I have no doubt St. Louis provides an outstanding baseball atmosphere, but this “great baseball town” stuff is a bit overdone. St. Louis has geographic and historic advantages that no other team, perhaps other than Boston, can match.

Start with the fact that it (like Boston) owns a huge region while other MLB cities like Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Philly, Cincy (to name four) are hemmed in geographically. The Cardinals used to be it for anyone west of the Mississippi, with KMOX booming their games pretty much across the land (I grew up in Central PA with a guy who was a cardinal fan because he picked up their radio signal so clearly). I work with a guy who grew up in western Nebraska whose choice of red as a wardrobe color is as equally influenced by the cardinals as the huskers.

Yes, it’s been nearly six decades since KC’s had MLB, but being a Cardinal fan has been imprinted in the genetic code of generations of people from Memphis (my son went to Rhodes College, I saw it first hand) and west TN to the gulf coast to Texas to the Great Plains.

Many people in those regions make long drives several times a year to see the Cardinals play. My son told me about guys he was in school with whose families planned vacations around seeing the Cardinals.

Even the Cubs and White Sox have to share Illinois with the Cardinals. It’s similar here in New England, where despite some Yankee intrusions into western mass and CT, it’s pretty much exclusively Red Sox country – especially now that the Expos aren’t siphoning off fans in Northern VT). So, IMO, St. Louis is not necessarily a great baseball town as much as a very fortunate market. And its fan base has been fortunate as well, in that the team is almost always competitive.

More power to them, but I’m glad the ASG is over now so I won’t have to hear ESPNers getting all misty over the superior race of fan that inhabits Busch Stadium on a daily basis. Hey Cardinal fans, try 17 straight losing seasons and see how you stand up. I think the superior race of fan is right here on this forum.

Atlanta may also fit this mold – not the historic as much as the geographic. And, the old days of TBS sending Braves games nationwide didn’t hurt.

I grew up in Pittsburgh, but I went to college in St. Louis and lived and worked there from ‘94 through ’07. I can say without question it is a GREAT baseball town. I don’t dispute any of the points above about geographical factors that contribute to this, but that doesn’t change the fact that people love their Cardinals. Being from Pittsburgh, the easiest (and most accurate) comparison is to look at Steelers fans. Cards fans are just as hardcore and rabid as Steelers fans are.

Now, that being said, I have trouble with the thought that they are the “best” baseball fans. They are, for sure, the nicest fans when it comes to rooting on the hometown team, but they aren’t any more knowledgable about the game or their team than Red Sox or Yankees fans are (to name two). The biggest claim to fame from my perspective is that they lead the league in curtain calls every year. I’ve seen Cards players get curtain calls for making a diving catch in the 6th inning of a mid-May game. I’ve seen games where there are 3, 4 or 5 separate curtain calls. This always annoyed me to no end, but it’s one of the things people see and say, “oh, these are the best fans…”.

The other thing is they almost NEVER boo the home team. In fact, in 13 years of going to games, I only recall seeing the home team get booed once…and it was the immortal Kip Wells.

Side note from last night’s game – Does anybody else think that Freddy would have been a better choice to hit against Nathan in the 8th inning than Howard? All the NL needed was a single to tie or take the lead.

Even if he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, it’s still good for the Pirates that he said that because all the casual fans that are doubting the FO can look at it and go “hmm”.

Why is this investigation dragging out so long? And why was it done exactly the same time that everyone was able to sign him, instead of being done before this time period? If I’m NH, I’m a little annoyed because the Bucs spent their own resources to check this guy out, and now when they have a chance to sign him, they can’t because the MLB decides to do the same investigation for the rest of the teams.

Pirates always seem to get snubbed with having our players play in an all star game. I’m telling you its Larussa, remember when Larussa played everyone player on the NL roster except for Jason Bay. I do not like Larussa I never will respect him because of that, he might be a good coach but some of the things he does bothers me. Sanchez could have atleast came in the 9th as a defensive replacement for hudson, but whatever we never get the respect we deserve.

Duke’s benching was understandable, but Sanchez’ was not. He could have come in as a defensive replacement in the eight or ninth and maybe squeezed out an at-bat.

I agree, Manuel should get booed when the Phils are in town.

I agree I’m sure the players aren’t mad they didn’t get in charlie manuel doesn’t deserve to get booed sorry, I’d like to see you guys fit all 33 Players in a 9 inning game stop the whining life goes on it looks worse on you.