Weather Forecast: Baseball

St. Louis is baseball crazy. Last Monday, when the Cardinals opened at home against the Houston Astros, productivity levels in the city plummeted. At noon, thousands of fans streamed out from office buildings around the city, loosening their ties and rolling up shirt sleeves, heading to watch the game down at Busch Stadium or to join friends crowded around big screens at the local bars.

They delivered a win that night and again on Wednesday, when my family and I were lucky enough to have been offered seats at the game. It’s already so hot here that we had unearthed our summer clothes weeks ago, including all the Cardinals paraphernalia: red hats, red t-shirts, red flags, red, red, red...! We donned the colours and joined 40,000 other fans to enjoy our strong roster of talent, including a first basemen that is well on his way to becoming legendary.

The Cardinals were due to wrap up their three game series against the Astros on Friday night. That morning, on the way to drop the kids at school, I was tuned into my favourite St. Louis radio station when I heard something that convinced me that this city is CRAZY. Crazy, I’m telling you! The weather guy comes on and says, “You may have noticed that we got some rain last night, but don’t worry; it’s going to clear up for the game tonight.” Then, they were on to the traffic and a couple of songs – the usual morning show line-up. No temperature. No forecast. No storm warnings. No nothing! Weather forecast: baseball!

It’s not just baseball; this city regularly sells out its NHL and NFL games as well. At the beginning of March, when St. Louis hosted the “Arch Madness” Mississippi Valley conference, every seat was filled. Even at my daughter’s volleyball game today, not one parent left. Every one of them spent the entire gruelling day there, camped out on folding chairs, clapping, cheering, and giving the players free tips at the top of their lungs (ugh). I’m telling you; it’s this city! They are sports mad here!

My husband and I attended a fabulous black-tie fundraiser last night: the Bob Kostas event for Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center. During his welcome and introduction and then in between the wickedly funny stand-up performances by Wayne Federman and Jimmy Fallon, Kostas kept the anxious audience updated on the Cardinals progress throughout the entire 20-inning game, which eventually ended in a loss for us! He even invited audience members to shout out score updates if they should happen to be tuned in via i-Phone or Blackberry devices! Good thing the game ended before Jennifer Hudson sang! What a night!

Tonight, we played out of town against the Mets, so the weather forecasts were back to normal. I heard the usual dawn temperatures and precipitation predictions, followed by the expected high of the day and any other meteorologically important fact that we needed to know. After the Friday forecast, it seemed so ordinary, so boring. I can’t wait ‘til the Cards play at home again!