Let me say that I am proud of you Cardinals Nation, you rose up!  99 percent of the people I have talked to said they stayed up to watch all of game six! My body picked a terrible night to get sick.  I watched the 8^th inning on lying in bed with my head poking out over the covers.  I got to see it all though.  Wow, just wow!  I believe game six of the 2011 World Series may be the best World Series game I have ever seen.  It was not always the most well played game, but it was the hardest fought by both teams and my Cardinals came out on top.  Heck I would have been happy if they would have won the worst game in World Series history to advance to game seven, as long as they won.  The way the Cardinals battled back with walks, hits, and finally a final David Freese homerun proved to everyone that these Cardinals were passionate and hungry to win the World Series.

Game seven opened with the Rangers scoring two in the top of the first.  It hurt when that happened but during that, Yadier Molina picked off Ian Kinsler at first base, you knew the Cardinals weren’t done yet.  Those would also be the last runs Texas scored in the World Series.  David Freese drove in the first two runs in game seven.  When Yadi walked to score Allen Craig and Rafael Furcal was hit to score Albert Pujols, I knew the game was over.  Just had to deal with all the drama of the last outs of both teams.  The future of the Cardinals made the last three outs of the game.  Jon Jay caught the first out, Daniel Descalso threw to Pujols for the second, and Allen Craig caught the final out of the World Series.  The place went wild.  All of the twenty or so people that were over at our house went wild.  I heard that streets around the stadium downtown were gridlocked until three in the morning.  It was a great night in Cardinals Nation!

In 2006, we went and saw the parade.  We stood at the two corners and got great pictures.  In 2011, we decided to get tickets to go into the stadium and be a part of the victory celebration.  Since a friend of ours had her baby with her, this was the right decision.  The girls were in one set of seats and Josh and myself were in another.  The Clydesdales leading the World Series caravan was the major highlight to me.  It brought the history of the Cardinals together with the present.  I guess we were about 20 rows up, so I hope we got good pictures.

Earlier today, Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa decided to retire from managing.  I think the fact that he battled shingles earlier this year, watched pitching coach Dave Duncan’s wife get sick, being 67, and missing his youngest daughter grow up were all factors in this decision.  Tony becomes the first baseball manger to retire after winning the World Series.  The question for Tony and the Cardinals is what’s next?  Who is going to manage the Cardinals?  What about Albert Pujols?  The next few days here in St. Louis could be fun because even though they are no longer playing baseball games, baseball is sure not over yet.  Actually, baseball is year round when you reside in Cardinals Nation!