The Cardinal Rule (One Sixty-Two: Day 48)

Writer’s note: One Sixty-Two is a season-long series of blog posts connecting baseball’s major-league players to life’s universal themes. Just as there are 162 games in a season, so there will be 162 posts in this series. Let’s play some ball.

Day Forty-Eight: Skip Schumaker, St. Louis Cardinals

Tomorrow, we’ll watch from our seats as our grown-up girl walks down the aisle, accepts her diploma and moves on to a brand-new stage of school and life.

Chelsea is graduating from preschool.

She has met all the prerequisites – she knows her alphabet, counts to 100, colors in the lines, uses her scissors, and goes to the potty all by herself. It is time for Chelsea to take those skills and add about a thousand more in kindergarten next year.

Perhaps most important of all, though, Chelsea has learned how to share. She knows that she can’t have everything to herself, so she’s willing to give up that purple crayon or that picture book when someone else wants a turn. What’s more, she knows that sharing also brings with it a greater chance of playing with someone else. And playing with others leads to friendships. I’ll take that life lesson over anything else Chelsea has learned so far. I think she gets its value, too.

Skip Schumaker is the starting second baseman for Tony LaRussa’s first-place St. Louis Cardinals. But if you play for LaRussa, and your last name is not Pujols or Holliday, then you’ve learned by now that you’re going to have to share your position a bit. LaRussa likes to mix it up, keeping everyone on their toes by trying new looks in the Cardinals’ lineup.

So yes, Schumaker has played in 54 games at second and batted more than 200 times this year. But he’s also taken a seat on the bench at times while other St. Louis players got a shot at second: Felipe Lopez (who himself shares shortstop with Brendan Ryan), as well as Tyler Greene and Aaron Miles. They’ve got a true second-base “center” over in Busch Stadium, and Skip has done a very nice job of playing nicely with Felipe, Tyler and Aaron. Mr. Tony has even given them extra recess time as a reward.

Chelsea has a whole summer ahead of her, and I can only hope she’ll play as well with her sister as she’s done with her preschool classmates. (Dream on, Dad.) Tomorrow, after her “graduation,” we’ll take a trip over to Rainforest Café for dinner. Inevitably, there will come a point in the meal when I’ll reach over to Chelsea’s plate and ask if I can have a couple of her French fries.

Remember the Cardinal rule, Chelsea: Don’t forget to share, even when Daddy is raiding your own meal. (It’s OK – you’ll get him back. More times than he can imagine.)