Great news! We've already done what we need to do tonight and tomorrow night 61* times in 2006.
1. April 6 and 7.
2. April 7 and 9.
3. April 9 and 11.
4. April 11 and 12.
5. April 12 and 13.
6. April 13 and 14.
7. April 16 and 17.
8. April 25 and 26.
9. April 26 and 28.
10. April 28 and 29.
11. May 3 and 4.
12. May 4 and 5.
13. May 5 and 6.
14. May 21 and 23.
15. May 23 and 24.
16. May 27 and 28.
17. May 28 and 29.
18. June 7 and 8.
19. June 8 and 9.
20. June 9 and 10.
21. June 10 and 11.
22. June 11 and 13.
23. June 13 and 14.
24. June 14 and 15.
25. June 22 and 23.
26. July 4 and 5.
27. July 5 and 6.
28. July 8 and 9.
29. July 9 and 14.
30. July 16 and 18.
31. July 20 and 21.
32. July 21 and 22.
33. July 26 and 28.
34. July 28 and 29.
35. July 29 and 30.
36. August 5 and 6.
37. August 6 and 8.
38. August 8 and 9.
39. August 9 and 10.
40. August 12 and 13.
41. August 17 and 18.
42. August 18 and 19.
43. August 19 and 20.
44. August 20 and 22.
45. August 22 and 23.
46. August 23 and 24.
47. August 26 and 28.
48. August 28 and 29.
49. August 29 and 30.
50. September 1 and 2.
51. September 6 (1) and 6 (2).
52. September 6 (2) and 7.
53. September 12 and 13.
54. September 18 and 19.
55. September 28 and 29.
56. September 29 and 30.
57. September 30 and October 1.
58. October 1 and 4.
59. October 4 and 5.
60. October 5 and 7.
61. October 7 and 12.
*We've won two games in a row 61 times. It's about to be
62. October 18 and 19.
Now, something to shout out loud from our friends at Bon Jovi:
Faith!
You know you're gonna live through the rain
Lord you got to keep the faith
Now you know is not too late
Oh you got to keep the faith
Faith!
Don't let your love turn to hate
Right now we got to
Keep the faith!
Keep the faith!
Keep the faith!
Lord we got to keep the faith
Fear is out of here for the duration.
Nothing but Faith in Flushing.

There was a GM in Gotham who sent his manager to the Midwest to win two out of three, and in a little while the manager came back, pale and trembling, and said, “Omar, just now when I was in the Midwest I was jostled by a man wearing red in the stadium and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me. He looked at me and made a threatening gesture, now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Shea tamarra [sic, sorry] and there Death will not find me.”
The general manager lent him his horse, and the manager mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. Then the GM went down to the Midwest and found Death standing in the stadium and he came to him and said, “Why did you make a threatening gesture to my manager when you saw him tonight?”
“That was not a threatening gesture,” Death said. “It was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in the Midwest, for I have an appointment with him in Shea tamarra.”
— With fervent apologies to Arab storytellers, W. Somerset Maugham, and all of you for whom faith still outweighs fear.

He is the very model of a modern big-game pitching ace
Ignore info about his age and all those lines upon his face
Thrown inning after inning shutting every darn opponent out
From Spiezio to Yadier while making Albert Pujols pout
Very well acquainted, too, with hurling at this time of year
The only arm we have right now that doesn't flat inspire fear
Defeating teams both now and then with stunning regularity
Never thought we'd welcome him with such familiarity
Eat 'em up Tommy with the light brown hair.

Watching the middle of this Championship Series has been slightly odder for me than it would be if it were taking place anywhere else in the National League. The ridiculously retentive reader will recall that my midsummer jaunt in 2006 was to the very same Busch Stadium we focus on now. I was in that building. I crossed those streets. I walked by that thing over there. That thing, too! And I was among The Best Fans In Baseball for three days.
I showed up in St. Louis with no affection for the home team and left with even less. That said, I had a nice time. I like seeing ballparks that are new to me, especially when they're brand new to everybody. This Busch is a big improvement over the last one. It may not be the most original creation on Bud's green earth, but it does the job. Open is better than circular. Smaller is better than oversized. A view of a city is better than looking at more of the same. Thousands of bricks, loads of concessions, wide concourses…it was everything you'd expect in the post-Camden era.
The Best Fans In Baseball, however, were a big disappointment. I waited to be swept up in some sort of Cardinal Nation fervor. Their Birds weren't playing well at the time, but so what? Aren't these the people from whose lips never pass a discouraging word? Isn't this the crowd that prostrated itself at the feet of Larry Walker just for waiving his no-trade? What could one say about St. Louis' baseball faithful that hadn't been said repeatedly?
How about this?
Oh.
Ver.
Ray.
Ted.
When I think about them, I quote myself:
they boo bad things, they cheer good things, they say lame things, they wear red things
Except for the color scheme, the same could be said of ballpark patrons anywhere, even Shea. Still, they were supposed to be better than us, better than everybody. Perhaps I just didn't find the right row in St. Louis. Perhaps there were guys two sections over trading charming remembrances of Stan the Man while showering unwavering support upon Jeff Weaver, my night's starting pitcher. Perhaps, but I doubt it. Where Stephanie and I sat, we were subject to the rantings of a Missouri moron (unless he crossed the Eads Bridge from Illinois). As Weaver weaved his way into deeper and deeper trouble, this is what he yelled over and over and over:
“Hey! Do you wanna be in the MINORS or do you wanna be in the MAJORS? Do you wanna be in the MINORS or do you wanna be in the MAJORS? Do you wanna be in the MINORS or do you wanna be in the MAJORS?”
The consensus of us visitors from the east: What a fucking idiot.
Tough to judge 42,000 by the actions of one, but I didn't sense a great deal of baseball savvy at Busch Stadium in early August. Not a lot of engagement, just a lot of red. Blame it on lousy play (Cards were losing all week), blame it on oppressive weather (triple-digit heat wave), blame it on Midwestern bearing (not a crime, just a difference; I love Midwesterners so much I married a gal from Wichita). Whatever the cause, Cardinals fans could have been Astros fans if I didn't know where I was.
So should we spit at those Spiezio patches they've glued to their chins? Should we note they've fallen for one false home run idol in the past decade and seem to have chosen another with feet (or at least the personality) of clay? Should we feel superior to them because we're noisier, ballsier and more passionate in an inning than they are in a night and, I suspect, a season?
Oh absolutely. That's what playoffs are about. We pump ourselves up and tear our opponents down. They look like dopes with the red tape on their faces. Pujols is rapidly turning into Barry Bonds minus the charm. They don't know strike two from ball three.
We can tell ourselves that. It's part of the stakes. It's fun. We're not here for sociological studies and we don't have to pass a test in accuracy. We're here to wave our banner and burn somebody else's.
We're Great!
You Suck!
I'm all for that.
But we have idiots, too. Our idiots are louder which is great unless they're ear-splitting when you crave a moment's peace (which you shouldn't if you're a part of the National League Championship Series, but you're only human and an aging one at that). Our idiots are probably drunker, but I have only anecdotal evidence to back me up. I don't know how the handful of Mets fans at Busch are being treated, but I can tell you the handful of Cards fans at Shea won't soon forget being told what “assholes” they are for being Cards fans. In principle, I agree — I mean you're wearing an Eckstein jersey here? But in the interest of civility, I'd prefer to smile at you and watch you sink into your seat while one Carlos or another rounds the bases. Indeed, before Game Two turned dreadful, one St. Louis sympathizer angrily pulled his red windbreaker over his head and waved it in an act of defiance literally two seconds before Delgado went deep. He melted into the mezzanine thereafter and was never seen again.
New York Mets fans at least are sophisticated, right? They know their baseball. Take the guy who sat behind me Friday night. He was proudly telling somebody that he's always loathed the Cardinals, especially that damn Willie McGee, who was, according to him, “the Yadier Molina of 1978”. McGee would hit .200 against everybody, except against the Mets. Yup, that's what he said.
This, after hearing him hold court for several innings, is what I said:
“WILLIE McGEE WON A BATTING TITLE!”
That wasn't an itinerant Redbird rooter taking his life into his hands on behalf of his former MVP. That was me, the biggest Mets fan I know, turning around and shutting him, the dumbest Mets fan I'd heard, up. Willie McGee hit .353 in 1985, for crissake. Willie McGee hit .295 for his career. Willie McGee actually won two batting titles. And Willie McGee was a low-minors farmhand with the Yankees in 1978. I didn't show up at Shea to defend the legacy of Willie McGee, but in the name of all that is Jose, get your facts approximately straight.
I don't discriminate. I hate idiot fans of all stripe.

Tonight, as promised, I watched two episodes of “The Wire” on TiVo.
People in St. Louis watched it rain. We checked in various places to verify that that's what it was doing.
Tom Glavine had his usual fourth day of rest. So did Jeff Weaver. The Cardinals' bullpen took it easy too.
Willie Randolph offered crumbs of platitudes to a hungry press corps, then said something else entirely to his troops. Tony La Russa pondered the intricacies of, say, lefty-righty matchups when up or down 13 runs. If he wasn't playing some six-dimensional game of eeny-meeny with his baseball cards of Weaver and Chris Carpenter.
Postal workers moved packages of FAITH AND FEAR t-shirts through our nation's mail system. A couple have even arrived at their new homes.
Cliff Floyd's Achilles got slightly better. So did Albert Pujols' hamstring and Scott Rolen's shoulder.
El Duque thought about Willis Reed.
Tigers scouts groused and grumbled and went up in the Gateway Arch or something.
Baseball fans in two cities (and lots of kindred souls outside them) waited and analyzed and argued and fussed and fretted and sighed.
Well, it was the night for it. Now, finish whatever you're doing, get into bed, and get some sleep. Because the weather report for Missouri tomorrow night is favorable, with a 100% chance of tension. We've got at least two days of baseball played full throttle, maybe three.
And this weekend? Either winter will have come down like a hammer, or we'll be off on one final mission: to storm the gates of Baseball Heaven.
Rest up.