It's always fun when your team is winning, and so Cardinals fans have been having a delightful start to the season. Jordan Walker is playing like we were always promised he could; Wetherholt can't miss; O'Brien is lights-out; McGreevy and Liberatore are young, imperfect, and fun. It's already been a better season than many fans had been bracing for.
But while winning is fun, ask just about any baseball coach or baseball dad why they love the game, and they’ll almost always respond: “It’s a game of failure.” No other game teaches kids how to press on through failure, the way baseball does.
Remember 2023?
In his final season, seasoned ace pitcher Adam Wainwright gave us a beautiful, profound, and sobering lesson about failure: the pain, the uncertainty, and the joy of overcoming.
Wainwright came into the season having already shown signs of decline. The undeniable ace with the unhittable Uncle Charlie was slowing. His velocity was alarmingly down; he couldn’t get the swing-and-miss pitches like he used to. And his famous curveball just didn’t have it: hitters gobbled up his signature pitch, hitting 10 homers off it in his final season.
But Waino had 195 wins, and ever the competitor, he was hungry for that 200 mark. Only 119 other pitchers had ever reached it.
It soon became clear that Waino was only one part of a larger story that would be the utterly disappointing 2023 Cardinals season: the team never rose above the .500 win mark after their 7th game in the 162-game season. Waino notched a win here and there through the spring, but then the wins dried up.
He went on the Injured List, with alleged shoulder pain. Maybe his shoulder hurt. Or maybe it was just wore out. Maybe the aging ace was aging faster than he thought he would. Failure looks different when you're 22 than it does when you're 42.
After battling for win number 197 on June 17, Wainwright couldn’t buy a victory. He pitched 15 games without a win over the next 13 weeks.
We all watched, uncomfortable, sensing the urge to look away. It was painful. The strong become weak. The once-dominant pitcher now battered by hitters who — for the first time in more than a decade — seemed eager to face Waino.
June wandered into July, which aged into August, which stumbled into September, and everyone wondered: was he finished? Too worn out to hit the legendary milestone?
In my home, Wainwright’s public struggle presented ample opportunities to talk with my then-12-year-old son, a pitcher on his team, about humility, perseverance, and failure.
When Number 50 deleted his Twitter page (perhaps inadvertently setting a good example for the rest of us), it was clear the hurt was more than muscle and sinew. The Twitterverse was clobbering the pitcher online as he continued being beaten by batter after batter on the diamond.
And then, on September 18, number 198 finally arrived. Five days later, it was followed by 199, and suddenly we all felt Adam could do it. In spite of a disappointing record, Cardinals fans now had something very specific to cheer for. Just one more win.
On September 26, 2023, Waino pitched seven shutout innings. Surreal: the old wizened pitcher slung and spun and lobbed (a 68mph curve) and cut every kind of pitch he could muster.
And in the second inning, Adam's new companion behind the plate, Willson Contreras, knocked the single homer that gave the Cardinals the 1-0 win against the rival Brewers.
It was poetic on too many levels.
And it was a reminder baseball fans will never forget.
Wainwright showed us that youth quickly fades, but wisdom outlasts it. He taught us how to fail publicly, and carry a sense of responsibility and humility through it. He taught us about the glory of hard work, perseverance, and achievement. And he reminded us that victory is sweetened by the struggle.
Watching this young Cardinals team in 2026, I remember Waino’s early days too. In fact, I still have a baseball with his face on it—one of those fan giveaways from when he was an up-and-comer.
These talented young guys on this year’s team—if they last—can hope to someday be like Adam: grinding to the bitter end. Or as Kipling put it, “force your heart and nerve and sinew / to serve your turn long after they are gone.”
That’s greatness.
And it’s fun imagining who on this team may someday be as inevitable of a Hall of Fame pick as Waino is now.
Go Cards.
The sold-out crowd at Busch Stadium was already having a blast, even before Uncle Charlie sh…
