“Never let the fear of striking out get in your way.” ~ Babe Ruth
I’ve lived by that quote from the legend Babe Ruth. I always try to get back up when life gets me down. Sometimes it seems harder than others. Sometimes it feels like you have a black cloud over your head and there is nothing you can do to overcome what life is throwing your way.
Welcome to the third installment of “Story Time With Dylan Holt”. Unlike the first two, this story isn’t quite as upbeat, at least for me, you might be able to find some sense of joy or comedy in my pain though.
I say all that because I think I’m cursed. I know that sounds awfully dramatic, but do me a favor and hear me out.
The world of sports is no stranger to curses. For proof here’s a list of some of my favorites.
- Colonel Sanders cursed the Japanese baseball team the Hanshin Tigers.
- In 1985, fans of the Hanshin Tigers celebrated a victory by going to a local KFC and stealing a statue of Colonel Sanders. They then threw the statue into the Dōtonbori River.
- The team would then come in last or near last for 18 years.
- Bobby Lane cursed the Detroit Lions.
- He vowed they wouldn’t win a title for 50 years after they traded him to the Pittsburgh Steelers.
- They didn’t and went 0-16 50 years after the trade.
- The Billy Goat Curse
- In 1945 Chicago Cubs fan William Sianis brought his goat to Game 4 of the World Series.
- Sianis was kicked out and vowed the Cubs would never win the World Series.
- After a 108-year drought, they finally won another World Series in 2016.
- The Curse of the Great Bambino
- The Boston Red Sox traded Babe Ruth to their arch-rivals the New York Yankees.
- Began an 83-year stretch of heartbreak, that the Sox have since been able to overcome.
Those are just a few examples of the hundreds of curses in the world of sports. I didn’t even mention the Madden cover curse or the Drake curse. These curses give fans something to blame instead of blaming their favorite teams for their shortcomings.
I believe I have either cursed or am the curse for one of my favorite teams. Like the billy goat curse, the curse of the great bambino, and Colonel Sanders, my curse is in the world of baseball. Unfortunately, it affects my beloved St. Louis Cardinals.
To understand the curse, you must understand my fandom. Unlike any other team, I have become a fan of, I was born a St. Louis Cardinals fan.
My grandfather was a fan his whole life. I lost my grandfather earlier this year and I miss the days of sitting with him and talking Cardinals baseball for hours until a Cardinals game came on TV. He would talk about guys like Ozzie Smith and Bob Gibson, while I would talk about the modern players, I remember talking about Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt with him last summer. The Cardinals were something that we truly bonded over.
To add to that, my uncle, Larry, played for the Cardinals. Which I’ve always thought was so cool. I can’t share any highlight’s from Larry’s days with the Cards, but I do have some newspaper clippings and his baseball reference page.
I learned from a young age, that if I was going to follow baseball, my favorite team would be the Cardinals.
You’re probably wondering, why is any of this bad? Well, being a Cardinals fan isn’t. They are one of the few bright spots in my sports fandom. I’ve seen the Cardinals win two championships; the 2006 World Series and the 2011 World Series as well as the 2004 National League Pennant and 2013 National League Pennant. Not to mention the great players I have watched in my life, it’s been a true pleasure to grow up watching guys like Albert Pujols, Yadier Molina, Adam Wainwright, Chris Carpenter, and so many more. I will be telling the story of the 2011 World Series until I die and David Freese will forever be one of my heroes.
Obviously being a fan of such a great organization, I like to attend games at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. I’ve been to 10 games at Busch Stadium going all the way back to 2005.
August 6, 2005: Atlanta Braves 8 St. Louis Cardinals 1
April 8, 2009: Pittsburgh Pirates 7 St. Louis Cardinals 4
June 30, 2011: Arizona Diamondbacks 4 St. Louis Cardinals 2
July 31, 2011: Chicago Cubs 6 St. Louis Cardinals 3
May 16, 2015: Detroit Tigers 4 St. Louis Cardinals 3
July 31, 2019: Chicago Cubs 2 St. Louis Cardinals 0
August 8, 2021: Kansas City Royals 6 St. Louis Cardinals 5
May 12, 2022: Baltimore Orioles 3 St. Louis Cardinals 2
June 24, 2022: Chicago Cubs 3 St. Louis Cardinals 0
July 9, 2022: Philadelphia Phillies 1 St. Louis Cardinals 0
It does not take a rocket scientist to see the trend, the Cardinals are 0-10 in the 10 games I’ve seen them play at Busch Stadium.
I have seen the Cardinals play once away from Busch Stadium.
April 23, 2022: St. Louis Cardinals 5 Cincinnati Reds 0
It makes no sense.
It wasn’t anything I really thought about until a couple of years ago. When we saw the Cardinals play the Cubs in 2019. My brother, Hunter, and I joked with a friend that we had never seen the Cardinals win. Of course, they would lose that day. Then it became a running joke before every trip, and as you can tell they have become more frequent. “Oh, the Cardinals are going to lose because we’re going.” We got our laughs but something deep inside of us truly believed that the Cardinals would win and what was now deemed a curse would be snapped.
On June 24 of this year, my brother and I took some of his friends to a Cardinals-Cubs game as a part of his bachelor party. This time we even told fans sitting around us about our bad luck. One lady ensured me that I would see the Cardinals win that night. By the end of the game, she told me I should stop coming to Busch Stadium because I must be “cursed”.
My brother has fully bought it and it’s killed his morale. He doesn’t want to go anywhere near Busch Stadium, because he feels as if the Cardinals will lose if he is in attendance. It’s hard to argue as the numbers pass it up.
Unlike my brother, I can’t wait to get back to Busch Stadium. It is my favorite place on planet Earth and I should in theory only have bad memories of the place. I long for the three-hour car rides from Western Kentucky to St. Louis, riding the metro train to the stadium, the smell of popcorn and nachos, the sounds of the baseball hitting a bat or glove, and all the other great attributes of my trips to Busch Stadium. They call it baseball heaven for a reason.
I’ve begun to believe in the curse, but like the curse of the bambino and the billy goat curse, I believe this curse will also end.
Sunday, August 7, 2022, I will return to Busch Stadium. In that game, the Cardinals will take on the best team in baseball: the New York Yankees. Will the curse of Dylan Holt finally end? 0-0iop8
