Could be the start of something big

Missed most of the game watching my son's 8th grade team play volleyball, but got to see the last couple of innings as the St. Louis Cardinals erased their magic number and claimed the National League Central Division Championship for the second straight year.

Especially sweet is that it took place in the Not Always So Friendly Confines of Wrigley Field. The Cub team and faithful, ever so close two years ago to a trip to the World Series, must have deeply felt the pangs of regret and recrimination over this year's model.

Cardinals fans stuck around Wrigley Field long after the game ended, celebrating -- and celebrating with -- their heroes. Several players ducked out into the crowd and doused fans with beer, champagne and water as the faithful cheered them on.

Like we say, sweet.

Granted you have to be a baseball fan and a Cardinal fan for this news to lift you higher, but the 2005 edition is worth a bit of study. Missing many of their front line offensive players most of the year, losing their All Star and future Hall of Fame 3rd baseman, Scott Rolen, at mid-season, filling in with a cast of AAA players from Memphis and using their bench to an extreme degree, the Redbirds found a workmanlike way to keep winning. This is always a good metaphor for America, even if it harkens less to today than a time not too many years distant.

How will the Cards fare in the playoffs? We hope it will be better than 2004 when the World Series was lost to the Beantown Boys in four straight games. This year St. Louis has the pitching, perhaps the best in the bigs.

It's more than enough, right now, to make up for the lackluster OU Sooners. We won't have to face that reality for a few more weeks.