A very upset reader today accused us of putting the Cardinals on the front page day after day because Lee Enterprises owns part of the team. (When Lee purchased Pulitzer, it acquired the less-than-4 percent ownership Pulitzer had in the Cardinals.) He said we were ordered to promote the “sorry team.”

That minority ownership of the team had nothing to do with the decision to use photos of Cardinals fans on Page One.

We had a small picture above the St. Louis Post-Dispatch flag on Monday, as a preview of Opening Day. We had a lead picture on Tuesday morning as part of our Opening Day coverage — when rain washed away the baseball game and turned a day of player and fan celebration into an agonizing waiting game. We’ve always considered Opening Day as kind of a holiday in St. Louis.

Today’s photo was more a matter of desperation. Frankly, we had very few photo options for the page. The alternative selection offered by our photo editors was the picture that ran on Page A8 of the five “Big Oil” chiefs testifying before Congress.  We passed on that and instead opted for a third straight day of the Cardinals, figuring it was the more interesting and more relevant photo for our readers.

Three photos of the Cardinals atop Page One in three days certainly pushed — probably exceeded — the limits for all of us.  Now that we’ve reached Game Two of 162,  I suspect it will be some time before a Cardinals photo again appears on the front page.