Ten Years Ago Baseball Traveled I-70 : World Series: The ‘Show Me’ Classic captivated fans from the Bootheel to Boonville, not to mention the rest of the country. It had four pitching masterpieces, one blowout and Don Denkinger.

Considering the current state of affairs in major league baseball, can it be only 10 years since that perfect place in time when Missourians thought of almost nothing else?

Four pitching masterpieces, one blowout, Don Denkinger. In the fall of 1985, the I-70 Series captivated fans from the Bootheel to Boonville, not to mention the rest of the country.

Jaded players included.

“It was neat for us,” said Cardinals shortstop Ozzie Smith. “We didn’t have to get on the airplanes and stuff.

“It was right in the state. It was fun.”

It was Bret Saberhagen, the Series MVP, helping the Royals limit St. Louis to 13 runs and a .185 average--the lowest ever in a seven-game series. Bye-Bye Balboni. John Tudor and Joaquin “Youneverknow” Andujar. Relief pitcher Todd Worrell reaching the base a full beat before Jorge Orta did on that fateful ninth-inning safe call in Game 6.

Most of all, it was baseball at its best.

But the way things look right now, it might never happen again.

The Cardinals had one of the worst years in their history at 62-81, 22 1/2 games off the pace in the NL Central, as a series of off-season moves fell flat. The Royals finished second in the AL Central, impressive until you consider that their 70-74 record put them 30 games behind Cleveland, and their talent base has been allowed to erode under new ownership.

Not only are they bad, nobody’s watching. The Cardinals drew about 1.8 million customers for 72 dates, fewer than they attracted for 54 dates in strike-shortened 1994.

Plenty of good seats were also available at Royals Stadium. The team drew 1.2 million, and in the final month of the season fans moved on to the Chiefs, to college football, to yard work, anything.

It’s a terrible state for a sport trying to win fans back after the strike that wiped out the 1994 World Series and part of this season as well.

The Cardinals are putting a lot of time, effort and money into cosmetics. Player procurement isn’t the only thing going on the next few months. In the off-season, Busch Stadium is getting natural grass and as much of a retro look as possible for a cookie-cutter stadium, with dark green paint replacing the present bright blue.

The Royals went to grass last year. This off-season they’re trying to step up the wooing, merging their public relations and communications departments. For almost two decades they’ve been dependent on the Royal Lancers, a group of business executives who oversaw season ticket sales on a volunteer basis.

“For the first time, we’re going to use data-based marketing and telemarketing,” said Dennis Cryder, Royals vice president of administration. “We’ve got a good product. It’s a matter of communicating with the potential buyers.”

Back in 1985, baseball had gone five years without a work stoppage. Field a winner, and the fans would come.

Manager Whitey Herzog was at his best with the Cardinals that year, putting together a finely tuned machine jump-started nightly by jackrabbit rookie left fielder Vince Coleman, who stole 107 bases. Jack Clark was virtually the only power source.

Mike Jorgensen, now the Cardinals manager and then a pinch-hitter and reserve outfielder playing his last season for St. Louis, said he’d much rather manage a power-dominated team like this year’s Indians than that bunch.

“The job Whitey did was just masterful,” Jorgensen said. “There was a lot of the hand of the manager on that season. He had to drive that race car, he couldn’t just sit there.”

Smith, who’s 41 and entering possibly his last season, is the only player remaining from the Cardinals’ great but star-crossed team. He said it’s probably the best team he’s played for.

“We were firing on all cylinders,” Smith said. “Tommy Herr had a great year, Willie McGee had a great year, Vince Coleman had a great year, and Jack. It all came together.”

Of course, at the end it all fell apart at the hands of the Royals, who became the first team to lose their first two games at home and win the series.

The Royals were just as impressive, led by 20-game winner Saberhagen and George Brett, coming off one of his best seasons. He batted .335 with 38 home runs and 112 RBIs.

The series began Oct. 19 at Royals Stadium, but with the Cardinals in control as Tudor beat Kansas City, 3-1. In Game 2, Charlie Leibrandt held the Cardinals to two hits in eight innings, but St. Louis scored four runs in the ninth and went two games up after Terry Pendleton’s bases-loaded double.

Saberhagen’s six-hitter and an 11-hit attack highlighted by Frank White’s two-run home run got the Royals going in Game 3, but the Cardinals moved a game away from clinching the Series behind Tudor’s five-hitter at Busch in Game 4.

Danny Jackson, now a Cardinal, responded with his own five-hitter in Game 5 to send the series back to Kansas City. Denkinger’s blown call helped turn a 1-0 Cardinals’ lead into a 2-1 loss in Game 6, and the Royals battered Tudor and the demoralized Cardinals, 11-0, in the anti-climactic finale.

Around these parts, baseball has hardly been the same since. The Cardinals made it back to the World Series in 1987, but haven’t been close to contention the last half-dozen years. The Royals haven’t appeared in the postseason since 1985.

One thing that hasn’t changed is the eternal optimism. When current Royals manager Bob Boone got a contract extension through 1997 recently, he said he was looking for “a lot of good things to come.” One of those ’85 survivors said the same thing about the Cardinals.

“We’re going to make some changes,” Ozzie Smith said minutes after the Cardinals’ finale, loss No. 82 played in front of about 17,000 customers. “But if we didn’t and we had to come back with the people that we have, I feel confident.”