The month of September has been a nightmare for the St. Louis Cardinals.

A 7-game losing streak against good teams (Cubs) and lousy teams (Pirates, Reds) alike. Chris Carpenter shut down for the season. Rick Ankiel shut down for the season. Mark Mulder is still out there in the ether somewhere instead of pitching healthily. Dropping into fourth place behind the Houston Astros, who are surging in September for the 37th straight year. Injuries piling up, players wearing down, time and pistachios running out. And even with seven games to go, I feel the season came to an end on Saturday when the Chicago Cubs fittingly defeated the Cardinals to clinch their second consecutive Central Division crown. Mathematically, the Cardinals are still alive in the Wild Card hunt, but there's no sense in fooling ourselves here. They're done, and I find myself disappointed in them. I feel guilty--I shouldn't be disappointed in this team.

But I am.

Legions of prognosticators across the sports world predicted a grim finish for the 2008 St. Louis Cardinals--buried somewhere near the bottom of the pile along with other extremely bad teams such as the Washington Nationals, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Tampa Bay Rays Seattle Mariners. I paid attention to the Redbirds during the spring, and as the regular season crept closer and closer, you could see our heroes really starting to put it together. Pitching was still in question, but the regulars we've come to know and love, as well as the young unproven talents in the organization, were tearing it up in Jupiter. Being the true believer that I am, I took the results of spring training into consideration and offered a modest prediction that the Cardinals would probably finish somewhere around .500, but hopefully slightly above.

Shortly after the regular season began, my modest hopes quickly turned to very positive and enthusiastic belief that the Cardinals were above and beyond what anybody thought and were on their way to the playoffs. The team could do no wrong--their starting rotation was, for a time, nearly unhittable, and their position players excelled at defense and hit the ball like they really meant business.

Unfortunately, it wasn't long after that the Cardinals re-joined us here in real life and started to falter just a bit. They built up a record of around 10 games over .500 in April and May, but found themselves stuck right around that plateau for the remainder of the season. It kept them in first place for awhile, but in time, better teams caught up with and surpassed our heroes, climbing to new heights and spitting on the Cardinals from above by acquiring big talents like Rich Harden and CC Sabathia. Meanwhile, the 'Birds tried desperately to stay with them, but any progress made was spoiled by a couple of blown saves or one of those games in which nobody hits anything, and they tumbled back down to that 10 games over plateau. And barring a complete collapse in the final week of the season, it looks like that's approximately where they're going to finish.

So what went wrong? Nothing, really. As far as I'm concerned, the Cardinals surpassed my expectations by staying competitive all season before finally fading in the last couple of weeks. As frustrating as it was to see the 30 blown saves, to see Carpenter and Mulder both try to come back and end up back on the DL, to see Wainwright go down with a lingering injury, and to see the team once again have to rely on a patchwork rotation to stay afloat, they still did just a little bit better than I thought they would. And in the meantime, it was fun watching Pujols, Ludwick, Ankiel, and the rest of the offense do their thing, and Yadier Molina might be on the verge of becoming my favorite ballplayer. It was great to see Kyle Lohse and Todd Wellemeyer step up and put together a solid season for a shaky rotation that really needed the support. They're not gonna make the postseason, but I still feel pretty good about this team, and I thank them for playing a big part in a very exciting 2008 regular season, and I wish them the best of luck next year.

However, despite all of that, I'm still disappointed in them. Even taking into account everything the team didn't do well this season, there's still just one thing I feel they really did that was wrong.

They made me believe in them.

Goodbye, Yankee Stadium

I'm not a Yankees fan. However, I respect the history and tradition of the team, and there was a time many years ago when I did root for them (1996, against the Braves in the World Series, if you must know). On Sunday, the Yankees played their final game at Yankee Stadium against the Baltimore Orioles and won 7-3. I watched highlights of the game and the ceremonies on Sportscenter, and even though I cannot stand that team, I couldn't help but stop and take everything in--great Yankee baseball players old and new assembling one final time in their home for the last 85 years. History was made in that building again and again, sometimes for good and sometimes for not-so-good. And even though the new Yankee Stadium has been designed in homage to the old Yankee Stadium, it will still never be quite the same.

But hey, with any luck, the new Yankee Stadium will also have 85 years to make a name for itself.