I would like to say thanks to all the fans who wrote back. Thank you for your support and may God bless you your life forever.   

I would also like to send thanks to Velocity Sports Performance in Carlsbad, Calif. Thank you to Brent Callaway, Todd Williams and Stefan Alsop, who made me into a better athlete. God bless you guys.

Let's get started!

The first thing I did after we won the World Series was to celebrate for a week straight, and then I went home and enjoyed every moment with my family. I had a great time because not everyone gets to enjoy something like this.

Since then, my offseason has been part vacation and part hard work. I went to Puerto Rico for three weeks and then came home and started to work out. Getting ready for Spring Training is important to me. My workouts have been running, weight training and yoga.

With all the outfielders in camp, it looks like I have a fight on my hands to make the team this year. But I have been working out, transforming my body, getting faster and stronger to be prepared for Spring Training. You know me, I'm a fighter and nothing in my life has ever been given to me.

I've always had to prove myself, and once again I have to do that. Being under pressure is what drives me to become the best. I'm up for the challenge, so let's get started.

In the top of the ninth, everyone was thinking, "Hey, we are here and we are ready to win it. Make sure that we get it done. Just take it out by out. Don't get too excited and don't get too ahead of ourselves and just stay focused."

This is amazing, amazing. This is the best feeling in the world right now. We have an impressive group of guys that just love each other. We just fed off each other for the whole playoffs and all of the emotions. It's incredible right now.

Jeff Weaver threw outstanding. All of our pitchers threw outstanding, from the starters to the bullpen. They all did a great job. All of our players did a great job.

This is amazing, being with the entire team and enjoying a champagne shower. I could do this all year. I can get used to this. I have been dreaming about this all my life.

We're one win away. We played a really hard-fought game here tonight. We were down 3-0 early and came back to fight. David Eckstein did a great job. Supp kept us in it. Our bullpen was big. We definitely had a lot of key plays that happened in that game. All around, the team effort was just great.

We're going to go out there and not take anything for granted. We're going to go out there like it's Game 7 and just do what we do best, which is to play Cardinal baseball.

Even though I didn't get a hit, I got an at-bat in a key situation tonight, and that's something that I wanted. My timing is a little off, but that's fine. I'm not going to make any excuses. I'm going to go out there and if they put me in that situation again, I'm going to be even more focused to get it done.

The crowd here tonight was beautiful. I love it. I love it so much. That's why you all need to come out again tomorrow and make sure you bring the same energy, because we need it.

I'm going to sleep well tonight. But I'll definitely make sure that I wake up early, make sure I get things done, eat a good breakfast and just come ready to play.

That was a masterful performance by Chris Carpenter tonight.

It was a great night all around, from introductions on through the game. It's an amazing feeling, as a fan, as a player, as coaches, anybody that's here for the first time and is experiencing this for the first time, it's just joyous. It's definitely one of the best feelings I've ever had, just to stand there and see the sea of red and hear them cheering for us. It was amazing.

You know what's funny? With Carp, and at times when Jeff Suppan and Jeff Weaver have pitched like that, or when Anthony Reyes pitched in Detroit, the game just went by so fast that we couldn't even enjoy what he was doing. When the sixth, seventh, eighth inning came along, we looked up at the scoreboard and we were like, "Are you serious? It's that late in the game already?"

Usually, we pinch-hitters start getting ready around the fifth or sixth. But those pitching performances have been top-notch, to where we were surprised -- not by their performances, but by how we didn't recognize where the game was.

Now they really can't win it in three. But we just let people say whatever they're going to say about us being up 2-1. We're going to stay within ourselves, within our family and go out there and play our best baseball.

It was 43 degrees at game time, but as far as we're concerned, the weather is beautiful. We're thinking of it as Hawaii right now.

Practice before Game 3 was just your normal day. We go out there for batting practice, talk with the guys, and just talk about situations that happened with Game 1 and Game 2. See what we can correct and what adjustments we have to make. We're just getting ready for tomorrow. Now we can go home and relax and just enjoy our families.

This will be my first World Series home game -- me along with probably half the team. Especially with it being in the new ballpark, the fans are probably just going to go crazy. I expect them to be crazy.

We're going to have fun with it. It will be a great experience. But first and foremost we've got to go out there and play hard and win. I've got family coming in town, so it's going to be even more exciting.

This was a weird night. It was a good game plan by Kenny Rogers. His changeup was working. He was hitting his spots. He had us off balance a couple of times. We had a couple of chances to score, but all in all, we fell short. That's fine. We got one game out of two. We were expecting both, but sometimes you can't make miracles happen.

But we have a tough team. We're going to bounce back. Especially since we're going home and we've got Carp on the mound for Game 3. We're going to be ready, no matter what. We're going to come back and play Cardinal baseball.

There was just a little bit of talk about what was going on with Kenny Rogers, just wondering what was going on. Obviously from the first inning to the eighth inning, he still had good stuff. So there really wasn't any discussion after the second inning. He did his job. He did what he had to do to keep us off balance. You've got to tip your hat to him. He did his job.

Nobody expected us to win tonight besides us, but we just went out there and proved that we could. I think that's what made us more upset and more driven to win this game, and go out and win the next one, and the next one, and the next one after that.

Critics were saying that they were going to beat us in three, when we've got to play four. Let them keep underestimating us, and let us continue to be the underdog, because we love it right now.

It was amazing to be introduced for the World Series. Having the camera go by my face and knowing that my family and friends were watching was incredible. Knowing that I came from the projects. I came from having nearly nothing. I'm the only one from my neighborhood to be in the World Series or even go to pro ball. It's a very big deal to me, a very big deal to my family and friends. They're behind me 100 percent, and I'm sure they were going crazy after that third out in the ninth inning.

We didn't spend any time talking about making up for 2004 or anything like that. We never talk about the past. We always look forward. Just like we haven't talked about our regular season. Things change. Once you cross those lines, and it's playoff time, everybody is even. The records are even and there's nothing like that to be thinking about.

I've never seen anything like this. It's great that I getto be in a situation like this with a bunch of guys who are just amazing. I think I've seen more media than players today. This first day has definitely been an experience.

We went out there and felt how the weather is going to be like. We're going to have to battle the weather. We're going to have to battle the fans. And we're definitely going to have to battle Detroit. So it's going to be very interesting. I expect us to go out there and play our best baseball and just battle, go to war like we did against San Diego and we did against the Mets.

Going onto the field last night was probably the best feeling in the world, just knowing that we were going to the World Series. We went back into the locker room and had a big champagne fight, spraying everybody who was in that place. After that, the feeling was still the same as we rolled to the plane. We had a lot of funny stories, people singing, we ate well and we slept a little bit. It was only about an hour and 15 minute ride, so some of us took a little power nap and then we got to the hotel. We rested up, and then we came to the ballpark for practice.

Everything has been great so far. So far the media and Detroit have welcomed us with open arms. We'll see tomorrow, because I'm sure tomorrow some people will change their minds.

What a feeling. St. Louis, I know you guys are going crazy back there. We did it. We're going to the World Series. We're going to play Detroit.

What can I say about this Game 7? It came down to the wire. A guy who was big for us defensively, but struggled somewhat offensively, came up big for us in the National League Championship Series. Yadier Molina, I can't say enough about that guy. It's his third year in the league, but he plays like a veteran back there.

Jeff Suppan, what can I say again? That dude was masterful today, just masterful. The all-around team effort was just incredible. The feeling is magical. It's magical.

Coming in there in the ninth, Adam Wainwright allowed the first two guys to reach, but our closer then retired the next two batters. The next guy walked, but after that it was over. It was just like an epic story right there, a childhood dream. You always dream about that -- as a pitcher or a hitter. A 3-2 count, seventh game -- if you're the pitcher, you're trying to strike the guy out. As a hitter, you're trying to hit the game-winning home run. It just came down to the last strike.

I'm speechless right now. It's just an amazing feeling.