As the wins keep piling up for the Springfield Cardinals, they’ve seemingly had a different player step up when they need it most every night. “The MVP of the game could be anybody,” said Cardinals manager Jose Leger.
And when they do step up, they have a special way of celebrating. You may have noticed.
“Yeah I think the chain is pretty cool,” said Cardinals catcher Nick Raposo. “A guy hits a homer and you put it on him in the dugout. It’s pretty cool. It’s a cool tradition.”
“When you come in after hitting a big home run, and you take your helmet off, and somebody basically crowns you with it, it’s electric,” added Cardinals first baseman Chandler Redmond. “It really gets the dugout going and gets everybody involved and into the game.”
Leger says the tradition goes back to his college baseball days when his teammates used to make the game MVP wear a cape around campus. Last season, players would earn an MVP hat. This year, Leger decided to change it up.
“I was like, ‘Man, how can I find something different than a hat?” said Leger, “That kind of gets sticky and sweaty. Then I looked up online and found this chain and I said ‘I think this should be fun.'”
And it’s not just for home runs. After the first win of the season, Leger chose an MVP to wear the chain after the game. And after every win since that MVP has chosen the next player of the game to wear the chain. “It could be a pitcher, it could be a great defensive player,” added Leger.
“You’ve got to give a speech,” added Redmond. “If you speak English, you have to do it in Spanish. If you speak Spanish, you have to do it in English. You either tell a joke or some kind of speech to fire up the team.”
With the way this team is playing, the players are having plenty of chances to brush up on their bilingual skills.
