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.

Rain, rain wouldn’t go away. Game postponed. They play tomorrow night. Glavine, better rested versus a better rested Weaver or, for all we know, a three-day Carpenter. Maybe La Russa, that genius, will pitch Spiezio.
Got a presser on SNY right now. St. Louis writers say “we” a lot and refer to Cardinal players by first name. One just asked about “Yadier,” as if the questioner were Jose or Bengie.
About these press conferences, here are the questions, generally:
“Were you thinking something I might be thinking when you accomplished that thing on the field?”
“Do you believe what just happened will completely alter the series let alone the course of the Western world?”
“Can you keep from rolling your eyes while I ask something immensely irrelevant?”
Snigh still supposed to have Post Season Live on later. Tim Teufel looks like me in every science class I ever took. Please don’t call on me. Please don’t call on me.
In the meantime, Josh…I mean Danny looks to save the world…I mean a TV show at 10 o’clock tonight on The West Wing…I mean Studio 60.

The Carloses are a beautiful thing, aren't they? ¡Nosotros Carlamos! We are them and they are us and we are all together…goo goo g'joob.
Yet they're not Ollie and Ollie, saviors in arms.
Yeah, that's who it figured to hinge on. All the series previews in print and on air had it exactly as it's happened: Darren Oliver eating up innings in Game Three and Oliver Perez giving up solo homers in Game Four. Those were the keys to the pennant all along.
Nobody saw it coming, but that — without discounting any of the dozen delightful Met runs still crossing the plate — now defines why glee is outpointing glum in Metsopotamia. Oliver surrendered no earned runs in a loss. Perez absorbed five in a win. And somehow it's all good.
Welcome to your narrative-free National League Championship Series. Forget that claptrap about momentum and the next day's starting pitcher. The last night's starting pitcher threw as pedestrian a 5 and two-thirds as you're going to see and, in context, it was magnificent. The appeal of Perez was that he could go out and potentially blow hitters away. He didn't. He didn't have to. He pitched with the poise of a veteran who had been in the Majors for more than a dozen years.
Check that. He pitched better than Steve Trachsel.
I'll admit my faith in Oliver Perez was well veiled — “folly” is what I believe I said it would be to count on him — but getting proven wrong is often the best part about being a nervous-nelly baseball fan. This isn't about being right. This is about being happy. And we're happy this morning. Twenty-four hours ago, we were blogging virtual suicide notes. Today we're either seeding clouds over St. Louis (rest Glavine!) or spreading a tarp across Missouri (the bats…the bats…the bats are on fire!).
Whatever. There's no legitimate pegging of this series. We have seen four contests, none of which has resembled the other three.
Game One? A taut pitching duel determined on a single swing.
Game Two? A seesaw slugfest.
Game Three? A suffocating shutout.
Game Four? A slambang beatdown by those that done been whitewashed the night before.
Game Five? I'unno.
So let 'em play tonight or let 'em wait. The Mets and the Cardinals have left few clues as to what comes next.