When sports means more than just a pastime

My life, lately, has been rather pathetic, sad and depressing.

Deaths in the family, a fruitless job search, a current job hanging by a thread, difficult personal financial situations (all of which have caused problems with the wife and I. I know, I know… we shouldn’t let those problems effect us, and we sincerely try not to take the problems out on each other or the kids, but as most of my readers know… it’s hard. As MetroDad says about marriage: "...marriage is like a duck. On the surface, it looks cool and effortless, but underneath, everybody's paddling like hell." But I’m getting far off the point…) have all made my life very, very stressful. And while my life lately has been enough to make one incredibly depressed and despondent (which is how I’ve been for the last couple of days weeks months…), this past Friday night, something… something that some people might call insignificant… happened…

My baseball team, the St. Louis Cardinals, the team my parents, my aunts & uncles, my cousins, my brother and I have followed for as long as I can remember, won the World Series for the first time since I was a nine-year old lad in 1982.

Granted, it may not have been the most exciting World Series for non-Cardinals and non-Tigers fans to watch; after all, it was sloppy, short… and very, very wet.

But for Cardinal fans; it was bliss… and since it happened on a Friday I had a whole weekend to revel in it. More importantly, since I live in the Chicago-land area, I had the whole weekend to enjoy the victory in front of Cubs fans that had to live through the cross-town rivals winning it last year and their long-time league rivals winning it this year… talk about a sweet moment(s).

For a short time, the victory helped me forget my troubles and focus on the joy of a city and the joy of ‘Redbird Nation’…

And for that moment, and the euphoric moments that followed… all was right with the world.

Now I only hope that it continues and transmissions to something more vital... like a new job, a new outlook on life and better financial standing... otherwise I might be hoping for an ever-unlikely Super Bowl victory for my Rams... and I think we all know the chances of that happening...