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St. Louis Cardinals

Dream Weaver

Anyone who followed baseball this year knows the story of Jeffrey Charles Weaver. After going 3-10 with a 6.29 E.R.A. with the Los Angeles/Orange County Angels of Anaheim/Pasadena/Tustin/Southern California region, and being replaced in the rotation by his little brother Jered, he was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals. The Cards’ struggling, injury-depleted pitching staff needed help, and while acquiring Weaver seemed like it would help less than having A-Rod on your postseason roster, it was better than nothing.

Maybe a little change of scenery would do Weaver good. Maybe being traded to a contender would give him a little fire on the mound; a little more motivation. After his fourth start as a Cardinal, the hope for a turnaround was dwindling along with the Cardinals’ playoff hopes. His line after that loss to the Atlanta Braves read as follows: 4 IP, 8 H, 6 ER, 2 HR, 2 BB, 1 K.

Sure it looked bleak for a while, but who doubts Weaver now?

A couple months after that horrible outing against Atlanta, Jeff Weaver was jumping up and down in a mosh pit of red in the middle of the Busch Stadium infield. Weaver proved to be a consistent starter down the stretch and a solid #3 throughout the playoffs and got the win in the clincher in game 5 of the World Series. But, who would have thought it?

Weaver finished the 2005 season with the Los Angeles Dodgers and set career highs in many categories, including wins (14), strikeouts (157), and walks (43). Naturally, expectations were pretty high when he crossed over to the Angels in the off-season to bolster their rotation.

Needless to say, things didn’t exactly go the way Weaver or the Angels expected them to. He was more inconsistent than usual, and just could not seem to stop the other teams from scoring. It got to the point where one almost expected the Angels to lose when Weaver was pitching.

Partway through the season, Weaver’s younger brother, Jered, was brought up to fill a spot in the rotation. As the Angels’ injured starters began to return to their normal rotation spots, Jeff was eventually pushed out by his brother’s superior talent and performance.

The Angels were left with no choice but to release the troubled veteran. Things looked bleak for Jeff, because after his performance in the first half of the season, who would take a hopeless pitcher like him? Luckily, there was a National League team who was beginning to look just as hopeless as Weaver, and they ended up being the perfect remedies for each other.

Weaver, though slow out of the gates in St. Louis, managed to be consistent enough to become a mainstay in their paper-thin rotation. As the Cardinals barely hung on to their N.L. Central lead to make the playoffs, nobody expected much of them in the postseason. But those doubters, myself included, were guilty of overlooking some key factors.

First of all, Scott Rolen was just getting back to full health, David Eckstein was returning, and on top of it all, Weaver was pitching very well. Instead of taking all this into consideration, the general consensus outside of St. Louis seemed to be that they wouldn’t even stand up to a weak San Diego team in the first round. And if they did, there was no way they’d get past the New York Mets in the NLCS. But, the Cardinals did get past both teams and advanced to the World Series riding, more than anything, the pitching of Weaver, Chris Carpenter, and Jeff Suppan.

Weaver started games 2 and 5 against the Detroit Tigers in the World Series. He pitched respectably in game 2 against Kenny “Dirty Hand” Rogers but was eventually out dueled in the only loss the Cardinals suffered in the series. After victorious efforts from Carpenter and Suppan, Weaver started game 5 in St. Louis and silenced the Tiger bats for the most part, getting the win in the game and an even bigger victory in winning a World Series.

Who would’ve thought? Jeff Weaver at the end of this season celebrating a World Series victory in Cardinal red, not Angel red. And who would’ve thought? After his forgettable first half, Jeff Weaver getting the last laugh, earning a precious ring that every player covets.

So, what do we do now? Baseball is over, and while the Weaver story may not be as inspiring or incredible as the Boston Red Sox 2004 curse-breaker, it gives us reason to wait. Now we wait and contemplate what possible changes will occur before the beginning of the best season in the world.

Baseball season: when we, the fans, will be dragged through a torturous 162-game wait to find out what will be the Cinderella topic we all sit around and write about at the end of next October. I mean, we could always watch hockey, football and basketball, but we all know that’s just a habit to pass the time as we await the arrival of spring.

“Ooh dream weaver/I believe you can get me through the night/Ooh dream weaver/I believe we can reach the morning light.”

As Gary Wright so eloquently put it (though I highly doubt he intended this song to be about a troubled pitcher), Jeff Weaver helped pull the Cardinals through the October night, and he reached the morning light after a long, dark nightmare of a season.

One reply on “Dream Weaver”

Weeeeeeaverrrrr I hate Jeff Weaver, but for some reason felt I should read this. Ugh, did he really win a world series ring?

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