ok, I’ll bite. I moved to STL when I was still in grade school back in 1997. I wasn’t a big fan of the brewers (moved from WI), but then again, show me one kid you know younger than 7 or 8 who could focus on a team as lousy as that. I was able to get to a couple of Redbird games, see the Wiz, etc. and just fell in love with the team. Then, of course, the next season was the great homerun chase of ‘98, and that just made me a member of the Church of Redbirds.

I was born and bred in NYC (or thereabouts), Mom a Yankees’ fan, Dad originally a Brooklyn Dodgers fan, and then a Mets’ fan.

My first baseball memory was the ‘72 World Series, Red/A’s; I began collecting baseball cards at that point. The next year, the Mets went back to the WS, against the A’s, and I have a vivid memory of Willie Mays pleaded to the home plate umpire after he called Bud Harrelson out at home. I was originally…a Mets’ fan.

Then I began playing baseball, pitching and playing first base. The Yankees got good (or my Mom lobbied me), and Ed Figueroa and Chris Chambliss were my favorite players. When I started being able to follow the “outside the lines” portion of the game, I began to realize that George Steinbrenner was a putz. Then he traded Chambliss, and I said “no more.”

I followed the Mets as my local team until they became even more unsavory than the Yankees, then became a man w/out a team after the Vince Coleman/Bobby Bonilla years. Moved to Baltimore and followed the O’s, but never became a die-hard fan. They were the game in town. Met my (first) wife, who, noticing my love for baseball, mentioned that a pitcher in the major leagues went to her high school in central New York.

“Who might that be, baby?” I asked.
“Matt Morrison, I think his name was.”
“Morrison? There’s a Matt…Morris…in the Cardinals’ organization. Could that be him?”
“Yeah; that sounds familiar…”

I began to follow and root for Matty as he rose up through the ranks, and as a man without a team, of course began following his team. Celebrated his successes, suffered through his injuries, and of course, despite knowing that business-wise it was the right thing to do, through his departure. (Made even more painful now by his apparent collapse as a major league pitcher). Started out as a Matty Mo fan, stayed a Cardinals’ fan, right here in New York. Get some strange looks as I wear my hat around town.

(Some folks at a recent Flatiron gathering expressed some shock that I was NY-born, and a Cardinals’ fan…always marched to my own beat, I guess).

Postscript—Matt Morris did not attend my ex’s H.S. He pitched for their arch-rival Valley Central (located one town over from Newburgh in Montgomery), but apparently made enough of an impression on her that she remembered him. He’s three months younger than my ex, and considered “old” for a pitcher. Now excuse me while I grab some geritol…)

I grew up in Minnesota a big Twins fan. Saw Harmon Killebrew play at the tail end of his career, and was a big fan of Rod Carew. I used his stance in little league…as did just about every other kid, lol. Anyways, Mom and Dad divorced when I was a kid, and Dad moved to NW Arkansas, near Jonesboro-huge Cardinals country-and we got the Cards games out of Cape Girardeau.

This was the days before the internet and 600 cable channels, so it was the Cardinals or…nothing. There were a lot of kids in Dad’s neighborhood, and they were good friends of mine, and they were all Cardinal fans. They all knew everything about the Cards, so I started following them—partly to fit in, and partly because Keith Hernandez, Ted Simmons, and Pete Vuckovich were better than any player on the Twins, as Rod Carew had left for the Angels via free agency.

So I started following the Cardinals and the Twins, as I figured it was okay to have two favorite teams, as long as one was in the National League, because they’d never play each other, except if they got to the World Series—and that was never happening, HA! For full disclosure, I rooted for the Twins in ‘87, but I was cheering hard for the Cards in ‘82 and ‘85.

Baseball kind of dropped off my scope when I was staioned overseas, but I came back to the States during the magical summer of 1998, and Big Mac drew me back in. The Cards were still in the periphery until 2004, when I got stationed out at Scott AFB.

My first Cards game was game 7 of the 2004 NLCS. I had just moved here, family wasn’t even here yet, and I hopped the Metro, found a “local entrepeneuer” and got a SRO ticket, and spent the whole game with the greatest bunch of fans in the LF SRO section on the second deck. That whole experience was electric, and I was hooked. Saw Jimmy’s unbelieveable catch, Albert’s clutch double, and when Rolen went yard some really good looking gal-complete stranger-gave me a great big hug. When the Cards closed out, that same gal gave me a big kiss on the lips, and we hugged each other and jumped upo and down, laughing and carrying on that the Cards were going to the World Series. Total stranger—crazy. On the way out, some guy started passing around a bottle of Wild Turkey for the waiting Metro crowd, and I was introduced to the chant of “WEST SIDE SUCKS!” “EAST SIDE SUCKS!”. Unbelieveable, amazing night.

WIth a first impression like that, how could I not be a Cards fan???

I live in Chicago, and grew up in small-town northern Illinois, so people are always questioning my Cardinal fandom. In my case, it comes from the mother….

My Mom grew up in central Illinois on a farm, listening to KMOX broadcasting the Cardinals all summer long. (Not much else to do on the farm.) When she got married and had kids, she sort of lost touch with baseball until my older sister started watching the Cubs in the early 1980’s. That got Mom interested in baseball again – sadly, after 1982, so I have no memories of that Championship – and started to listen to the Cardinals on the radio again. I remember first REALLY paying attention in 1985, which was something for me because I was a nine-year-old girly-girl who distained sports. But ‘85 and ‘87 got me more interested, and by the time I went to my first ever MLB game at Busch in 1988, I was hooked.

I didn’t always have time for baseball, especially in college during the ‘90’s, but when I moved to Champaign for law school, I really got back into baseball. (A big plus: the games were on TV.) I even interviewed with a firm down in St. Louis, but decided that I couldn’t move to a town just because I loved the baseball team :)

I have good reason to believe that I always will be a fan: I met my future husband – a near-rabid Redbird fan – at a Cardinals game in Milwaukee. Fate, apparently: we had been at the same game at the old Busch several years before, but never met until we both traveled from out-of-town (him: Quad Cities, Me: Chicago) to see the Cardinals play the Brewers. Now I’ll always have someone to watch/discuss/obsess over the Cardinals with, and, when we’re old and gray, we’ll still have something that we both love to talk about together!

I moved up to St. Louis in August 2002 to go to college. Prior to that I had lived in the sticks and didn’t follow the Cards, but I was vaguely aware of some guys named Benes, La Russa, Jimmy, and Ankiel. My heart broke when I heard that Jack Buck and then DK had passed, but I didn’t understand it all until a little later.

Anyway, the big social event in my dorm was going to the game or going to watch the game. It was possible to talk to anybody as long as you could talk about the Cardinals – a nice trick to know if you’re the shy girl from the sticks who didn’t go to high school with 10% of the building. So I started to follow the Cardinals so I had a way to socialize with people.

As it just so happened we made the playoffs that year. I just remember being hooked after watching Edmonds and Rolen hit some nice homers in one game. My life hasn’t been the same since; now that it’s getting closer to time to graduate and get a real job people ask me if I’ll stay in St. Louis or leave town. I tell them I’ll consider moving if the city is within the division or at minimum has NL ball.

My family is from a small town just south of St. Louis. I moved around a lot as a kid because my dad was in the Army. I’ve lived all over the world, but we would always visit my parents’ families a few times a year. Every time I was at my grandpa’s house (my mom’s dad) he’d be out on the back porch drinking a Bud and listening to the game on the radio. It was then, when I was very young, that I got my first taste of Cardinal baseball (got my first taste of beer then too). Later, we were stationed in Germany, and I remember a Christmas gift that I got from my grandparents in the mail: a 1982 World Champions t shirt. I’ve been following the Cardinals for as long as I can remember, although it’s gotten progressively more obsessive over the last 10-15 years. After college in St. Louis, I moved to Miami, FL, and other than Christmas, my four trips home each year are centered around the Cardinals’ schedule. Of course I hit as many Spring Training games as I can, as well as the series here with the Fish. Go Cards!

I was born into it. My father was a Cards fan, as were his father and step-mother. Why would I root for another team?

saw Bob Gibson beat the Yankees in game 5 of the ‘64 World Series. Even though we lived halfway between Boston and New York with Mom a die hard Boston fan and Dad a closet Yankee fan, my brother started following STL. I followed my brother and picked the Cards as my team in 1967. I was one of three third graders cheering on the Cards for game 7. Had a winning team with a return to the WS in 68. Been following them since through good years and bad years.

Finally made it to STL last summer to see a home game. My wife enjoyed telling friends and coworkers that our summer vacation was a drive from Baltimore to St Louis so her husband could watch a baseball game. Got to see a couple of wins including Ankiel’s return game and homer.

Our family from Syracuse visited the HOF. Mom & Dad let us each buy a pennant for our favorite team. I was 5 years old and was more intersted in birds than baseball, so Dad suggested the Cardinals, and it stuck for all these years. Have been back to Cooperstown many times, the best was Ozzie’s induction – for the first time I was in the sea of red. Never ben to STL, but finally saw the boys play in person in Toronto in 2005. It is great to be a Cardinals fan!

My dad became a Cardinals fan because his dad was a Cubs fan. Isn’t Central Illinois great? Anyways, my parents got divorced when I was one and I found myself spending weekends with my dad, who sat me on his lap while we watched baseball. He also taught me some of my first words, which have stuck with me all these years: “Yay Cardinals, BOO Cubs”. His stepfather was a diehard Cubs fan.

My first game was in July 1991. We lost 13-1 to the Reds and I was crying because they decided to leave in the 7th. It was my first game! They wouldn’t even stay the whole game. Growing up a Cards fan in the 90s kind of sucked, especially since I lived in Oregon for most of it. Every game I seemed to go was a clunker until my family moved back to Illinois and I happened to catch in successive years Mark McGwire’s 58th homer in 1997 and his 70th homer in 1998. That ruled.

Being a Cards fan always stuck with me. I can’t do anything half-assed, and so I wasn’t about to become a bigger Mariners fan just because I lived (and now live again) in the northwest.

Man, I love this team.

My grandfather used to sneak a transistor radio under my pillow and let me fall asleep during the summer months with sounds of Jack Buck and Mike Shannon calling out names like Gibson, Brock, Javier, Simmons, Reuss, and Flood. What else was I going to be?

I am Italian and live in Italy, so here baseball is about non existant. While I was in my high school, in 1988, a TV channel from Jugoslavia (called Koper) started to broadcast a lot of sport, turning into a sport channel. At that time just a little of USA sport was broadcasted in Italy, so it was easy for them to buy rights to broadcast almost every sport. They started with baseball as well, with recent WS games. Being an avid sport lover, I started looking at baseball, which I didn’t know, and I started to like it. As you can imagine, a certain team from StLouis was frequently seen in the WS during the 80s, and I fell in love with the Whiteyball. Since then, this love for the Cards is lasting. Since then, I hate the Twins.

GO CARDS!!!!

... without a baseball family. My mom was sort of a Yankees fan, and my dad didn’t really care all that much for baseball – he was a college football guy and an outdoors type. The Cardinals weren’t even on my radar until I moved to St. Louis in ‘91.

It wasn’t until after I graduated, and started working nights, that I became a fan. And it was through the radio broadcasts, listening to Jack Buck and Mike Shannon spin yarns. They were the old guard, and then Joe Buck would come in as the surly realist, a little raw but at the same time wanting to tell it like it is – and the Cards weren’t all that good, but they were maybe building something. And at the same time they had this long storied history to lean on - not only had they won all those championships, but they had had fallow eras as well, just like the early 90s. To me they struck a perfect balance - they romanticized the sport, and the franchise, but talked unvarnishedly about the team while placing it in a historical context that still gave reason for hope. It’s difficult to describe, but of course you all were there.

It got to the point where those three hours would be the highlight of my day. I would listen to rainouts too, and catch Live at Shannon’s every now and again.

And that was pretty much all it took. When Darryl Kile and Jack Buck passed, it was like mourning the passing of heads of state, a Cardinal Nation that I suddenly belonged to.

My Father was born Oct. 15th 1946. My Grandfather wasn’t at the hsopital because he was too busy watching Enos Slaughter scoring from first. That connection pretty much sums it all up for me. Without getting too depply into it, not taking up too much space in these here internets, and trying not to tear up as I write this; like you I bleed Cardinal Red. My Dad’s favorite player was Don Blasingame. My Mother’s, Kenny Boyer. Mine was Tom Herr. One of my earliest memories is watching The Wiz flipping out to ss during the ‘85 series. I carry a picture of me at that game in my wallet for when people ask me if I’m “really a Cardinals fan.” While my gradeschool friends were idolizing Ken Griffey JR, I was idolizing Musial. I’ve played sports my whole life (3 sport athlete in college) and in every one I’ve always worn the number 6. I’m not religous (i’m a religous mutt) so the closest thing for me would be the Cardinals. I was raised a Cardinal fan, and I’ll raise my children that way. Man, what a beautiful ball club.

genetic defect is all i can say. my dad was a knotholer and uncle ben played 3rd one game before his wife told him its me or baseball (so the story goes). my grandparents lived in stl and visiting them always included two special visits, mavrakos and a trip to sportsman’s park watching stan (made me a throws right/bats left guy), smokey joe, curt, walker cooper, moon, blasingame, the mcdaniels, and solly (not in the same game though). sitting on the porch in memphis listening to kmox with harry making the listless 50’s cards seem exciting. went to wash. u so i could go to cards games (25 cents on the bus and $1 to sit in the bleachers dates me too). being in stl for the 63 and 64 seasons was really exciting (got to meet and talk with dick groat-nice, accommodating guy) .i know media is different today, but being able to follow the cards on kmox no matter where i lived made a real difference. enjoyed the caray, garragiola, buck games the most.
the good ol days were good

I was born and raised in W KY and thus, the Cards were the closest team. Thats just the easy answer. Like many people around my area, I grew up with my father as a fan. My grandfather was a fan, but he died the year I was born and I never got to know him. Part of me started rooting for the Cardinals cause thats what he would be doing if he was alive today. I feel connected to him in cheering on “his” team no matter how silly it sounds.

However, I have by far become the strongest fan in the family. I am the one they ask about the team and thanks to this site and other great Cardinal blogs, I am usually up to date on them. I just got married last September and hope to pass along this passion to my kids. I have gotten a jump on another generation in another way though. My niece during a trip to a Build-a-Bear decided to deck out her bear with a Cardinals Hat and Cardinals Shirt and then named the bear “Cardy”.