Editor's Note - This is our second Sporty Flashback. Before we founded this site, W.H.'s writing was scattered throughout the internet on a comedy website, some band's blog, and the old johnnyutah.blog-something or other.com.  The Cardinals recent championship brought back fond memories of 2006, so W.H. revved up the Delorian to 88 mph and dug up this old piece about how he goes to World Series games so much he collects beer cups.  That's what this is about right?

St. Louis, 2006 - Friday night I was lucky enough to be in the stands for the clinching of the tenth championship in St. Louis Cardinals history.  I was there with my game four ticket secured in my Bank of America lanyard, which I had received as a free prize when I showed up the first night they were going to play the game.  Let it be known to all that Major League Baseball has no regard for the order of the Arabic numeral system.  If it mattered at all what order the games were played, I'm sure there would be an asterisk in the record books.

World Series 2006: St. Louis 4 - Detroit 1*

* - Game 5 was played before Game 4 just to see if anyone was paying attention.

Coincidentally, nobody was paying attention and the events proceeded much to the dismay of Game Five ticket holders.  Not that the coastal media gatekeepers were trying to rain on the Cardinals' parade, but two days later it was revealed that:

1. The 2006 World Series was the lowest rated championship in history, despite beating everything else in prime-time during its duration.

2. St. Louis is now America's most dangerous city.  Well sure, that's just because they don't include South America.

Undeterred, or unaware of that dubious distinction, thousands of Cardinals fans donned their home team's colors, holstered their backup piece and secured safe passage to the game, and victory parade, this past weekend.   In the stands, World Series fever gripped Cardinal Nation.  After every out random high-fives and celebratory hugs were in high supply while the ninth inning drew near.  There is no word yet on whether those high-fives will appear on next year's FBI "assault crime report".

I was finishing off my collection of souvenir beer cups when the ninth inning rolled around.  I had been to game four in '04. I watched the Red Sox clinch and their fans pile into Busch Stadium.  There was excitement, but there was also a tragic amount of dismay in the hearts of Cardinal fans who congratulated their historically playoff impotent opponents, while at the same time feeling betrayed by their 105-win ballclub who had lost to a wild-card team.

Now a reversal of fortunes had turned the 83-win 2006 Cardinals into World Series Champions.  And the brand new ballpark thundered as the final out was made.  The celebration lasted all weekend and despite being the "most dangerous city in America" no cars were burned or overturned, no riots ensued, and a very minimum of high-fives led to swift junk-punches within the city limits of St. Louis.

Some fans may say that this isn't the Cardinals team they thought would win it all.  And some media types may report that this team didn't deserve to win.  Well, for some strange reason I had very little doubt that the Cards were going to win.  My only reply to the media gatekeepers, who probably did the most damage to the TV ratings with their slander of the Tigers and Cardinals, is that next year the World Series should be played with a "table-top dice game".  That way they can assure everyone that the best team on paper will win.

Imagine one journalist from each playoff city rolling dice to determine the destiny of their team.  It would be as exciting as watching Kasparov play Deep Blue. I've seen chess on ESPN and you can cut the tension with one of those plastic toothpicks from a Swiss-army knife.  The best part would be watching a couple of over-fed baseball writers hunched over a card table in the stadium clubhouse, arguing with the team managers about who's batting sixth.  Of course the two writers would have to roll the dice with the managers pacing around them and, if it's an outdoor stadium, weather would have to play a factor.  This is a great idea, I can already hear McCarver's play-by-play, "In baseball the game is played with a ball.  That's why they call it base ball.  But nobody's got any balls at this table."

Every player would have a card determining how they hit against various pitchers.  I imagine Albert Pujols's card would look like this:

Albert Pujols vs RHP with 3.00-3.50 ERA

2- Strike out looking

3- Strike out swinging

4- Double Play

5- Double

6- Pop out

7- Ground out

8- Single

9- Line out

10- Homerun

11- Triple

12- Ground ball to pitcher. Pitcher throws it over infielder's head

I can already predict the record ratings for next year's World Series format.  I'm sure Fox would be more than willing to renegotiate its TV rights package in order to broadcast the "Mets vs. Yankees World Series of dice".  After all, if money can't buy rings what can it buy?