The Red Bird Express 2005 - Long read - Epic Poem

[Schwahalala]

The Red Bird Express 2005

The Suicide Kings

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When last seen
On a national stage
Our hero's where being swept
By the Red Sox Brigade

So 105 victories
And then seven more
Was only enough to get
To the Championship door

When the final out was made
By Edgar the smooth
A really sweet season
Was sent to the moon

And the postscript on it
Went something like this
Cardinals played scared
And that's why they missed

That was the talk
By the national press
They said Tony's boy's choked
When it came to the final test

Well one mans choke
Is another man's excuse
And in St. Louis
Most felt those 4 games were flukes

But we couldn't change the past
And the present was soon pressing
What would Walt and Tony do
To keep the opposition guessing

With 2004 gone
We had to say some sad goodbyes
To some very good players
And even better guys

Woody, Edgar, Matheny
Kline and Womack
All switched
To other teams attack

And so spring training
Came to a fast close
Out of the ashes
A new Cardinal team rose

The everyday eight
Had 6 in the same places
But the middle infielders
Were both new faces

David Ecksten at 5' 8"
Was signed to play short
Gru – stick was given
The second base part

At fist was the man
That achieves what no else can
The one and only Albert Pujols
The best in the land

Rolen the Brave
The best in the league at the hot corner
Yadier Molina was our backstop
And struck fear into the hearts of runners

Jimmy the Gazelle
Still galloped in center field
While LarryWalker
Would be the right field Shield

Reggie the Rock
Would handle left pretty well
That's when he and other's
Weren't hurt for long spells

Now most people
Speak of reserves as the bench
But the way this season went
They were starters for a pinch

Nunez, Mabry, Cedeno, Diaz
Luna and So were the first spare parts
J. Rod, Schumaker, Gall and Seibold
Also made the depth charts

The 5 starters by the Arch
Were once again Armed
With 4 right handers from last year
And a new lefty to the storm

Mark Mulder stood on the mound
At 6" 5" tall
He would give the Birds
His all and all

Now Carp was back
And we could only hope
His nerve problems were behind
For he was needed most

Matty Mo also had some
Injuries to overcome
But he healed up fast
At season's start he was on

Jeff Suppan had been
A true playoff hero
And would once again be expected
To toss up some zero's

Jason Marquis would be valuable
With two different stats
Not only would he pitch
He'd be counted on to bat

And know to introduce
The Birds of Prey again
Most of you know it
As the Cardinal bullpen

Izzy's the closer
But all have roles
Taz is our set up man
Late inning lefty's are when Ray King throws

Al Reyes is a fiend
That usually has the seventh
Flores and Pulsipher
Are also lefty assassins

And when he got healthy
Eldred came back
He and Thompson the kid
Helped guard the prey shack

So when the 2005 team
Embarked on the season
One more change should be noted
Tony was different and for good reason

Although last years team
Had won 105 games and all
Tony made a mental note
To play more small ball

And he came up with a phrase
That would be repeated time after time
This Red Bird team
Would play a hard nine

With that as their creed
And this will make you smile
9 games into the season
We climbed to the top of the Central pile

Conincidence, well maybe so
But add this to that odd fact
After nine games into the season
There was no need to look back

For 153 games we remained
Alone in first place
And some great games there were
We ran a beautiful race.

Exhibit A
Was a Mark Mulder Gem
A 10 inning complete game shut out
Vs Clemens and the Stros Pen

The comeback in the ninth
You can call exhibit B
When the birds came from 6 down
To shock Cincy

So the exhibits kept
Coming and coming
One night in the 13th
Albert walked off instead of running

One day Eck
Did something amazing
He faked a bunt then hit a home run
All with the same swing.

Carp became unbeatable
For such a long stretch
He had all the historians pouring
Threw the records that are kept

Albert was Albert
Which translates too
The best player in the game
Played the best the whole season through

Yes it was a great season
But not what you thought of at the start
The Cardinals won 100 games
By mixing and matching those spare parts

1 or 2 regulars out
for extended time
Is usually to big a hill
For most teams to climb

Well then 4
Should have created an abyss
But with our spare parts
Not one beat did we miss

And the losses were great
Be assured of this
Rolen for most of the season
And 3 other starters were missed

But this team never once
Hung their heads
They just played a hard nine
And hung L's on the opposition instead

Which brings me to
My favorite game of the year
It happened in Washington
And the Birds showed no fear
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Mark Mulder
was supposed to start
But a stiff neck
Gave Eldred that part

3 innings later
Thompson came in
Taz followed him
Then Reyes and King

At the end of the day
The Nationals hadn't scored
But the spare parts
Why they were all over the scoreboard

In the first inning an ump
Gave Albert an early shower
Yet the offense found a way to score
Without it's main source of power

We should have known something[/size]
Tony had Molina hitting fourth
But he didn't act like Babe Ruth
More like a race horse

In the top of the sixth
We already had one run in
Edmonds was on third
At first was the anti speed demon

Even though there was one out
And super So was at the plate
Tony wanted that run now
And he didn't wait

He called a double steal
Not an unheard of play
But with Molina's speed
It was the joke of the day

So Molina breaks from first
And goes maybe 25 feet
As the catcher throws to second
Jimmy moves his feet

He slides in safely
And now the Birds have two
And wouldn't you know it
Now Jimmy's hurt too.

But the Cardinals weren't done
4 more runs were scored
At the end of the game
6 – 0 said the scoreboard

And so it went
That's how we played
Without fear
Always brave

The suicide squeeze
Became a calling card
True to Tony's word
Every nine was hard

And in the midst
Of this season so grand
We spent every home game
Knowing we were losing a friend

The lady called Busch

Was being retired

And those from yesteryear

Made her send off inspired



All the Cardinal greats

Hero’s one and all

Made it back to pay tribute

And take a number off the wall



So on to the playoffs

With just one look in our eye

World Series our bust

We didn’t think we’d be denied



First up the Padres

[Glovey]

Meh.

[Schwahalala]

Part II - I can't get it all in one post - sorry.

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First up the Padres

Who had won the West

They went down in three straight

Reggie led a slugfest

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[size="3"]In the NLCS

We waited for the Astros

And after winning an 18th inning game

Into Busch they strode

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We split the first two

Then lost two more

And in the bottom of game 5

We were on baseball's death's door



But Eck fought his way on

Then Jimmy walked

And Albert would teach

Us something about heart



You see the hardest thing to kill

Is something not afraid to die

And when you're talking about the suicide kings

This was certainly no lie.



That took us to game six

And what ranks as truly a shame

We finally had a

Poorly pitched game



So out once again

Not even as far as last year

Yet the fans stayed

Yet the fans cheered



They cheered for the stadium

[font="Times New Roman"]They cheered long and hard

They cheered for a team

That were the suicide Cards

[Glovey]

It eventually gets better, right?

[Schwahalala]

QUOTE(GloveSaveandaBeauty @ Oct 24 2005, 07:06 AM) Quoted post

It eventually gets better, right? [/b][/quote]

No - that's it -