The Objectively Best Way to Play and Cheer for Baseball
The Double Birds Manifesto
In the 21st century, the Cardinals have 1274 wins against only 933 losses — a .561 winning percentage, the best in the National League. They’ve been to the playoffs 10 times out of 14 seasons, reached the NLCS 8 times, advanced to the World Series four times, and won the championship twice. Despite all that success on the field, they’ve kept their payroll hovering around 10th highest in the majors, and around half of the total spent by the Yankees, the only team with a better record since 2000. Other than 2003, they’ve surpassed 3 million in attendance in every year that starts with a 2, despite playing in MLB’s 9th smallest market. Since losing one of the best players in club history and a Hall of Fame manager, they’ve been to one World Series and were one game away from a second. Beneath the big league club, they have a minor league system one year removed from being ranked as baseball’s best, with a seemingly endless pipeline of triple-digit throwers and the current #3 prospect in the game.
Which is all to say that the St. Louis Cardinals are objectively the best organization in baseball. By extension, the people who root for them are the best at watching and cheering for baseball. These are facts.
An inevitable side effect of the Cardinals’ relentless success is that they are now one of — if not The — most universally loathed teams by everyone without an STL cap in their closet. Last October, that hatred erupted as St. Louis efficiently marched deep into the playoffs, slicing through two neutrals’ favorites along the way. Cardinals fans, afflicted as they are with the Midwestern curse of wanting everyone to always be happy and nice, largely responded with genuflection and self-deprecation and guilt.
No more, we say. The Cardinals and their fans have no reason for shame. It’s time to soak up the hate and go full-blown heel, if that’s what it takes. Let them mock “The Cardinal Way” and “Best Fans in Baseball,” let them describe the team as boring or too traditional, let them ascribe each year’s playoff run to luck, a soft National League, or the annual small sample size explosion of a diminutive middle infielder. Use one hand to point at the scoreboard and let the other act out your favorite middle finger choreography.
Double Birds will be a place for fans to write about loving the Cardinals, with no hand-wringing about what the rest of the baseball world thinks of them and us. There are websites that dive deeply into statistical analysis, there are beat writers who cover the breaking news and recap games. This blog will be for spilling words about the space the Cardinals occupy in our lives, unfolding alongside the 2014 season. While the essays will touch upon the events of current games, the present will mostly be a springboard to talk about the meaning of the Cardinals, the small quirks and details that make a long season worthwhile, the foggy baseball memories inextricably linked to our personal and family histories.
Our intent is not to defend the Cardinals, or to convince you to like them. Double Birds is a safe space for us to examine and share our individual relationships with the best organization in baseball, without wasting time worrying about the people who don’t understand that simple truth. Go crazy, folks.
Opening Day Roster:
Kyle Beachy wrote a novel about St. Louis and teaches at Roosevelt University, in Chicago. He believes devoutly in the intangible superiority of the Cardinals. He believes, especially, in Yadier Molina.
Rob Mitchum is a science and music writer in Oak Park, IL. Loves: Vince Coleman, Allen Craig. Hates: Tarp machines, Umpires in basepaths.
Patrick Redford is a geographer (whatever that means) and Chris Carpenter enthusiast living in Berkeley, CA.
Matt Wood is a reader, writer and father of two. He lives in Chicago but grew up to the voice of Jack Buck in southern Indiana. His heart says Bernard Gilkey. His head says Yadi.
Chase Woodruff is a writer and student living in Boulder, CO who has written for Slant Magazine and The Classical. Favorite Cardinal, mouth tobacco division: Chris Duncan. Favorite Cardinal, actually: Chris Carpenter.
