The St. Louis Cardinals are viewed by many outsiders as a grumpy old buzzard of a ballclub that looks down its beak at the young punks who strut their stuff and “don’t respect the game.” The Redbirds have been the Miss Manners of baseball for too long. It’s time to stop scolding. It’s time to stop hollering, “Get off my lawn!” It’s time to get over it.
“The Cardinal Way isn’t playing the right way, it’s making a big (bleeping) deal out of playing the right way,” Chris Thompson of Deadspin declared in 2017.