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What does Playoff Time Feel Like? I am a huge baseball fan and I love rooting for my team, The St. Louis Cardinals win or lose. I count down the days until Opening Day every off season and absolutely love the tradition involved with the scene at Busch Stadium every year on Opening Day, watching the Clydesdale's and motorcade of players. This time of year, however, is quite different than any other in the world of sports.

Hockey and football are well underway and the playoffs just started for major league baseball. It is quite an awesome feeling I get when my team clinches the division championship, which has happened three years in a row now. The feeling after winning a World Series and going downtown to watch the parade in the streets of St. Louis can't be beat by anything. But, the ride itself is special. The 162 game marathon with it's nuances is entertaining, to say the least. I don't say this just to throw out phony alternative feelings to the high I get being a fan of my team, but the road to the playoffs is genuinely thrilling.

The highs and lows that are thrown at us as fans of the game are at times almost too much to swallow. The feeling that is thrust upon us when our favorite player is helped off the field because he just crashed into the wall and hurt himself, maybe severely is not something that can be manufactured. These guys that I root for I will never know as friends, but they sure feel like it after all these years.

I have the shirts, bobble heads and ticket stubs to display proudly proving, yeah - when we lost in 2004, I was there. The extreme emotional swings that this ride takes me on is what it's all about. Knowing that somewhere out there in this vast world there is another fan thinking just as much about their team hoping they beat us tonight it - well - awesome! I love seeing all the opposing teams shirts, jerseys and pennants with all of their different color schemes. I don't hate the other teams at all. I used to have those feelings towards the opposite teams and their fans, but years ago I figured it all out. Without the other teams, we simply wouldn't have the sport and more importantly my team. The importance of fans and their support can never be fully appreciated. Fan support in baseball is directly related to the success of the franchise and vice versa. It is also directly related to the level of effort at times of the home team. Crowd support at home and quality upper management of the team's funds make a team either successful or otherwise. I am extremely lucky and happy at the same time that I have an ownership group in charge of my team that is so tirelessly in tune with improving this team. Year in, year out, the squad is ready to go. This season is a perfect example of how things can go with the right amount of support from a fan base and ownership group. The crowds that packed Busch Stadium this season and enjoyed many an evening at Ball Park Village, just over the left field wall, have put this franchise, once again, in a great position financially for next season. Options that otherwise wouldn't exist simply have become normal for this team. If we need to make a big splash to acquire a free agent, if he has proven himself worthy, we can. If we need some help from down on the farm, we have youth ready to come up and contribute to the big league squad. This point is well appreciated when I see a season like this past one go by. The amount of severe and repeat injuries to key players this season was unbelievable. What's more unbelievable is the success that we enjoyed in the standings, despite this. Wonderful control of the day to day operations of the team by the ownership group has allowed this to happen. What's more, we still have a chance to win. The players who took the spots of integral regulars in the lineup, make this franchise the success that it has been for years. Because of this, the team is poised to be just as successful for years to come. All of this, the ownership preparation and fan support is focused on getting to today, the playoffs and a battle with a divisional foe looking to change their history - forever. Tonight is game four of the NLDS and the Cardinals have their backs against the wall, a familiar spot for us. If we get past tonight successfully, game five at Busch will be tense for sure. If the opposition wins out this evening, I will tip my cap and congratulate them. This game is one constant in my life and I'm happy to embrace it as I have. The love of the game was given to me by my parents at an early age and it's not going away any time soon. Are you playoff ready?