Saturday...

This Saturday, I'll be in St. Louis for a game against the Rays (formerly affiliated with Satan, but have since found redemption). Pitching probables (and I'm crossing my fingers) Adam Wainright (Cardinals Ace and World Series/NLCS hero) and Matt Garza (who I know very little about). I'm super-pysched and it's taking all the strength I can summon not to put you all (all 3 of you) through another countdown (wedding-style!).
The only other time I visited St. Louis, I was 8 or so. As I've mentioned, my Dad was a Cardinals fan since he was young, and so was I. Being that I was young, I don't really remember a lot about the trip. I remember seeing Willie McGee's face on a giant (huge, even) scoreboard. I remember the pixilated dots of the old scoreboard, that had a redspot on his right cheek for some reason. (I assume that for PR reasons this wasn't a zit they were representing.)
I remember we were sitting way up high looking down on the artificle turf. Everyone looked so small, like the little green army men I would sometimes play with later. My dad was showing me how to keep score again.
And I remember picking up extra plastic cups that other people left behind after the game. I poured beer out onto the concrete completely confused that someone would leave these treasures behind. I felt guilty making off with the ten or so I stacked between my hands and my chin, but they were still being used in my househond when I graduated high school.
And that may or may not have been the day we ended up getting a round Cardinal pillow that I used to sleep with in highschool. I seem to remember us getting it that trip, but I can't quite trust my memory of it.
I think we saw two games, though it may have been three. And I have no idea what happened in any of the games. I can't even remember who the other team was (though I want to say Mets).
I remember at the hotel we watched Popeye on TV for a while. I know I'd seen some Popeye cartoons before, but I remember thinking it was so foreign to see him having his own show. And I think this is also where I found out there was a Popeye's Chicken. And it was very confusing that they were not in fact related to one another.
And I definitely went up the Arch. I remember the elevator tilting and adjusting, tilting and adjusting us all the way up. I have no memory of the view.
It's odd. These are the concrete (more or less) things I remember from the trip, but thinking about them just makes me happy. The power of youth, I guess.