It's Easy To Root For A Winner

[Cardiac]

NJCardFan - we are about the same age and the similarities in our stories of becoming and remaining Cardinals fans are remarkable. I grew up in Reading, PA and reading your post was almost like reading something i had written years ago and forgotten - right down to learning to love football when the Cardinals were on top of the NFC East, the abundance of Stealers, Vikings, Cowboys, Dolphins, Broncos, and Raiders fans in southeastern PA, the excitement of watching the "Cardiac Cards" playing vs. the NFC East teams and on MNF, that horrible Thanksgiving day meltdown vs. the Dolphins, and the embarrassing loss to the Buccaneers... which marked the beginning of decades of awful teams that i nevertheless walked a mile to the drug store to loiter and read about in a skimpy writeup in Pro Football Weekly.

As Mitch mentioned, at the beginning were the days of watching the score scroll, then thankfully the advent of Sunday Ticket in the bars with no audio (though there was one cool place in Virginia with a speaker on each table that could be tuned to the audio of any game, the bars were usually too loud with stinking Redskins fans and the speaker battery usually got so weak before the end of the game that i would be holding it up to my ear. But in between the two, when i was in grad school in Atlanta in the late 1980s, i could drive to the northwest side of the highest hill in town, park under the radio towers for three hours, and listen to an AM broadcast from KMOX in St. Louis, which continued to cover the Cardinals until the Rams arrived, straining to follow the game as it faded in and out through intense static.

I had literally never met another Cardinal fan in my life until moving to California in 2006. Now i watch the games with fellow Cardinals fans (Cheesebeef, and Ouchie every now and then) at a sports bar or on Sunday Ticket, get the best possible news and insights on the team here at ASFN, travel to regular season and playoff games in a great, comfortable stadium in AZ (as well as away games in LA and SF) quite regularly, and even went to a Super Bowl in Tampa.

Boy have times changed for the better! But i would never appreciate it as much without having gone through so many awful years.

Thanks for the writeups, guys!

...dave

It is a small world, I was born in Reading Pa. and currently live in Allentown. I have lived in Atlanta and California as well. I became a Cards fans when my family moved from Pa. to St. Louis when Coryell became the HC for the Cards. Those Cardiac Cards years hooked me as I was just getting into watching the NFL (11 yrs old at the time) and the Cards were sooooo much fun to watch.

When my family moved back to Pa. we remained hard core Cards fans and as I got older I got a subscription to the St Louis Post Dispatch so I could get more Cards news. That ended when the Cards move to Az.

My favorite game ever was the NFL championship game against the Eagles and my second was the playoff win against the Cowboys. Crazy thing is that we also have the epic playoff wins against the Packers that IMO have become classics.

The change in the culture of the team since Michael has been involved is simply a dream come true. I was always loyal to the Cards but now I can truly be proud of my team as well.

 

[daves]

It is a small world, I was born in Reading Pa. and currently live in Allentown. I have lived in Atlanta and California as well.

That's crazy! One of these days, we are destined to watch a game together.

...dave

 

[Cheesebeef]

Love doesn't begin to describe it. Cheese was a grade school kid. I was in college. I called home every Sunday to speak to my folks and little cheesy. I swear to god he was the only gradeschooler who probably ever memorized offensive linemen stats. We'd talk for over an hour long distance about the game that week.

And that was talking about a team that FREAKING SUCKED back then!

 

[Osbern61]

I was born in Bucks County, right outside Philadelphia and became a Cardinals fan in 1972 mainly because I loved their logo. It was a close call because several years earlier I had seen there was a team called the Lions and that sounded cool, but I forgot about football for a bit. Reading all of the posts by you all brought back a lot of memories, so rather than rehash I'll just add listening into KYW radio at a quarter passed the hour and a quarter to the hour for their sports scores to see what the Cards did. I found Cards Corner on Aol back in 1997 which was the first contact I had with other Cardinal fans, which was great therapy!