Rental car caravan carried COVID-free Cardinals on I-55 road trip to Chicago
A tan-gray late model Chevrolet Malibu coursed up Interstate 55 just north of Litchfield on Friday morning with a St. Louis Cardinals staffer behind the wheel.
The car had a Florida license plate on the rear, a Massachusetts license plate affixed to its front and the word “CARDS” was scrawled across the driver’s side window in grease paint marker.
The staffer waved with resignation to the reporter passing in the left lane of the highway and gawking at the car. Being spotted was an occupational hazard of the cautious trip to Chicago to resume a season placed in purgatory by COVID-19.
Forty-one rented cars left Busch Stadium on Friday bound for a lakeside Chicago hotel. It will be, forever, the wacky tale of “Cardinal Ball Run.”
“I loved it,” said Cardinals manager Mike Shildt. “I thought it was great. We’re driving towards playing baseball and get back to competition and doing it separately but together. Took me back to some grassroot days, Legion ball, driving three hours to playoff games and tournaments and all kinds of fun stuff.”
Shildt was, by intention, the tail man in the convoy. That was driven largely by his required presence at his club’s home park, where for each of the last three days he and trainer Chris Conroy shagged fly balls as hitters worked for half an hour at a time to get some swings in.
It also, in part, allowed him to act as an emergency Triple A representative.
“I wanted to make sure I was the last one to leave in case somebody, you know, had something on the highway that I could pass by and pick them up,” he explained.
Shildt’s rented GMC Yukon was, as he explained it, “the last car that nobody wants.”
He spent the drive catching up with players and staff on the phone, plotting out the weekend’s plans and taking (metaphorical) temperatures regarding player readiness. He also spent some time listening to a devotional channel on satellite radio and quietly meditating on his team’s 17-day ordeal.
He did not, in other words, have the Harrison Bader experience, though he may have stopped in an unnecessary attempt to rescue his outfielder had he spotted him parked on the shoulder of I-57.
Bader described the process of selecting a car for the trip up as a free-for-all — no snake draft, no service time preference. Just sheer dumb luck based on arrival time at the park.
He arrived on time to find a white Ford Mustang convertible at the head of the phalanx of conveyances.
“I went with the convertible for obvious reasons,” he said. Top down for the whole drive? “Absolutely.”
Bader took 57 rather than 55 due to the preponderance of construction which reduced traffic flow to a single lane north of Pontiac — a wise decision, this columnist can confirm.
At one point in his journey, he stopped on the highway’s shoulder, though not, thankfully, as a result of being pulled over.
“What? No,” he replied when asked, and Shildt confirmed that to his knowledge no speeding tickets were assessed on the journey.
Since Bader was otherwise stopped, he recognized the value of a social media moment, and climbed on the vehicle— “standing on the car,” he said — to take a selfie with the highway behind him, mask in place. “WE BACK IN THE MIX,” the caption read.
You can hardly fault him for his excitement.
After 17 days without having taken the field as a team, Saturday’s scheduled double header against the White Sox represents a jump start to a team which has played only five games. The Los Angeles Dodgers have played 21.
Whether or not the delay was avoidable is now a moot point. It’s time to put the pedal to the metal.
“Everybody’s as optimistic as possible,” Shildt said. “Excited to get back to playing. One of the things we talk about, and it’s true, it’s easy to complain. It’s the easiest thing in the world to complain, but winners find solutions and that’s the mindset of this group individually and collectively.
“There’s been a ton of challenges for this group over the last couple three weeks, but we accept them and we move forward. We still support each other in a different manner. But we do it together.”
Shildt ran down the team’s renewed commitment to health and safety protocols in light of the coronavirus rampage which has affected 10 players and eight staffers and caused outfield coach and Cardinals Hall of Famer Willie McGee to opt out of the remainder of the season due to concerns about his health.
He pushed back forcefully against rumors abounding on social media that members of the team had gone to a casino or otherwise engaged in high risk behavior, explaining that even as he largely eschews consuming media coverage of the team, some had nonetheless come to his attention.
“It would be very irresponsible and a misstep to say that this group went out and did anything that was away from the field or at the field that was egregious,” Shildt said. “And to say something otherwise is — from my extensive conversations and understanding and being privy to live with it at the clubhouse — I can confidently tell you that anything speaking to irresponsibility would be inaccurate, strongly inaccurate.”
Responsibility now extends to mundane tasks like a lowly road trip.
Shildt pulled his rented truck into a self-serve garage on Friday night, hauled his luggage up to his hotel room, and will repeat the process on Saturday as the team caravans to Guaranteed Rate Park.
From there, if all goes as expected, they’ll resume normal travel operations, hopping back on socially-distanced busses for the week before a quick flight home.
“We’re gonna embrace it, we’re gonna enjoy it, we’re gonna get after it and we’re gonna take our best shot every single day like we always have,” Shildt said. “But we’ve gotta enjoy and appreciate it because we realize just how quickly it can be taken away.”
10-4, good buddy. Over and out.
This story was originally published August 15, 2020 at 9:54 AM.
