy Young. His ERA for the year was 1.12, with 268 strikeouts and 13 shutouts. Maybe most remarkable is that he completed 28 of his 34 starts. Can you imagine a pitcher today having half that many completed games? I still remember having my little transistor radio nearby on any day Gibson was pitching.
That summer my maternal grandmother and my cool, young aunt (who was probably 20ish at the time) took me to Chicago. We were visiting lots of relatives along the way, but I think my Grandma wanted to be there for the start of the Democratic Convention when her candidate, Robert Kennedy, would be nominated. After his assassination, she changed allegiance to Eugene McCarthy, and in August we headed for the Windy City, with Grandma preaching Democratic politics to anyone who would listen.
I’m sure what my aunt remembers most about the trip is the beginning of that stormy convention. (Will there ever be another quite like the 1968 Democratic Convention? And yes — I was there!) But what I remember is that these two women I loved took me to Wrigley Field. And of all luck, they were playing the Cardinals! I had so much fun, they took me back the next day.
In October, we (yes WE — I considered myself part of the team) were facing the Detroit Tigers. With the newspaper connection, we again scored tickets, this time to game 6.
I was in a bit of a predicament as a Cardinal supporter. Because the Cards went into game 5 with a 3-1 lead. If we won that game, we’d repeat as WS champs. But I wouldn’t get to see them in game 6. So I rooted for St. Louis, but didn’t mind much when they lost.
The rest is sad history for a Cardinal fan. We lost both the sixth and seventh games. But that’s not the really sad part. The saddest was that we wouldn’t be returning to a World Series until the 1980s.
In October the Cards lost the World Series and in November Richard Nixon was elected president. My grandma and I were both sad.
Rachel – Something tells me it might be fishy if someone with the last name Cope won those tickets.
Great idea. Hope it raises a lot of $ for the great work of TAL!
A crushing attack on my StL loyalty here: http://terryrush.blogspot.com/2011/10/my-most-serious-world-series-prediction.html. Well played, Terry, well played.
My wife and I are long suffering Ranger fans that made lots of ballgames before they started getting good. I can’t describe how excited we are that the Rangers are not only good now, but also in the WS. She and I got to see the Rangers clinch the ALCS last year against the dreaded Yankees. I’m not sure that we’ll ever reach a higher baseball high than that. BUT … just in case it’s possible, we have tickets for Sunday and Monday’s games in Arlington.
Sometimes it’s scary when you google something to confirm a childhood memory and it is precisely accurate. I watched Game 7 of the ’68 Word Series as a 7 year old with Mom in Abilene on our b&w TV. My mom was a huge Cardinals fan dating back to the days of Dizzy Dean. I vividly remember her being sad toward the end, then Mike Shannon, one of my favorite players, hit a home and I began to wildly cheer and wondered why everyone was subdued. Mom said “because the Cards are going to lose, it’s the 9th inning, it was too little too late”. I didn’t understand, but she was right. Box score:
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/ws/yr1968ws.shtml
Still trolling stubhub . . . eBay . . . Craig’s List . . . . for Monday night.
STL is definitely in fever pitch to crush TX. Not that it’s worth anything, but I am friends with the Dir of Ticket Sales. A nice thing about going to the 7th game in 1982 was that Mr. Tink never insisted I practiced typing in his class… he always wanted to talk Cards Baseball.
OK I will cheer for the Rangers despite being a die hard Tiger fan for 59 years. But Mike your memories of the 68 series is much different than mine. Don and I became engaged the night We won and beat the Cards. We came back from unbelievable odds and it was pandemonium in Detroit. We cheered for Detroit despite my cousin being a relief pitcher for St Louis. Imagine, he wouldn’t give me one of his family tickets to the games in Detroit. I remember a bumper sticker we had that showed a Tiger with bird feathers coming from his mouth. Anyways since we lived in Abilene for 12 years I will root for the Rangers, even though my Tenn roots would normally pull for the Cardinals. They were the only team for West Tenn baseball fans. Especially since my cousin Ron Willis was their reliever. We used to argue baseball frequently and I always picked my Tigers. Although I didn’t get to attend the 68 series in person , we were there in Tiger Stadium in 84 at the winning final game.It was great. Hope you and Chris and Matt get to go and enjoy it. Blessings
my son has tickets for Game 4 on Sunday!
Mike, I heard Willie Mays on Larry King one night years ago describing Bob Gibson, whom Mays said was the greatest pitcher he ever faced (along with Koufax). Mays described one game when he was in the batter’s box, only to have Gibson step off the rubber, take off his glasses, hold them up and look through them, try to clean them off, hold them up again. Finally, he stuck them in his back pocket. Mays said he stepped out of the box, turned to the umpire and said he would not get back in until Gibson put his glasses back on.
After a delay, Gibson finally admitted that he had just gotten contact lenses.
Rick – What a great anecdote. Supposedly a sports reporter once said to Gibson, “People say you’d through high and inside even if it was your Grandma,” to which Gibson purportedly said, “Well . . . if she’s crowding the plate . . . .”