[The United Cardinal Bloggers have begun their preseason roundtable. Yesterday's question came from Nick at Pitchers Hit Eighth (and how we wish they still did!).]

What is your first memory as a Cardinal fan? It could be attending your first game, or the first time you watched a really important game with your family, or perhaps the first Cardinal cap you received as a gift, or listening to Jack Buck on KMOX. For many folks there is a certain historical and/or family aspect that goes along with being a Cardinal fan, and I’m anxious to hear yours. For those who were “transplanted” into Cardinal Nation, I’m just as curious to hear how you wound up with the Redbirds.

Being from southern Illinois, my mom grew up admiring Stan Musial and Red Schoendienst, whom she’d met as a girl, and with my dad’s Chicago ties, I assume they must have settled early on that, wanting the best for their kids, they’d raise us as Cardinal fans. My earliest — or at least strongest — memories are from the 1982 championship season. Of the handful of games that my family would attend each year, I would get to buy a souvenir once a season (at one of the booths outside the stadium). My first real souvenir — as in something that had the staying power of a Star Wars figure — was a plastic bat bank. The little white bats had the logos of 10 of the National League’s 12 teams (for some reason, the Pirates and Padres weren’t represented) and clipped into the red bank, encircling it like the World Series trophy that the Cardinals would win that October. In that series, I remember feeling the vindication when Keith Hernandez, my favorite player, broke out of his slump in Game 6, and, after the Game 7 win, listening and dancing with my little brother to Kool and the Gang’s “Celebration” on our record player.

This entry was posted by Pip on Wednesday, February 24th, 2010 at 9:56 am and is filed under group blogging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.