Dewey Defeats Truman!

The St. Louis Cardinals defeated the New York Mets in the 2006 National League Championship Series by a tally of 4-3 in a decisive Game 7 in which St. Louis again received support from the unlikeliest sources. Yadier Molina, who hit .216 during the regular season but looked like Roy Campanella during a seventh inning mound conference with Jeff Suppan, went deep in the top of the ninth with one man on to put the Cardinals up 4-2.

The national media seemed unprepared to report the Cardinals' victory. Postgame reports on ESPN documented the Cardinals' recent history of postseason failures, as opposed to their businessslike domination of the National League since their loss to the Mets in the 2000 World Series.

It also didn't escape the attention of the discerning observer that the FOX production crew, from the studio to the pressbox, consistently, seemed "enamored with" the story of the ascendance of the 2006 Mets, particularly as their postseason success contrasted with the ineptitude of the cross-borough Yankees. If "D"etroit is the national media's darling of "D"estiny, the Mets, the dominant regular season Mets, were their Yankees Lite.

Instead of reporting the Cardinals' victory, and the plays that contributed to it--Yadier Molina's bomb in the top of the ninth inning; Adam Wainwright's curve to end it in the bottom--ESPN was talking about the plays that "were overshadowed in the loss." Endy Chavez' brilliant catch?

So how'd that work out, Endy? How'd that work out ESPN, headquartered in Bristol, Connectituct?

Let's take a look at postseason Web Gems--like Endy's--instead of the story of how the Cardinals beat the Mets.

All y'all haters can suck my motherfucking dick. We won, bitches. "Cardinals can choose to choke now or choke later." Choke later, funboys...

Adam Wainwight, a 25 year rookie closer who took the job in Septembrer when Jason Isringhuasen finally ended a subpar season with a trip to the DL, struck out Cardinals nemesis Carlos Beltran to end the sereis and clinch the Series berth. Beltran has owned the Cardinals during his postseason career. But on Thursday night, the handful of red-clad Cardinals fans who braved the misty Queens night against about 50,000 flag white-flag-waving Mets fans celebrated silently but animatedly in the aisles of Shea Stadium.

Outcasts in Queens, the Cardinals' clubhouse of bargains and retreads happily toasted with their countrymen back home in St. Louis and in their respective adopoted home cities in the national diaspora of ambitous Midwesterners. And in the process, they joined the Detroit Tigers in the 1956 World Series.