Saint Louis in Baseball Purgatory?

A Look at the Cardinals Off Season

As Cardinal Nation settles into the bitter cold of a long and depressing off season, one can only hope that last year's woes won't be on repeat for 2008. Last off season we had bitter cold. We had ice storms. We had your typical Midwestern winter season. But each day was sweetened by the memory of Yadi's homer in game seven. It was brightened by Suppan and Weaver's uncharacteristically stellar performances.

With each dropping degree in temperature, Cardinal fans everywhere could remember Wainwright and Molina closing out a rollercoaster of a season with strike three. Wainwright became a workhorse for the Cardinals, replacing injured Jason Isringhausen in the closer's spot. Molina, a disastrous .216 average throughout the 2006 regular season, came busting out of the gate with a post season average of .356--not to mention a .412 average in the World Series(baseball-reference.com). Molina and Wainwright in 2006 were a combined 49 years old, that is, only one year older in combined age as the oldest veteran currently playing, Julio Franco, at 48.

So now that we've reminisced back to the warmth of last off season, the bitter bite of today's cold reality quickly sets in. While the 2006 regular season wasn't exactly a picture perfect example of what a championship season should be, no one can deny that the Cardinals chose the best time to play like the team they were capable of being. We were left with a sweet taste in our mouth. We had something to hang on to for the next three months until the boys of summer returned to Florida to break out the gloves and bats for a fresh new start.