DENVER — Not too far from where Coors Field is now, just down the Boulder Turnpike headed toward Boulder Valley and the mountains is the “Scenic Overlook” that was a landmark of my youth. It’s a quick pull off Highway 36 and it offers a panaromic view of the signature Flatirons and the valley.

It’s also high enough to be one of several places you could tune in KMOX.

Had the phrase existed years ago it would have been called a Cardinals Hot Spot.

So many places have one.

The Stan Musial Society was created at the footsteps of the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., because the founders started recognizing cars that came to the high point to tune in Cardinals’ games. In New Orleans, KMOX came in loud and clear and a pocket of Cardinal Nation received sustenance on the porches of the Garden District. From Boulder to the bayou to even Baraboo, Wis., a region of fans was planted and cultivated by the reach of KMOX.

Even today, Extra Innings packages on TV and the ever-expanding MLB.com universe allows the Cardinals’ diaspora to turn on, tune in and drop Shannonisms. In New York City, Dewey’s Flatiron — a bar in the shadow of Manhattan’s Flatiron Building — has become a hub for Cardinals fans to gather and watch games, as they did packing the place during 2006 playoff run, which came through their backyard.

So, what if there was a map, a redistricting of the United States not by red states and blue states but by Reds states and ‘Birds states? How vast would the Cardinals Nation be? The size of Texas? Larger.

Nike attempted to answer that question:

Found the above map while searching for a birthday gift for the little man. A larger picture of it is available here at Strange Maps, where I first came upon a discussion about its arbitrary take on each team’s fanbase. (Seriously? The Dodgers tightly bunched in on the left coast; like Massachusetts of the western divisions?) You’ve probably stopped reading already and are right-clicking it onto your desktop.

It’s a beauty, to be sure.

But it looks more like a broadcast coverage map than a true charting of fanbases. Where’s the Yankees’ stronghold in Florida? The Cubs hold on Las Vegas and the little island around Ho Ho Kam Park there in Arizona? The map was the illustration developed by Nike and MLB.com for their The United Countries of Baseball campaign, which was conducted last year. There’s a poll there designed to use Zip Codes to map allegiance, and if you haven’t done so already there’s a much larger picture of the above map there designed for desktop use.

CLICK HERE FOR THAT

It’s an unscientific poll — as much a piece of artwork, like this baseball map, as true cartography — but the span of Cardinals Nation has to surely take shape with the information provided. (There is, after all, a Cardinals’ blog based in Ireland!) One Web site attempting to do just that. Collect enough information to create what will be a census of fandom.

The Commoncensus Sports Map Project is gathering votes to define the geography of every fan base, from MLB to NFL to even college football. Nearly 26,000 fans have participated in the MLB voting at the Web site. Updated in August 2007, this was map produced:

Another page on that Web site allows for a detailed breakdown on different regions. Consider the 200-mile-diameter region that would include the “Scenic Overlook” described early. The Cardinals received the fourth-most from the straw poll in that region:

1. Colorado Rockies … 205

2. Boston Red Sox … 43

3. Chicago Cubs … 29

4. Cardinals … 23

5. New York Yankees … 18

A few years before the Colorado Rockies came to the Time Zone Baseball Forgot, The Denver Post ran a poll of its readers to adopt a baseball team. The Cubs were the odds-on favorite. Because WGN was available here, if you watched a game on TV it was probably on most days a Cubs game. One of the reporters who worked on the project said the response was so overwhelming it fritzed the phone system a few times. The overwhelming winner was a surprise to some.

The adopted team was the Cardinals.

So it’s with little surprise that last night in the press box a few of its denizens were discussing the partisan crowd that has come for a midweek series in Denver. School is still in session. It’s the middle of a work week. You wouldn’t think Cardinals’ fans are migrating just yet. So, why red-tinged and hearty cheers Monday when Albert Pujols slid home with the game-winning run? Just another Cardinals Nation annex.

Call it unincorporated.

Any other maps out there? Any precincts yet to report? Any other outposts to be counted?

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