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Plenty of cardinals in Saturday's Belleville News-Democrat

You will be seeing plenty of cardinals -- both the Roman Catholic and the St. Louis kind -- in the Saturday edition of the Belleville News-Democrat.

Of course, the Roman Catholic cardinals will be part of the coverage of Pope John Paul II's funeral. I stayed up until 6 a.m. today watching the TV coverage of the pope's funeral, and it was an amazing outpouring of faith. Last Friday and Saturday, I designed 14 pages about the pope's life and death. You can see the News-Democrat's front page April 3 at News Page Designer. I was reasonably happy with it, but I like what other papers did with the pope's death better. You can see some of those at News Page Designer's special section on the pope; please note there are hundreds of pages at this site from throughout the week since he died. You also can see some pages at Poynter Online, the Web site of the Poynter Institute, an influential journalism think tank.

While a small pocket of people thought the media coverage of the pope was overdone, I think the media generally gave the coverage the prominence and tone it deserved. Even if they often disagreed with him, the outpouring of love by Catholics throughout the world was genuine. Plus, his influence on world affairs cannot be underestimated, which is why he is revered by non-Catholics worldwide. It will be interesting to see who the cardinals will pick to succeed John Paul, but I know he will have a tough act to follow.

I had the privilege of seeing John Paul II during World Youth Day in Denver in 1993. Unfortunately, I was living in North Carolina in 1999 when the pope visited St. Louis. It was amazing how much young people really loved this pope. People slept outside with no tents between the Saturday night prayer vigil the pope led and the Sunday Mass. It was difficult to imagine a more spiritual moment, until I watched his funeral. In most cases, it would be difficult to image people breaking into applause and chants during a funeral, but it Pope John Paul II's case, it seemed just right.

As for the St. Louis Cardinals, the Redbirds open their final season in Busch Stadium this afternoon. I'm envious of my copy desk colleague, Julie Louis, who is off today and gets to see the game. Julie definitely earned the day off because she spent the past week putting together our Metro-East Guide. While my work last week on the pope was more intense, Julie's work was much more voluminous.

I have mixed feelings about the final season of Busch Stadium. Yes, it's one of the cookie-cutter stadiums built in the 1960s and 1970s, but it seemed to have more heart and soul than most of them. A lot of that is because of the loyal Cards fans, but I thought the design of the stadium was more baseball-friendly than most of the cookie-cutters. Once the St. Louis Rams moved to the Edward Jones Dome, the Cards' owners did their best to make the stadium even more baseball-friendly.

There are lots of memories tied to the stadium. My dentist friend from Cleveland, Marie Calabrese, and I attended a 1998 game against the Arizona Diamondbacks in which Mark McGwire hit three home runs en route to his landmark 70-home run season. I also saw Game One of the 1982 World Series, the last one that the Cardinals won.

But my fondest memory of Busch Stadium came during the 1987 season. The Cardinals were playing the Montreal Expos that evening with the chance to clinch the National League East title in a close race against the New York Mets. The Mets were already in town for the final home stand and were sitting in the auxiliary press box on the first-base side of the stadium. The Cardinals also had a T-shirt giveaway that night. At first, pockets of fans started waving their T-shirt. By the eighth and ninth innings, the entire stadium was roaring and waving T-shirts over their heads. When the Cardinals won the game, all the Mets could do was leave the auxiliary press box in silence.

I'm sure the new stadium will be beautiful. The seats should be even more baseball-friendly, but it's a shame the primary reason the Cardinals are building the stadium is because of the economics of baseball.

I'll miss you, Busch Stadium.

Roger 1 comments 2:04 PM

Comments:

I'd love a cycling shirt with Kramer and a #70 on it. any chance you have one?

# posted by  Anonymous : 7:10 PM

 

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