Well, the showdown starts tomorrow, and I have to choose: Cardinals or Red Sox.  No one in St. Louis feels neutral about Boston teams like the Red Sox or the Patriots, who have spoiled the end of the season more than once. So I have to choose my team.

Of course I have to choose the local nine, the St. Louis Cardinals, who dominate the local papers as well as the real estate along the Mississippi River.   I have to jump on the bandwagon that wheels Yadi and Wano and Puhols through their final year in the organization. It’s historic, it’s news-making, it’s sentiment for the Redbirds.

Breaking news: Yadi will go on the ten-day disabled list on Friday– sore knees. The 39-year-old was showing his age already in an error and strike-out plagued game on Wednesday. Some of the historic romance of the series dies with that.

But a different story is the return of Michael Wacha to the mound against the Cardinals. Wacha was drafted by the Cardinals in 2013 and began a spotted career pitching for them. Struggling with shoulder injuries in 2015-2016, he was relegated to the bullpen and then lost to the Mets in free agency in 2019.  Since then he had a stint with the Tampa Bay Rays before arriving in Boston in last fall.  This spring he has been a bulwark in the rotation with a 4-1 record.

He will have to face the Cardinals’ ace Wainwright, who has stretched out to nine innings in June, a thirty-nine-year-old eating up innings left on the plate by the younger pitchers on the staff. He promises to challenge Wacha with zeroes, but pitching in Fenway could be a challenge.  The confines are nothing like the wild blue yonder of Busch Stadium. Looking forward to the match-up between Wainwright and the ball-punishing Rafael Devers.

It was hard to give up on the Red Sox and Alex Cora, one of my favorite managers, but the Cardinals’ fundamental style of baseball with defense and speed make an appropriate displacement.  Even introducing the inexperienced Nolan Gorman to the infield has kept the sealed defense intact.  They are fun to watch, because they miss very few ground balls or double plays.  They are lock down on the diamond and hustle out for the lazy fly balls.

So maximum exposure to the Cardinals over the last year has made them my team.  I have to root for the visitors this weekend, as the Redbirds invade Boston. Picking them two out of three despite their weak records against upper division teams this spring. Go Wano! Go Goldy (Goldschmidt)! Go Arenado and Gorman!  Go Cards!