We have one goal, to interview the best
in sports to meet the biggest names
and find out what makes them tick.
And the Saint Louis athletes who move
the needle with their compelling story.
I'm Frank Cusumano, and this is sports plus.
It's time for spring training.
Our Cory Miller took the first
flight yesterday and files
this report from Jupiter, FL.
It may be quiet right now at the
Cardinals complex here in Jupiter,
FL, but come tomorrow morning,
this place will be buzzing with baseball.
So who better to sit down with on the
eve of 2023 spring training
than Cardinals manager
Oliver Marmol? How long
does how last year ended stick with you?
Is it something that lingers or do you?
Are you ready to turn the page right away?
What part? The playoffs specifically.
Yeah. It's something that obviously.
You don't love the way it ends and you're
you're hungry to to get another crack at it.
Obviously the guys are are hungry for it.
They've prepared all offseason and
they're looking forward to showing
up here and taking care of business.
For the first time in two decades of
different catcher will be running
the show here at spring training.
What make Wilson Contreras the
right choice to be the next guy
to follow you out of your Molina.
So he's a competitor.
At the end of the day,
it wasn't a matter of finding
the best bat or the best guy
behind the plate as much as a
guy that was going to compete
at an extremely high level and
fit into the overall mindset of
what we're doing here and here.
I mean, he verbalized it extremely
well during his interview.
He envisioned himself in this
uniform and he wanted to compete
for this organization and
we're really looking forward to
it. No moves made to get
another starter this offseason.
How confident are you
in this group you have?
There's a lot of guys to pick
from and there's certainly
going to be a competition,
but would you kick out?
There's there's a lot of names.
There's six or seven, eight guys
you could put in there. Everyone
always wants the new shiny toy. I get it.
But the reality is we have some guys
that are going to compete for that
rotation and some guys that are going
to be on the outside looking in and.
Your question are we confident with
what we have? We are. If we weren't,
we would have made another move.
So we're looking forward to seeing that
competition and how it shaped out.
Be sure to catch all of my reports
from spring training this week
as the Cardinals begin their
quest for World Series #12.
For now, reporting in Jupiter
for Sports plus, I'm Cory Miller.
Coming up, there's nobody I would rather
talk baseball with than Adam Wainwright.
We will do that shortly,
and he's going to tell you what's
got him really motivated recently,
and I've never met a man like John Renard.
Even while he was losing his health,
he never lost his faith,
his story right around the corner.
All of them coming out.
I know for Adam Wainwright,
not the outing that he was looking for.
But a special moment that
you can take in nonetheless.
And welcome back,
Adam Wainwright is my favorite
interview in Saint Louis Sports.
He is never dull,
always insightful,
and sometimes pretty funny.
He is tonight's
Cardinal Buick's Sunday conversation.
Welcome to the show.
And I wanna ask you right off the bat,
when did you know you were
definitely coming back?
Was it a moment with your wife,
with your kids?
When did you know I'm
going to pitch again?
You know, I was pitching
well and I felt like.
Gosh, I feel like I should be on
this All Star team, you know,
I and I want to be, you know,
and I'm having fun competing and.
Feel like I was still, you know,
one of the best out there and and.
Team was winning, I was having fun and.
There was no thoughts of retirement anymore.
I thought, you know, gosh, maybe I do
want to do this a little bit longer.
That's right about the time that.
I kind of knew as the season got.
More and more though,
I really I thought man,
I just really just need one more to.
Because you just don't want to have regrets.
I don't want to have regrets.
I don't want to look back.
Even though I'm be turning 42 this year.
I don't want to look back and go man.
I wish I would have just.
Made those last few starts and
so how important is passing?
Just pop Haynes to be #2 on the all
time wins list with the Cardinals?
Would be kind of cool to say only Bob
Gibson is ahead of me, wouldn't it?
Yeah, and that's the, I mean,
that's the the thing I'm looking at,
honestly. And I've told several
people this if I could pass Jess.
That would be a a really cool thing for
me to know that in most categories,
honestly, Bob is Mr. Gibson would
be the only one kind of ahead of me.
So if I have another good season this year,
I'd go out there and win a
bunch of games, I think.
I think Jesse is at 210, is that right?
So, so 15 will tie it. You know,
16 would be great but but I'm looking.
I don't want to just win 16
games and I got 3233 starts.
The goal is to try to win them all.
You know,
I haven't done it yet in my career
but I'm sure going to try and and
I'm going to try to be great and all of them.
We'll see how many we can get out there.
But last year I pitched pretty
great for about 3/4 of that
season and I was having a very,
very hard time winning game.
So it's not, it's not all.
Set all up up to the picture.
You talked about competition.
Can you describe the high of that for you?
Because most of us don't know what it's like.
To be able to play a game that
we played our whole lives.
And to step on the field knowing
that there's people in the stands
with tattoos of Cardinals on them,
you know, that's just means so much.
And they're, they got Christmas
ornaments completely covering their
tree with Cardinals and, and, you know,
everything kind of revolves around the game.
To be a part of something like that and
to know and to to look at that pressure
in a good way and use that pressure
to get the most out of your abilities,
that is a I love that.
I love that.
I just don't know what I would have
done if I had played in a market
that was not such an unbelievable
baseball market and and wasn't
the greatest fan base ever.
I don't know what I would have done.
Stop the same.
What about the camaraderie
with your teammates?
I don't know if you even saw it,
but when Jack Flaherty was asked about his.
Relationship with you during the winter?
Warm up. He came to tears when
you hear something like that.
What do you think
when Jack got emotional like that, man?
That makes me feel?
Really special about the time I've been
able to share with a lot of our guys,
many of our players who are are much younger
than me that I've been able to sort of.
We'll say shepherd all the way,
but definitely sort of show
the ropes somewhat and and pass
on what I've been learning,
what I've been taught.
It's a it's a privilege.
For me to to pass those things on that
knowledge on and and to try to lead
by example and these young players
they do a great job of listening
and learning and and feeding off
that and and leading themselves.
Our guys have great leadership
qualities and jacks one up.
I'm not sure if you read this much,
but the prognosticators had the
Cardinals as about the 5th or 6th
best team in the National League.
What's the scenario or what has
to happen for the Cardinals to
be National League champions?
When you when you don't play like you
want to, you come back hungry that next
year to to prove everybody wrong and
and to to make a name for yourself.
And we got a few guys like that and we won
the division last year with a couple of
guys not playing to their capabilities.
We know they can. So if they do.
You know and and some of these prospects
end up being like what they they say
they are then we're going to be we're
going to be a force to be reckoned with
much better than we than people think.
I was looking. Always this.
I use this as personal motivation too,
and I know I'm old.
And I know I had a bad September, but.
I can't find my name anywhere
in the top 100 pictures.
In the National League and I'm like.
There's 100.
There's 100 pitches better than me.
I don't know about that,
so I used that personally too.
What's your dream scenario
for walking off the field for the final time
at Busch Stadium?
Oh, there's no question about it, man.
Going 9 innings and winning
the World Series and.
Hugging my my catcher and being
able to hoist the trophy and then.
Nice knowing you doesn't
get better than that.
Welcome back. So we are celebrating
30 years of storytelling
with our favorite features.
John Renard was 39 years old
when he noticed he couldn't
turn the key in the ignition.
It turned out to be a deadly
disease that he handled with so
much grace and dignity. With the
help of editor Tony Chambers,
here is tonight's spotlight story.
It doesn't seem right.
It doesn't seem fair that a
44 year old man who's never
really done anything bad in his
life now sits in a wheelchair,
barely able to move.
But John Renard rarely ask
why me and he won't give
up. Don't give up.
No matter how bad, let's hope.
They believe in but don't give
up for the ones that love you.
And this father of three is not
lacking in love. There's Katie,
the college student from Maryville.
Then there's the high school girl,
Stephanie, and the youngest, Amanda.
They know that this awful Lou Gehrig's
disease makes those muscles hurt,
and they will massage
their father by the hour.
They don't ask for much.
They just want their dad to live.
I'm a planner and I see things. Ahead
in the future. And I see a lot of like,
where's my dad gonna be in my life,
you know, where is he?
You know, I'm gonna get married and I
want him to walk me down the aisle and
I'm gonna have grandkids, you know,
his grandkids and he's not gonna be there.
And that's been the hardest thing for me.
John Renard has always
had soccer in his blood.
As a player he won a state
title at Normandy High School,
three national championships at
Quincy College and as a coach at
Maryville University he won four coach
of the years in a 14 year career.
He
even met the love of his life, Margaret,
because he played soccer in college.
I was playing tennis and he was
soccer and he had to pass the courts.
In order to get to practice
and you immediately became
attracted to his legs.
From what I understand, that's correct.
That's great legs. Yes,
the ladies have always been drawn to John,
who's been happily married for 20 years.
Even celebrities like Jane Fonda,
Jacqueline Bisset and Chris Evert
have written notes of support.
The ALS was diagnosed in
John 4 1/2 years ago. At
first he was way off the charts.
This is video of him in 1999, still
able to juggle a soccer ball,
but the disease which weakens and
destroys the muscles is taking over now.
John can still walk a little,
but his arms are useless.
He has trouble even chewing now and then.
There's the pain hurts because
there there are things that I can't,
I can't do. I mean.
Made a phone call to the
Doctor for Pain medicine.
We know that that helps the pain,
but knowing that it is happening
more often and on a regular basis
is not pleasant.
But everyone in John's life honestly
believes he will be healed. His mother
I do believe
because I believe in miracles
and the miracle is what can happen because
nothing's impossible with God. And we pray
for a miracle. Lord God.
His wife? No,
I believe that that he's gonna be healed.
Great is thy faithfulness.
His daughter Psalm 11817 is.
I will not die, but live and
proclaim what the Lord has done.
So. I don't know.
It just tells me like my dad, you know,
he will live and he'll tell everyone.
I still believe that.
I don't waver from that.
It's been 4 1/2 years and
it's not easy, but. Although
many will believe that this is simply
a family and a household living
in denial, that's not the case.
They acknowledge Lou Gehrig's disease.
They just believe that God is more powerful
than it. We're not denying what we see,
that Lou Gehrig's disease is
taking the muscle from him
and it's it's a huge battle.
And yet we've seen other people be healed.
We want to fight and.
We will fight to win. We hope.
We hope we don't lose.
We're believing.
Through the grace of God and through
the power of Jesus, he will win
once a day. John has a group from his church,
rivers of life. Come and pray over
him and Lord, your word says
your word is true and that
you will keep the word that
has come out of your lips.
You know where to go
and when he is not having
people pray for him.
John is on the Internet reading the Bible.
It's easier on the hands than trying
to turn the pages of the Bible.
Or he could be found in the TV room
watching his beloved sport of soccer
or preparing for his five weeks.
Saints soccer camp in Maryville
University with his wife Margaret.
They're sold out again this year.
ALS has taken his body but not his spirit.
He
still has the light in his
eyes and the sparkle in his
smile and still has great legs.
Reverse Frank Russomano sports plus.
John Renard passed away at age 45 in 2003.
I talked to his bride,
Margaret, this week.
She lives in the same home in Kirkwood
where they raise those three daughters,
Katie, Stephanie and Amanda.
She now has six grandchildren.
She has never remarried,
perhaps because there will
never be another John Renard.
And we'll be right back.
Zach Edian #1 Purdue on the road
at northwestern, Eddie and the
Boilermakers looked to be in control.
He scores on the little baby
book to lead by 8 with
3:55 to go. It was their last field
goal of the game. The Wildcats
outscore Purdue 17 to 3 the rest
of the way. They win at 6458
first health, frankly speaking.
This week we got some bad news.
Tory Holt did not make the Hall of Fame.
Here's the thing.
I don't want to hear that he didn't
make it because there's too many
Saint Louis Rams players in the hall
and they only won one Super Bowl.
He had six consecutive seasons
of 1300 receiving yards.
Nobody had ever done that.
This was the 4th time he's been
a finalist and was denied.
You just have to ask the simple question,
did he pass the eye test
in the middle of the?
Eight straight 1000 yard seasons.
Did he look and play like a Hall of Famer?
The answer is unequivocally yes.
That's our show for tonight
for our producer Andy Mueller.
I'm Frank cusumano.
We'll see you tomorrow night at 5/6 and 10.