Cards team up in assembly line to tackle 'Fan Mail Friday'
There might be a new Friday tradition in the works for the St. Louis Cardinals. Post-Dispatch reporter Derrick Goold walked into the clubhouse in Jupiter, Fla., to see an assembly line of players helping each other tackle stacks of fan mail.
- Peter Bourjos and Joe Kelly opened the letters
- Matt Carpenter would choose some to read out loud
- Michael Wacha was signing cards sent to him from fans
- Pat Neshek put the Wacha cards into the enclosed self-addressed stamped envelopes and sealed them shut
And roles would rotate when the next player's stack of mail was brought out.
It was an intricate operation, and it invited sarcasm and jabbing, teammate-on-teammate verbal crime. More than a few of the cards were pulled out of the stacks so that a teammate could explain what exactly he was doing with his facial expression.
Kelly suggested aloud that the group effort could be dubbed 'Fan Mail Friday', but the assembly-line idea comes from Neshek.
In Minnesota and Oakland, Neshek - who is a devoted card collector himself - and his teammates implemented the split duties of opening, organizing, signing and sealing.
Goold warns players aren't all automated, either. Scammers beware:
Some Cardinals do check to see if they get multiple letters from the same address or with different names and the same handwriting to ferret out the collectors. They're hunting for kids.