If a fan's base anger slips into apathy, what message can Cardinals deliver to reinspire the faithful?

Best Podcast in Baseball

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Sports, Baseball

4.8 • 673 Ratings

🗓️ 21 September 2024

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A year after "pitching, pitching, pitching" dictated the Cardinals' approach to the offseason, the club faces a far broader challenge this winter.

PR, PR, PR.

Or, as Best Podcast in Baseball guest Brooke Grimsley, noted: "Change, change, change."

The 2024 Cardinals' season comes to a close with the club trying ot break the hold of .500 and avoid a second losing season, what would be the first back-to-back losing seasons in a full schedule since Stan Musial played for the team in the late 1950s. Crowds, like wins and playoff appearances, have dwindled, and the one-off season the Cardinals promised after 2023 has become something more problematic for the club: a trend.

Grimsley, co-host of The Opening Drive at ESPN 101.1 FM/WXOS in St. Louis, said the feedback they've received from listeners and fans suggest that fans are moving from anger to acceptance to something more alarming for any club -- apathy.

With BPIB host and St. Louis Post-Dispatch baseball writer Derrick Goold, Grimsley discusses what messages and actions the Cardinals could take in the coming weeks and months to reanimate and engage the fan base. They discuss not just player movement and moves but how important comments, direction, and transparency from the front office could be, and what the role media plays in gathering that info and relaying it to fans.

The Best Podcast in Baseball, sponsored by Closets by Design of St. Louis, is a production of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, StlToday.com, and Derrick Goold.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The best podcast in baseball is brought to you by Closets by Design. Update your closet, garage, office, pantry, and more.
0:09.0	Imagine your home totally organized with closets by design. Call 1-800 by design. That's 1-800 by design.
0:17.0	The best way that I can describe it is apathy. And it's almost like the five stages of grief, you know, that you go through in many different situations in life that you could apply that to, where you go through denial, you go through anger, and then you go through acceptance and some of the other many stages.
0:32.6	But it felt like fans kind of Derek finally got to that acceptance stage.
0:37.9	And honestly, it's because of the product on the field.
0:47.4	Hello everybody and welcome to the best podcast in baseball brought to you by closet by design of St. Louis.
0:51.7	I'm St. Louis Post Dispatch baseball writer Derek Gould. Join this week, and I'm thrilled to have her.
0:55.7	Brooke Grimsley, co-host of the opening drive on 101 ESPN, WXOS in St. Louis,
1:01.9	a sports anchor Emmy-nominated sports anchor who moved away from TV to get into talk radio,
1:07.8	which is, well, how's that?
1:10.4	What, what's the behind? I'll just ask, why? Why?
1:14.7	What was it? Yeah. Well, first of all, Derek, thank you for having me on your podcast. As I told you
1:19.5	before, I'm a huge fan of the podcast and the work that, of course, you do with the post-dispatch.
1:24.0	I feel like I should be interviewing you in this situation, but this is such an honor.
1:28.3	I know I actually got that question the other day somebody came up to me and they're like,
1:32.3	why would you go from TV to and makeup, it's like a
1:45.0	whole, it feels like I was doing like a pageant every single day. The hours are honestly kind of
1:50.4	little behind the scenes, as you know, with the broadcasting industry, the hours are better.
1:55.6	And also to have the opportunity to be able to work with Dana Glockland and Randy Cariker,
2:00.6	I mean, two legends, St. Louis Legends, but also just broadcasting legends in general,
2:04.6	to be able to learn and grow around them has been a huge opportunity.
2:09.6	So it's been a lot of fun. I grew up also a sports radio fan.
	...

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