The Great Pujols

Monday was the kind of a night that makes being a team fanatic worthwhile.

The evening began with my beloved Cardinals (a.k.a. The Greatest Team in America) trailing 3 games to 1 to some punk team from George W. Bush's home state. I slumped into my couch with a beer and a sense of impending doom.

Just before the game began, the phone rang. It was my parents calling to remind me that baseball is just a game and not worth causing damage to my heart, mind and soul. I appreciated their concern, though it made me realize my fanatacism must reach the realm of addiction to cause such an intervention. I also suspected they had spoken to my wife.

Maybe it was the phone call, but I watched Game 5 with much less passion than the first part of the series. When the Astros went ahead 1-0, and then again 4-2, I didn't cuss with a ferocity that caused the cat to hide in the bedroom and my neighbors to consider calling the police. The Astros success seemed like more of a foregone conclusion at that point. Call it a defense mechanism.

I stayed passive when David Eckstein punched out a base hit with two strikes and two outs in the ninth. When Jim Edmonds stepped to the plate, I didn't pray for a homerun. I just watched each pitch as intensely as I could, expecting every one to be the last of the season. Every honest Cardinal fan will tell you they saw Jim Edmonds striking out as clearly as if it happened - but it didn't.

Few times are fans rewarded with something as mythic, as perfect as Albert Pujols titanic homerun. It wasn't a fly ball that carried into the seats. This thing was epic. I swear it was still rising when it hit the plexiglass windows on the other side of the train tracks.

That's the flip-side of true fan devotion. For suffering countless moments of rage, humiliation, frustration, despair, not to mention the concerned intervention of loved ones, the true fan is rewarded with moments of unchecked euphoria. It's like mainlining adrenaline.

It's a common justification of abusive relationships to say you need the lowest lows to feel the highest highs, but at least in baseball it is true. And don't try to tell me Albert Pujols isn't the greatest player you've ever seen.