Cardinals Apologize For Winning World Series

[T. R. Oglodyte Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close T. R. Oglodyte]

Cardinals Apologize For Winning World Series

ST. LOUIS—Calling Friday night's victory on baseball's grandest stage "a terrible mistake," members of the St. Louis Cardinals issued a formal apology for making the playoffs, winning the World Series, and depriving baseball fans everywhere of a season featuring the kind of heartwarming, storybook ending to which they have grown accustomed in recent years.

...

"It's disappointing, to say the least," La Russa added. "We were rooting for the Detroit Tigers just like everyone else."

According to Cardinals players, they "tried absolutely everything" in their pursuit to earn the Tigers their first world championship since 1984, including eliminating the far more dangerous New York Mets in the NLCS, entering the series completely unrested after a grueling seven-game series, starting a rookie pitcher with five career wins in Game 1 in Detroit, and postponing Game 4 due to rain in the hopes that an off day would swing the momentum back in the Tigers' favor.

"I don't know what we could've done differently," second-baseman Ronnie Belliard said. "We gave the Tigers every opportunity to win ballgames, but when their pitchers keep making errors on simple ground balls, what are we supposed to do, pretend we forgot the rules and start running to third base?"

...

In the somber clubhouse following the victory, Cardinals centerfielder Jim Edmonds admitted that "the wrong team won," but said that the outcome of the 2006 World Series is "just something we're unfortunately going to have to live with."

"Nobody thought we could do this, nobody thought we could stop this powerhouse team that beat the odds to go from worst to first and rolled through the playoffs looking like they were invincible," Edmonds said. "And we thought we had taken every possible step to prove them right."

"We shocked the world," Edmonds added. "We're sorry."

[riverdees05 Platinum Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close riverdees05]

Good one, is today really April 1st?

[4ARedOctober Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close 4ARedOctober]

Actually I think the teams name is the Old Anaheim Angels of Saint Louis.

[riverdees05 Platinum Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close riverdees05]

Isn't free agents great! Wasn't it an ole Cardinal that started the ball rolling?

[Beaglemom3 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Beaglemom3]

LOL !

You know, it somehow fell short of the 2004 series (at least for Red Sox Nation) as it required something of mystical proportions: a lunar eclipse of a blue moon (is that redundant?) - and that's an astronomical fact.

[Lydkid Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Lydkid]

Actually I think the teams name is the Old Anaheim Angels of Saint Louis.

You gotta love it. Being an Angels fan, I'd rather hear this than the Anaheim Angels of Los Angeles or whatever they call it now.

[Beaglemom3 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Beaglemom3]

I'll bet the Mayor of Detroit was more than thankful.

[tonyg Goomba & Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close tonyg]

A carry over from the muslim anger ?

[Beaglemom3 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Beaglemom3]

A carry over from the muslim anger ?

Hadn't thought of that.
Here's what I meant:

By Sarah Karush, Associated Press Writer | October 12, 2006

DETROIT --This time, city leaders sense it will all be different. In 1984, the Detroit Tigers won the World Series, the euphoria quickly followed by the shame of riots.

The Tigers lead the Oakland Athletics 2-0 entering Game 3 of the American League championship series Friday at Comerica Park.

"From a national standpoint, it does nothing but help our image and begins to change the conversation about what people say and think about the city of Detroit," said Larry Alexander, president of the Detroit Metro Convention & Visitors Bureau.

For decades, that conversation has been about violence, racial tension and an abandoned urban core. Riots that left 43 dead in 1967 intensified racial divisions, accelerated the exodus of middle-class whites to the suburbs and came to define Detroit for the rest of the nation.

Detroit again erupted into chaos in 1984, following the Tigers' title victory over the San Diego Padres. Rioting left one man dead and dozens injured. The iconic image was a beer-bellied teenager from the suburbs holding up a Tigers pennant in front of a burning police car.

There hasn't been a riot since, but the image of chaos in Detroit has become so ingrained that officials find it necessary to point out when fans behave.

Referring to the celebration following the Tigers' victory over the Yankees in the divisional series, Alexander said: "There were hundreds of thousands of people downtown with no incident."

The truth is a lot has changed since 1984 -- especially downtown.

While the central business district continued to decline in the years after the city's big department store, JL Hudson, shut in 1983, things picked up again after General Motors Corp. purchased the Renaissance Center, a set of skyscrapers on the Detroit River in 1996.

The company moved its headquarters there, bringing other employers and retailers. Since then, three casinos have opened, software maker Compuware Corp. has built a gleaming new headquarters and both the Tigers and the Detroit Lions have moved to new homes downtown. Condos and refurbished lofts have added to the downtown population, and the nightlife picked up.

In November 2004, Campus Martius Park opened in front of Compuware's headquarters. The square was the anchor for Super Bowl week festivities.

Still, the view in much of the city remains grim. Once picturesque neighborhoods are dotted by burned-out houses and overgrown lots. Commercial strips that hummed with activity decades ago are now full of boarded-up storefronts.

"The city that I look at looks a lot better," said Jerry Herron, a Wayne State University English professor who lives in a downtown high-rise.

"I can do all kinds of stuff that I couldn't do before. I can buy a loaf of fresh bread, I can get my shirts done, walk to the corner bar and have a drink, get a fresh cappuccino. I can do all that city stuff, and that's wonderful," said Herron, an American culture expert who has written about Detroit. "But still there are those very grim numbers. ... We've left a lot of people behind."

The U.S. Census Bureau this year ranked Detroit second among the nation's poorest big cities, with 31.4 percent of residents living in poverty, just behind Cleveland with 32.4 percent.

And while studies have shown that downtown is relatively safe, the city as a whole remains violent. Last year, there were 359 killings -- far fewer than the record 714 the city logged in 1974, but still a lot considering the city's population has fallen more than 40 percent since 1970.

Herron contends Detroit's problems are no different from those in the rest of the country, but bashing the city is a convenient way for people elsewhere to avoid addressing them. People can always say: "At least it's not as bad as in Detroit," he said.

Still, there is renewed pride. More people are coming downtown on weekends -- especially when sports teams give them reason to. Eventually, boosters say, the national perception will shift.

Steve Georgiou, who owns a restaurant a short walk from Comerica Park in Detroit's Greektown neighborhood, sees a turn coming.

"All this positive input is reality," he said.