Opening Day Festivities At Sportsmans Park Today. Cardinals Begin Season Today.

April 13, 1926

Before the First Pitch

Opening Day in St. Louis does not begin with the first ball thrown. It begins long before the gates open, carried in by years of habit and the same expectation that returns each spring.

The St. Louis Cardinals take the field today to open the 1926 season, and with it comes the usual weight of the day—new start, clean record, and a crowd ready to see it first.

There is tradition in it.

Men who have seen a dozen openers stand beside boys seeing their first. Scorecards are opened before they are needed. Conversations run ahead of the game itself—who will start, how the club will look, what this season may bring. It is the same talk each year, and it never loses its place.

At Sportsman’s Park, little changes—but enough does.

The grounds are set, the lines sharp, the seats filled early. There is nothing out of order, but everything carries that fresh edge that only Opening Day holds. The park is ready.

Outside, the street works just as hard.

Vendors line the approach, calling over one another. Sausage links turn hot for a nickel, wrapped quick and gone just as fast. Bottled drinks pass for a dime. Peanuts move steady. And the local staple holds its place—gooey butter cake, thick-cut and sold piece by piece to anyone with a coin ready.

You can eat before you ever reach your seat.

Inside, all attention turns to one thing.

The lineup card.

There is talk of it already. Most believe they know how the order will fall, but one piece is being held back—the starter. It has not been posted, and it has not been given. That is where the wait sits now.

We intend to have it first.

There is another matter running through the crowd, and it carries more talk than the batting order.

The uniforms.

The change is plain. The removal of the bird on the bat has not gone unnoticed, and it stands as the biggest point of discussion moving through the stands and along the street. It is not the record, not the manager, not even the opponent—it is the look of the club itself that has drawn the eye.

Rogers Hornsby enters his second year managing, but that is not the story this morning. The crowd is watching what the club is wearing before it watches how it will play.

The gates are full.

The card is not yet posted.

And the season waits on it.

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