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Cards Head Into Offseason With Taste For More Next Season
By Mike Eisenbath of the Post-Dispatch
October 17, 2000
Fernando Vina clearly had been crying right after the Cardinals lost to the New York Mets on Monday night to fall in five games in the National League Championship Series.
The tears flowed because he knew the Cardinals' season had ended. They flowed again when he saw teammate and buddy Edgar Renteria overcome with emotion at his locker. And again when he saw the tears in manager Tony La Russa's eyes.
"You feel bad," Vina said Tuesday afternoon while cleaning out his locker at Busch Stadium. "You work so hard and you see a dream ahead of you. You've been around the same guys for months. It's tough. It was a bad feeling, an empty feeling in your stomach."
He and the other Cardinals found solace in realizing how far they had come in one year, how much of the team had been assembled during the offseason and turned into a formidable winner.
But that didn't make the feeling disappear completely. And it didn't change the attitude they expect to have when they show up at spring training next year.
"Hungrier," Vina said. "We did get a taste."
That taste of the postseason, of winning a division title as a team but not advancing to the World Series, had a certain sweetness. But they prefer to take a bigger bite next time, to swallow it all.
"No doubt that going further is the next satisfaction for this team," La Russa said.
Tuesday was a day for goodbyes. After their flight back from New York didn't arrive in St. Louis until about 3 a.m. Tuesday, it took them a while to appear at the ballbark. Eventually, players filtered in at staggered times. They packed up clothes, signed some final autographs for one another, shook hands and wished one another a peaceful winter.
The offseason will pass quickly. Though not quickly enough.
The hunger should be increased for players such as Jim Edmonds, Dave Veres and Vina, veterans who had waited a long time in their careers to get to the playoffs. That hunger should be increased for players such as Garrett Stephenson, J.D. Drew and Rick Ankiel, young men who played prominent roles on a team while still trying to prove themselves as big-leaguers.
"A lot of us never got to that point," Vina said. "We won our division. We beat the Braves (in the Division Series). We were in the National League Championship Series. It was a good experience. It was a time that you cherish."
That hunger will even be increased for players such as Mark McGwire and Shawon Dunston, who had been on postseason teams before but found the experience more invigorating with these Cardinals than any other teams.
"I felt something I never felt when I was in the Series with the A's," McGwire said. "It's just an unbelievable feeling. When I say and everybody says they want to be on a winning team, a competitive team, that's the feeling you want to feel. It's hard to describe. But it's something I never felt on a team level until this time because I didn't know the game when I was younger.
"Now that I see and feel what I feel, I'll never forget that feeling. It'll probably be even sweeter if we get back there."
Starting pticher Darryl Kile isn't sure the Cardinals will actually be a hungrier team next season. He isn't sure it's possible, since these Cardinals impressed him as being more focused and more prepared to win every day than any team he has seen.
But he noticed something special happening with the Cardinals that he expects to resume when they gather in Jupiter, Fla., in late February.
"Everyone became addicted to winning," Kile said. "And that is a very, very good thing. Everyone wants to get back to it."
Players such as McGwire think this could be the beginning of something special in Cardinals history. Almost all the members of this year's team should return. And they want to celebrate more often.
That team chemistry so many of the players talked about with glowing pride could be even better, since they will start next season as friends who "never had even one fight or even deep argument this year."
The team chemistry, the 95 victories, the Central title, the upset of the Braves - all well and good. But these are the Cardinals.
"For the franchise, with its glorious history, losing in the LCS makes it not that special of a year," La Russa said. "For this team, to get three wins away from the World Series, it was real special. This team got a little farther than it should have. So this team fits into the Cardinals history terrific, but in the end, you get judged here by pennants and world championships. They don't give you anything for winning a Division Series.
"For some fans, if you didn't get to a World Series and play for the world championship, then it's not a special club. I think there are other fans that watched this team really close, they realize how special this club is. And it ranks with just about any they've had here. These guys were a true team. I have no regrets except historically we're not one of the Cardinals' World Series teams."
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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