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A recent column about the St. Louis Cardinals’ Mark McGwire not only prompted fans to chime in about McGwire’s use of steroids, but also sparked fond memories about Major League Baseball, especially the Cardinals.

David Colin of Greensboro pretty well told me to get over my disappointment in McGwire. A boy’s love for baseball “all ends somewhere,” he said.
“For me, it was 1957 when the Dodgers left Brooklyn,” Colin said. “Sports and civilization ended. I could just imagine a fan at the game in L.A. No hotdogs.” Colin was a Brooklyn fan who lived in Peekskill, N.Y.

“I’ll have a slice of quiche and a wine cooler,” Colin said.

Another writer suggested I put my disappointment with McGwire behind me by going to a minor league baseball game. “Get tickets to the new park over in Winston-Salem; take your son or a neighbor’s son. Get a beer and some peanuts and enjoy yourself.”

Good idea, I thought. But I would substitute a Pepsi for the beer. And maybe take my wife, too.

Some of these die-hard Cardinal fans wanted to talk about St. Louis stars of the past, their experiences as Cardinal fans and their joys and disappointments with organized baseball. They know baseball, especially the Cardinals.

Robert Bay of Greensboro wrote: “Saw your article on Mark McGwire and felt exactly the same. Somehow I thought he might be OK, but I was fooling myself. I also grew up listening to Dizzy Dean, but it was on TV with PeeWee Reese.”

Another fan who prefers anonymity tried to console me concerning my disappointment about McGwire: “Bob, the game of baseball is much bigger than any of these individual prima-donna players who mess up. I, too, was a minor league fan who grew up a block from old War Memorial Stadium in Greensboro when great New York Yankees were coming through Greensboro.

“I’ve had to suffer through the Steinbrenners (Yankee owner) all these years, but the game is bigger and much more important than they are

“Leaving the game I love because a player (even a hero of mine) screwed up would be like leaving the church or giving up on my faith ....”
You betcha, he is a serious fan!

A super Cardinals fan is Dr. Mark Hyman of Greensboro, with whom I’m having lunch soon to talk about baseball.
“I have been a big Cards fan since I read Bob Gibson’s autobiography in 1968. I feel the same way you do,” he wrote.

“For my 50th birthday (two years ago), my wife arranged for us to fly to Chicago and have dinner with Bob. Very cool!” Hyman said. “The dinner was one of the greatest moments of my life.” Hyman found Gibson to be “human, with real world doubts, a sense of humor and tremendous pride. His records reflect his commitment to excellence, not steroids.”

Bay also shared his up-close experience with the Cardinals: “I actually lived in St. Louis from 1965 to 1985 and was able to see two of the 1982 World Series games. My stepson (an engineer) works as a groundskeeper at Busch Stadium (in St. Louis) and has for several years. He does it as a lark to be around the players.”

Bay also has a good idea: “A year or so ago I tried to get together a Cardinals Club of local fans to watch games, chat about stuff and so on, but I was unsuccessful. Since then I have three people interested and was wondering about you. I am a retired CPA, and the others are a doctor, a sound engineer and an accountant.”

Creating the club might be a possibility if some of the Cardinal fans I heard from are willing to join. It could be a fun group, meeting not only to share stories and fables about our beloved Cardinals, but maybe banding together for a trip to St. Louis to see the Cardinals play.

McGwire, the disgraced home-run king, will be there. He is the new hitting coach for the Cardinals and started his duties earlier this month.
His first day on the job, he again apologized for using steroids. The Boston Globe quoted McGwire: “I can’t say I’m sorry enough to everybody in baseball and across America and whoever watches this great game.”

 Even Colin, the Flatbush Dodgers fan, has a good memory of the Cardinals. Well, at least former Cards star shortstop Marty Marion. “My first glove was a Marty Marion model,” he said.

His boyhood love for the game was intense. “When the Dodgers played St. Louis in St. Louis, the game was late. I put an old Philco table model radio under the covers to listen. It’s a miracle I did not electrocute myself,” he said.

“Red Barber did the play-by-play. Piels Beer advertised.”

All of the baseball memories shared with me were interesting, but there were too many to record here. Some had long histories of love for baseball, such as that of Curt Hernandez of High Point. A minister and Missouri native, Hernandez said his family has been following the Cardinals since “at least the 1920s.”

Hernandez said the column was “a home run for me because I feel the same way you do about Mark McGwire. Very sad because in my heart of hearts I felt he had taken steroids but waited and waited to hear him admit it. So now he has.”

Yet, he hasn’t given up being a Cardinal fan. “My passion for them will always be strong,” he said.

“It seems that we (Cardinal fans) are everywhere,” Hernandez said. “I have a friend in High Point, a lawyer, who has followed them for many years, too.”

Hernandez said, “We lose a lot of things as we grow older. Those of us who are baseball fans lose so very much. Our heroes first get old.’’ And a large number get traded to other teams. “They retire, and, of course, die. Very little of our memories seem to translate to the generations that follow us.”

Contact Bob Burchette at bburchette@triad.rr.com