By Sally Tippett Rains
Cardinals fans Bill and Angie Ivie are a match made in Heaven– Baseball Heaven that is. They now live in Kansas City, but were in St. Louis recently to catch a Cardinals game and they ended up seeing a hot one. The game was literally hot due to the 100-plus temperatures and figuratively hot with the tempers flaring over the happenings of the game – in just the first inning– because it was the Cards-Cubs game where Miles Mikolas and Oli Marmol got ejected.
The Ivies don’t care about the weather or the circumstances as long as they get a chance to see their favorite team– the Cardinals. They both love to write about the Cardinals and Bill even had a notebook with him at the game. They used to attend games with the group, United Cardinals Bloggers– a group of enthusiastic Cardinals fans who love to write about them. There are Cardinals bloggers all over and all one needs to do to find them is Google.
They have met many bloggers and after moving to Kansas City, Bill still tries to keep up with some of them.
“I know a few writers, but not as many as before,” he said. “Daniel Shoptaw, the founder of United Cardinals Bloggers, still writes occasionally, and Dan Buffa writes some Cards stuff along with movie/television reviews.”
Bill Ivie moved to Missouri and became a Cardinal fan in 1985.
“We lived in a rural town south of St Louis and made it to quite a few games as ‘bleacher bums’ sitting in right field.”
Angie is a huge Cardinals fan and was a blogger herself when they met.
“I interviewed her about her blog ‘Cardinal Diamond Diaries’ when I was with Baseball Digest,” he said. “She eventually joined me at (his blog) i70baseball. The content from Diamond Diaries was eventually moved there as well.”
I-70 Baseball is a site he developed, and is dedicated to news and opinions about the St. Louis Cardinals and the Kansas City Royals. In recent years Ivie has been busy with work and his expanding family so he doesn’t blog as much, but his love of the Cardinals is always in his heart and it was fitting they came to St. Louis to watch the Cubs.
“We just got lucky the Cubs were in town for some rivalry!” he said. “We originally wanted to go to Saturday’s game to see Waino one more time, but ticket prices were better for Thursday, so we took advantage.”
They saw some excitement and lopsided loss didn’t bother them.
“It doesn’t matter the record of the team,” he said “I’m always excited to see some live baseball. Cards-Cubs just makes it a little more fun.”
They were glad they picked that game despite the heat.
“We’ve have had a crazy schedule this summer and just couldn’t get to a game,” Bill said. “School starts back up for Angie next week with staff meetings and prep work, so we knew this was our chance.”
