The Gridbirds in the Super Bowl?
Dec. 19, 1983: Before thousands of empty seats, tackle Dan Dierdorf shares a laugh with Coach Jim Hanifan in Dierdorf's last game as a Gridbird. (Post-Dispatch)
On Tuesday, a reporter for Channel 11 sports named Kurt LaBelle called to ask how I felt that the Arizona (nee, St. Louis) Cardinals would be playing in the NFC champship game Sunday, with a berth in the Super Bowl on the line.
I hadn’t thought much about it, which I guess is an answer in itself. Nonetheless, LaBelle schlepped over to interview me so I summoned some thoughts. (To see LaBelle’s scintillating interview with me and Jim Otis, the slowest man ever to rush for 1,000 yards in an NFL season, click here).
A long time ago in a galaxy far away, I was a sports columnist for the Post-Dispatch, and one of my tasks was writing about the football Cardinals. Twenty-four years ago this month, team owner Bill Bidwill summoned me to lunch and gave me a scoop: He’d begun listening to offers from other cities. He needed a better stadium deal.
Thus began three long years of writing about efforts to keep the Cardinals (remember the McNary dome in Earth City?). It came to naught, after the 1987 season, Bidwill fled to Phoenix (actually Tempe, Ariz.) and the Gridbirds became the Arizona Cardinals.
I also thought he’d shortchanged St. Louis — the team ought to at least host a home playoff game before it makes stadium demands — but that was before Georgia Frontiere and the Rams redefined the meaning of “shortchanging” a city. Hey, Billy actually lived here.
I rooted against the Cardinals for many years, but gradually I stopped caring much about them one way or the other. All of the guys who’d been “St. Louis” Cardinals left the league, as did all the team executives. I didn’t know anyone there.
Besides, they sucked as much in Arizona as they did in St. Louis. Then, three years ago, Billy finally got the stadium he’d been hankering for. And lo and behold, the Gridbirds are now, finally, in the NFC championship game.
As I told Kurt LaBelle, maybe the statute of limitations has worn off. I no longer begrudge Billy his success. Besides, as I look back on my years of covering the team, I remember, in addition to a lot of bad football, a lot of good times. That should have been the team’s motto: “Always entertaining, but never any good.”
George Boone’s draft-day surprises — Larry Stegent, Clyde Duncan, Steve Pisarkiewicz. The constant merry-go-round of coaching changes. The utter inabilily to find anyone who could kick straight. The bizarre mangled Mozart of a fight song.
I’m getting all nostalgic. I wish the Rams were in Arizona and the Gridbirds were back here. But maybe that’s just me.
Kevin Horrigan is deputy editor of the editorial page. He writes editorials on local, state and national politics and public policy and also contributes a signed column to the Sunday Commentary Page. "The Old Sport" is a former sports columnist for the Post-Dispatch and for 10 years hosted radio talk shows on KMOX and KTRS in St. Louis. He lives in South St. Louis with his wife, Kate, and a dream of one day starting a professional catfish noodling tour. 
Go Kurt Warner!