The Cardinal one sees while talking to strangers in a Busch Stadium parking lot before Game 7.

Of course I stuck around St. Louis for Game 7.

I didn’t have a ticket.

I figured I wouldn’t be much happier inside the stadium if they won the World Series.

(Yes, I would be.)

But not that much.

I wandered toward the Hilton and cut back through a parking lot.

I stepped around Texans tossing footballs, and someone singing along with James Brown.

(At least the Texans have a backup, I thought.)

As I was walking back toward the stadium, a man approached me.

“You have such a great smile! I just noticed it right away!” he said.

(Hi.)

“Ah, thank you,” I told him.

He blinked twice, but his eyes stayed glassy.

He introduced himself and his girlfriend.

I shook their hands but forgot their names.

I told them I was at Game 6.

His girlfriend said they watched it at home. She fell asleep, until he woke her with a yell.

“Oh, my gosh!” she explained.

I smiled.

(It must’ve been 4 before I finally fell asleep.)

And then I saw a tall man walk by with an assistant.

“Hey,” I said, “Isn’t that Jack Clark?”

(But I knew that it was.)

“That’s Jack Clark!” I told the tailgater.

“Oh my god!” he said, and ran toward Clark to shake his hand.

(I couldn’t quite move. Plus, well.)

The tailgater returned.

“We’re just here in the parking lot and Jack Clark walked by. Now, that’s cool,” he said happily.

(And it was.)

“Have a beer with us!” he told me.

Why not?

He grabbed a can from a cooler and handed it to me.

Budweiser, of course, and mercifully cold.

A photographer in a green shirt asked the couple to pose on their truck for a photo.

The photographer stood on the hood and captured a kiss, with the stadium lights glowing in the background.

Then she asked the three of us to pose together.

“This is as close as I’m gonna get,” he told me, like he had to remind himself.

The couple told me to come back if I got bored, and he handed me a beer to pack into my shoulder bag.

Then they hugged me.

And I wandered away.