MY REMARKABLE LIFE AS A ST. LOUIS CARDINAL

I'll soon be headed out to Jupiter, Fl. for several days of suiting up and playing the game.  Maybe 20 former Cardinal players will try to coach eight teams of us baseball wannabe stars.  It's a challenge..for the coaches.

Me?

Well, at 68, I'm most likely the oldest player in camp.  But that's not my only term of notoriety.  I'm also the worst player in the camp as has been publicly declared by Bob Gibson and Al Hrabosky.  Of the one hundred or so campers I am the last one picked...every year.  I don't look at that as negative; but rather a matter of consistency.

Truthfully, I think the organization feels obligated to make some unfortunate team captain select me.  I like to think of it as probably the Cardinal organization pays some poor manager hefty bucks to take me!

When we take the field, I'm often on the bench.  The coaches just can't figure where to hide me.  Regardless of where they try, the ball always finds me.  Go figure.  I bat last in the line-up.  I'm not exactly regarded as a clean-up hitter as much as I am as the just-get-it-over-with batter.

But hey, I don't mind.  My goal has always been to look good in my uniform anyway. Sure, I'll sign an autograph here and pose for a picture there.  The problem with that is that I have to pay these individuals to ask for such in front of my peers.  Bummer.

This will be my 32nd year.  What a fantastic experience.  As I reflect on becoming close friends with Curt Flood, getting knocked unconscious during a game at Busch when Bob Gibson swung through a fast ball and the bat came around and hit me in the head, or writing a book for Carole Buck about Jack and the Cardinals gave the book away on Fan Appreciation Day in 2003, I am certain that I am the luckiest man I ever met.

Sure....I may not have baseball talent, but I make up for it with creative errors.