TEMPE, Ariz. -- It used to drive Antonio Smith nuts. How could somebody be so dumb?
"People would come up to me all the time and ask if I was a professional athlete," Smith said. "So I'd tell them I was. Then they would ask which team I played for. I told them it was the Cardinals. They'd look me up and down and then say, 'Really, you don't look like a baseball player.' Can you believe that? Right here in Phoenix. They didn't even know they had a professional football team."
If you can't tell, Smith plays for the NFL's Arizona Cardinals. And some might be forgiven for not thinking there was a professional team in the Valley of the Sun. For most of the 21 seasons they've been here since moving from St. Louis, they haven't exactly resembled one.
The Cardinals have been little more than a punch line. The Phoenix Suns were the beloved team. They were born here. The Cardinals were poached. And the stolen goods have been pretty rotten.
It didn't help that the Cardinals also played their games for the first 18 seasons in Sun Devil Stadium, home to Arizona State University. They were the second tenant, one that didn't exactly bring a party to the neighborhood. Crowds were sparse. Opposing fans sometimes outnumbered Cardinals fans.
"I remember coming there as a player on opposing teams and thinking it couldn't be much fun to play there," current Cardinals coach Ken Whisenhunt said. "It didn't even feel like an NFL game sometimes."
That won't be the case Sunday. The Cardinals are hosting the Philadelphia Eagles in the NFC Championship Game, one victory away from a trip to Super Bowl XLIII in Tampa. Their current University of Phoenix Stadium will be jumping.
Arizona Cardinals fever is spreading -- fast. The hottest selling car in Arizona is the bandwagon.
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| Cards fans can now use paint to celebrate their team rather than hiding their faces in shame. (Getty Images) |
"When they sucked we couldn't give it away," the girl working as the cashier said. "Now we can't keep it in stock."
That store ran out of women's replica jerseys Thursday and had to replenish. When I checked back, the store had reloaded with some women's Kurt Warner No. 13s and some Larry Fitzgerald No. 11s.
I doubt they sold many women's Neil Lomax jerseys back in the day.
One woman at the store was filling a cart with jerseys and T-shirts, an entire cart overflowing with Cardinals stuff.
"Everybody's a Cardinals fan now, right," I said.
"This is all for my office," she said. "Everyone wants them."
Two weeks ago, the Cardinals had trouble selling out their first home playoff game in the desert. They still had doubters. Who could blame them after all the suffering through the years? This week, tickets to the Eagles game sold out in seven minutes.
"The city is really excited," Cardinals defensive end Bertrand Berry said. "Everybody's really abuzz. There is really a sense of pride because there really hasn't been much to cheer about as far as football is concerned in the city of Phoenix and the state of Arizona."
I know the sting of it. In 1996, the Arizona State Sun Devils were one defensive stop away from winning a national title. So what happens? My school lets Joe Germaine, who happens to be from the Valley, drive Ohio State to the game-winning touchdown in the closing seconds, ruining my chance at ever seeing a national title in my lifetime.
Joe (damn) Germaine.
The Sun Devils have only teased since. The Arizona Diamondbacks won a World Series title in 2001 but haven't won one since. It is still the only major title won by one of the area's four teams from the big four leagues.
The NHL's Phoenix Coyotes, who moved from Winnipeg, are the oldest franchise never to appear in a Stanley Cup Finals. The Suns have played in two NBA Finals, losing to the Boston Celtics after the 1975-76 season and to the Chicago Bulls and a guy named Jordan in 1992-93.
The Arizona Rattlers of the Arena League have won titles, but does that count? That isn't really football when there are boards for out-of-bounds markers. Plus, that league isn't playing now anyways.
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| Gone are the days when Cardinals like David Boston would play in front of a near-empty house. (Getty Images) |
Some are comparing this to the Suns run during the '76 playoffs. They were a young team that played OK in the regular season, then went on a run in the playoffs with a big upset, beating the defending champion Golden State Warriors. That team fell short of the championship but won a lot of hearts. Win or lose, the Cardinals will as well.
"You can feel it coming now," linebacker Karlos Dansby said. "You can feel people latching on to us. They love us."
Dansby had just walked out from the team's facility as he spoke. Waiting for him were a handful of fans, hoping for an autograph from one of their newfound heroes. A child, wearing a Larry Fitzgerald jersey, smiled wide as Dansby signed his paper.
This is how life-long devotion is won -- by winning playoff games.
When the Cardinals returned from their 33-13 beating of the Carolina Panthers early Sunday, a large crowd greeted them at the airport and at their facility.
It was 4:30 Sunday morning.
"After we found out the championship game was going to be played here, we saw a line around the building (team facility) and down the sidewalk," Whisenhunt said. "You're like, 'Wait a minute, is this real?' People are fired up. You hear them honking when the go by on the road next to here."
Until this run, the Phoenix-Arizona Cardinals had played in two playoff games, winning one in 1998. They had never won a division title until winning the NFC West this season. Even so, there were doubters. Most thought they were a so-so team winning a division that was a joke. The Cardinals didn't exactly play that well down the stretch to give people hope either.
But after the Cardinals beat the Atlanta Falcons in the wild-card round, the interest got stronger. When they beat Carolina, and then learned the NFC Championship Game would be in their stadium, the area went nuts. The Cardinals actually had a real chance to win a championship, something the franchise hasn't done since 1947 when it played in Chicago. That's a long time, two cities and three names ago.
On the local sports-talk shows, no wonder it's Cardinals, Cardinals and more Cardinals.
"They have turned this town upside down," said Mike Jurecki, who hosts a morning sports-talk show on a Phoenix radio station. "This town has been starving for a winning football team, whether it's ASU or the Cardinals. It's such a transient community. Everybody is from somewhere else. But now everybody has jumped on board. I've never seen it like this before and I've been covering them for 13 years. It's remarkable how they've turned it around. If they get to the Super Bowl and win it, they will be the No. 1 team in town."
The Cardinals -- those football-playing Cardinals.
"People will know us now," Smith said. "Cardinals? Baseball? Do you believe that?"
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