St. Louis – When the Budweiser spray stopped and gently dripped off the players’ Speedo eyewear, it all made sense. The St. Louis Cardinals are a team that can be loved only with beer goggles on.
No baseball franchise has found such beauty in its imperfections. The Cardinals’ 83 regular-season victories were the fewest by a World Series champion. When rookie Adam Wainwright struck out Brandon Inge on a knee-stiffening curveball, the sellout crowd at Busch Stadium celebrated the completion of the city’s greatest Octoberfest.
Final score: Cardinals 4, Detroit Tigers 2, conventional wisdom 0.
“Anybody who wears a ring can’t be the worst at anything,” said Preston Wilson, celebrating 20 years to the day that the Mets, with stepdad Mookie Wilson an outfielder on the team, vanquished the Red Sox. “Sometimes the opponent can have a lot more talent or perceived talent, but it’s the team that wins. We were a team up and down the lineup. The parts all fit together.”
MVP David Eckstein is, fittingly, the face of the franchise. He is too everything – too small, too slow, too nice – to spray graffiti on the Tigers’ made-for-Disney script.
The snapshot of Eckstein receiving hugs from teammates will serve as the lasting image of the 2006 World Series.
“He’s not a guy you are going to see and be impressed with on one night, but he always does something to help the team win,” St. Louis general manager Walt Jocketty said. “The players feed off his energy and his enthusiasm.”
Viewed through the Las Vegas prism, this never should have happened. The Cardinals entered the playoffs as a 12-to-1 longshot. Even after dismissing the San Diego Padres and New York Mets from the playoffs, there were suspicions about the Cardinals’ credibility.
They were a National League team, after all, in a season when the American League reinforced its reputation as a bully.
Projected over 162 games, the AL would have won 99 in interleague play.
The Tigers had the blessed ignorance of youth and the league’s lowest ERA on their side. Instead, the Cardinals are celebrating their 10th championship, second only to the Yankees, and first since 1982.
What does it say about the playoffs that the Cardinals, who, by Jocketty’s admission “were terrible over the season’s final two weeks,” can go unchallenged on the sport’s biggest stage? The Cardinals scored 22 runs. The Tigers totaled 11 and committed eight errors, one each by a pitcher in every game.
“It means that you can take records and shove them you know where,” said Tigers closer Todd Jones, whose team trounced the Yankees and Athletics before stepping on a banana peel during their anticipated coronation. “If you don’t make plays you are going to lose. It doesn’t matter if you’re playing Little League, the Yankees or the Cardinals. They made all the plays they had to.”
The Cardinals are nothing if not quilted together. Their lineup was a different mix-and- match of patches from Wilson to Juan Encarnacion, So Taguchi, Chris Duncan, Ronnie Belliard and Aaron Miles. They grinded out just enough at- bats, scratching out runs for a pitching staff that went 11-5 in the postseason with a 2.31 ERA.
Two of the World Series wins came from Jeff Weaver, hit so hard in a June 26 start against the Rockies that the Angels designated him for assignment, and rookie Anthony Reyes, who spent much of the season in the minors.
Wainwright replaced the injured Jason Isringhausen as closer during the final month, and he surrendered only one postseason run.
“That’s why critics are idiots,” said center fielder Jim Edmonds, one of several potential key free agents, along with Weaver and pitcher Jeff Suppan. “They get proven wrong every year.”
In fairness, the Cardinals team that showed up for the playoffs bore little resemblance to the wings-clipped club that waddled through September. Scott Rolen, Eckstein and Edmonds finally returned to the lineup in San Diego.
Swagger followed.
“We were a totally different team,” Jocketty said. “We won 100 games and 105 games in seasons before this and didn’t win it. It just shows how important it is to play your best at the end.”
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, or in case, the beholder of the championship trophy, one Eckstein pressed toward the sky Saturday with tears in his eyes.
Staff writer Troy E. Renck can be reached at 303-954-1301 or trenck@denverpost.com.
