I’m not sure when the notion that Cardinals fans are “The Best Fans in Baseball” started. I think it was during the McGwire years or soon after when some high profile veterans chose to wind down their career in St. Louis, citing said fans as such. And the claim was repeated without much criticism for several years after, even by folks with no connection to St. Louis. National broadcasters not named Buck and McCarver and such.
In recent years TBFiB thing has started to grow quotation marks, with many mockingly citing it or only citing it when Cardinals fans do something that demonstrates the opposite. Joe Strauss of the Post-Dispatch is great for that, by the way. The point is, there is now way more of an eye-roll associated with TBFiB thing in the past couple of years, even if no one thinks the claim is particularly important one way or another.
Today Bernie Miklasz is going revivalist on the idea, giving a full-throated endorsement of Cardinals fans as The Best Fans in Baseball:This [Best Fans in Baseball] boasting annoys other fan bases, especially in Cincinnati, Milwaukee and on the North Side of Chicago. I’m sure that Red Sox fans throughout New England would dispute the St. Louis claim. The New York Yankees’ faithful would likely offer a few choice, colorful words of dissent.
Except that deep down inside, they know it is true.
Brave stance for a St, Louis radio/newspaper guy to take.
(just kidding Bernie, love ya, baby)
