Baseball fans from all teams will enjoy the behind the scenes look at the remarkable comeback from the St. Louis Cardinals in 2011. Tony LaRussa, their manager, already had it on his mind that he was expecting to retire at the end of the season. In a team meeting prior to the beginning of the 2011 MLB Baseball Playoffs, La Russa tells his players that sports are unpredictable. The best team or player can have an off day. Just come in as prepared as you can be and play the best of your ability.
What was not expected was how the team would come from ten and a half games back to make it to the playoffs on the final night of the regular season. In fact, the last five games of the season were elimination games but they wouldn’t go away. From there, they captured the World Series in breathtaking fashion twice being down to one last strike.
I was living in St. Louis in 2011 watching my favorite baseball team, the Cardinals, on TV every day. As the season dwindled down, I watched and worried and agonized with the rest of the city with ‘fingers crossed’ while our team fell further behind, ending up more than 10 games out with less than a month left in the season. As we went through September, the Cardinals came close to catching up, but every one of the last 5 games of the regular season was an elimination game.
This is a good baseball book that needs to be on every Cardinals fan bookshelf and should be under consideration for baseball fans from all teams.
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