4 In '04

These days, I feel like I’m surrounded by more Cardinals fans than Cubs fans. I don’t know if Cards fans remain dormant until their team does well or if there’s an abundance of “front runners” living in my hometown. But, either way, Cardinals fans are a plenty.

One of the guys I work with is a Cardinals fan, and he is one of those Cardinals fan who enjoys the team year in and year out. Last year, around mid-September, I made a wild prediction to him. I said the Cardinals will make the playoffs and the Red Sox will not, which happened. When the playoffs started, I told him the Cardinals will win the World Series, and he didn’t believe me. Well, I was right again.

My co-worker isn’t one of those people who rubs wins/losses in other people’s faces, which is nice. We, as well as our boss who used to be a Cubs fan and is now claiming the Pirates are his team to watch, have nice, intellectual conversations about baseball.  We discuss teams, players, politics, games, etc. It’s great.

However, every now and then the term “4 in ‘04” comes out… and it’s not usually from me. We’ll talk about the 2004 World Series and how that term, “4 in ‘04” means something different to either of us (me being the Red Sox won the World Series in four games, he being the Cards were swept in four games). It’s all about momentum, really.

The Sox had the momentum in 2004; the Cards had the momentum in 2011. Late last week, I changed my background desktop on my work computer to the following picture:



This picture was to commemorate Varitek. For the record, I have also used this picture as a background as well:



Well, my co-worker saw my desktop today and quietly said “4 in ’04.” For me, the picture makes me smile. The Sox finally won the World Series, Varitek became Captain shortly afterwards, and Arroyo had cornrows. I might switch my background from time to time; but for the moment, it’s going to be this shot of the 2004 World Series Champion Boston Red Sox.