They’ve been branded as reckless and irresponsible, forced to throw baseballs at mattresses in hotel rooms to stay loose, and written off as dead after the baseball season played on without them while they quarantined from a COVID-19 outbreak.
Now the St. Louis Cardinals face an unprecedented challenge that will put them in the national spotlight the rest of the season, trying to play catch-up with 55 games in 44 days, beginning Saturday with a doubleheader against the Chicago White Sox on the South Side.
The degree of difficulty in cramming in so many makeup games into an already shortened season is staggering, akin to giving your opponent a 10-yard head start in a 50-yard dash.