Fan Spotlight: He says he has Cardinals baseball in his DNA

April 23, 2026 Sally Tippett Rains St. Louis Cardinals 0

By Sally Tippett Rains

Gene Bonds is so passionate about the Cardinals he  and his friend Derek King started a fan page called Gateway Sports to help spread the love of the team to other fans.
“I’ve been a St. Louis Cardinals fan for as long as I can remember—probably since I was around five years old,” he said. “I grew up during the era of ‘Whiteyball,’ watching guys like Ozzie Smith, Willie McGee, and Vince Coleman. Those are memories that can’t be replaced.”

HIs childhood memories are similar to many from St. Louis during that time.

“I’m an only child, but I was lucky to grow up surrounded by great neighborhood friends who shared the same passion for Cardinal baseball. Summers meant waking up early and spending all day in the backyard playing wiffle ball until the streetlights came on.”

And as Cardinals fans from St. Louis know, you could walk from yard to yard and not miss one play of a Cardinals game. He says some of his best memories are rooted in playing catch in the backyard with his dad while the baseball game was playing in the background.

“I grew up listening to Jack Buck and Mike Shannon on KMOX,” he said. “I was that kid who would hide a radio under the covers at night, listening to the Cardinals postgame show and later,  Live at Shannon’s. I say “hide,” but my mom definitely knew.”

Bonds says he started Gateway Sports ten years ago “because we’re passionate sports fans with a desire to create our own content and also share and promote the work others are doing.”
He says he doesn’t get to as many games as he wants due to family obligations. His wife and sons ar shown in the photo, right at a game they went to.
He loves reading articles about the team and listening to podcasts. Because of this, he recently reached out to us asking if he could share our articles.
“We reached out to Rob because we were looking to add more professional-level content to our site and page,” said Bonds.  “He produces great content in a way we truly respect.”
We appreciate him reaching out to us as we love promoting other good people as well.
Gateway Sports, along with two other fan pages we know of, Cardinals Fans & Friends and St. Louis Cardinals Crew are respectable pages that share legit information. As our readers know, we like to promote them, in hopes you won’t give any time to the ones who constantly put out fake news and lies.
[For more on how to spot the bad sites: CLICK HERE. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Li1BWXN75GA&t=39s ]
Along with “Rains on the Cardinals” Podcast, a few of the podcasts Gene Bonds likes and promotes on his page are “Team of Rivals,” “The Stupidest Sports Show on Earth,” “The Coach’s Box: Call it like we see it” and he posts the on his page.
 Growing up in the era he did, he experienced the 1982 World Series when the team won it all, and also the 1985 “I-70 Series” when the Cardinals fell short to the Royals. He is happy to see that Ozzie Smith is still involved with the team and the fans occasionally get to see Willie McGee when he comes to St. Louis.
“I guess you could say, I’ve got Cardinals in my DNA.” he said.
To check out Gene Bond’s page, Gateway Sports: https://www.facebook.com/GatewaySportsNet

Author

  • Sally Tippett Rains started her sports media career at KMOX Radio Sports (writing/producing for Bob Costas, Jack Buck, Bill Wilkerson) in the late 1970′s, early ’80′s then switched to book writing and charity work while raising their children.

    Currently she is content manager for STLSportsPage.com and author of 11 books, many in the sports genre.

    She also wrote "Choose Happy; Find Contentment in Any Situation," which comes in Black & White or Color versions.

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About Sally Tippett Rains 0 Articles
Sally Tippett Rains started her sports media career at KMOX Radio Sports (writing/producing for Bob Costas, Jack Buck, Bill Wilkerson) in the late 1970′s, early ’80′s then switched to book writing and charity work while raising their children. Currently she is content manager for STLSportsPage.com and author of 11 books, many in the sports genre. She also wrote "Choose Happy; Find Contentment in Any Situation," which comes in Black & White or Color versions.
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