It was on the best World Series ever, the games weren’t always artistically pleasing, but there was enough drama and strange twists and turns and with a Game Six for the ages, fans have plenty to cheer about. Congratulations to the St. Louis Cardinals, no strangers to success, and winners of their eleventh World Series and second this century. They join the Boston Red Sox and become the first National League team to win two so far in baseball’s third century.

It really capped off a stunningly successful 2011 season for Major League Baseball, a season when the game got attention it hasn’t had for many years. I hope new fans have been drawn to the game, for as we know nothing, no sport, no game, can match baseball for tension, drama, and excitement. This year had it all in spades.

Yes the Texas Rangers came up short again but they are an exciting young team with many fine players. They have turned the attention of North Texas away from the Cowboys and high-school football and given people a taste of what October baseball can be. At least the fans there sent their team off a winner in its final home game.

It was a great World Series for the heartland, an all Central Time Zone series for the first time since 2005 when the Chicago White Sox swept the Houston Astros. I got to talk with fans of both teams when I visited Chicago last week and Ryan the Cardinals fan at Enterprise Rent-a-Car you may have been feeling low after Game Two but you’re flying high now and the guy in the Rangers hat on the shuttle to O’Hare sorry for your disappointment there is always next year.

There are 41 possible post-season games and this year we played 38 of them, only once before since 1995 has that happened. Seventh games have become rare in the current era, only four in the seventeen years, and this was the first since 2002. Fans who have come of age probably don’t remember that last time.

So for my good friends Tom and Bob who are Cardinals fans you probably won’t be reading this and I won’t tell you that I was happy your Redbirds beat my Phightins, but I am happy for you and maybe now you can quit complaining about Don Denkinger’s blown call in Game Six of the 1985 World Series.