Before coming home to ºüÀêÊÓƵ, I worked as a sportswriter in New Orleans and Denver. We’re a baseball town; those are football towns.
There’s a lot that makes up the heart of New Orleans, from the music to the food to unique traditions, but the Saints are the aorta. New Orleanians yearn for the Saints to be good. And especially after Hurricane Katrina, when the city was ravaged by water, the resilient return of the Saints was inspirational and motivational to those citizens returning to a weathered New Orleans.
And in Denver, the all-consuming passion for the Broncos was passed down from generation to generation. In a town that didn’t have baseball until 1993, the Broncos were the biggest show. Pride for John Elway’s amazingness was infused in those folks. And losing those Super Bowls in the 1980s only enhanced the desire to finally win one — and then they won two in two years!
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So, the Monday mornings after a Saints loss or a Broncos loss? It was as if you could feel the despair. So much emotion was invested into the outcomes of these 16 (now 17) games, so when the NFL team lost, the next morning had a bigness of sadness. The city was just … down. You could hear it in voices. And once social media became a thing, you could experience it in online posts (with some expressive expletives).
All of this is to say: In May of 2024, Cardinals losses in ºüÀêÊÓƵ feel like NFL losses in those towns. That’s how bad things are getting — even though there are 162 games, each mounting loss is like the magnitude of a football loss. The proud ºüÀêÊÓƵ fans I talk to or interact with online are somewhere from deflated to irate to hopeless.
This was a post I got on Twitter/X this morning (from @StuartonSundaze), after the Cardinals lost their fifth-straight game: “It gets to the point where it really affects my daily mood. If it gets much worse in the next two weeks I’ll have to tune out for my mental health.â€
The Cardinals are maddeningly underacheiving. After Thursday’s loss to Milwaukee, the last-place Cardinals are 15-22; the first-place Brewers are 22-15. The offense is awful. As a team, the Cards are hitting .217 — only two teams in baseball have lower averages. And their OPS is .635 — only three teams have lower OPSs.
Oh, and the Cards have only 27 home runs — tied for the fewest in the National League.
Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Gorman look lost. Jordan Walker was doing so poorly, they sent him to the minors. And bright spot Willson Contreras is now out for months. Speaking about heart, Willson was the heartbeat of this team — and in the heart of the order. And now, that heart is ripped.
If the team goes through 1-2 more weeks of paltry hitting, they must fire hitting coach Turner Ward. The players love him, yes. But something needs to be done to shake up this team, to alter the mindsets and to salvage this pivotal season in Cardinals history.
Why is it pivotal? Because if they’re bad again, it proves that last year’s 71-91 campaign wasn’t an aberration.
Meanwhile, the fans online — from those posting with the #STLCards hashtag on Twitter/X to those in the “Cardinals Nation 24/7†Facebook group — are mad as hell.
At some point, they’re not going to take it anymore.
As another fan (@MidTennTiger) posted to me on Friday morning: “Sad thing is, even if we rattled off 3 or 4 in a row, I don’t know how much would change. At least for me. The bottom line is this is not a championship organization any longer. And until they show they are serious about winning championships again, it’s really hard to get excited.â€