Fans pay their respects to baseball's Darryl Kile

CHICAGO -- Sunday night's game at Wrigley Field was supposed to be another typical tilt between the St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs. A packed crowd would house a nearly even mixture of supporters of either club, with plenty of good-natured harassment ready for the opposition. The match-up on the mound would pit the Cubs' Jason Bere against the Cardinals' Darryl Kile. \nBut in life, nothing is set in stone. And Sunday proved to be no exception. And while Wrigley Field filled up, it was not filled by fans eager for a continuation of the National League's greatest rivalry. Instead, it was for a wake, with 37,647 mourners arriving to pay their respects to Kile, who passed away Saturday morning at the age of 33.\nEven before they arrived, the field had a different look and feeling. Kile's name and number, and nothing else, appeared on the marquee. The centerfield scoreboard simply read "57." \nThe right- and leftfield foul poles, which normally house the retired jerseys of Billy Williams and Ernie Banks, instead flew pennants of the Cubs and Cardinals at half-mast. The colorful pennants of the National League teams that normally fly over the centerfield scoreboard were also down, with only the American flag waving in the breeze at half-mast.\nThen, at 7:01 p.m., a moment of silence was held for Kile. It is hard to imagine how long and lonely a minute can be until you see nearly 40,000 people stand through it without muttering as much as a cough. The only sounds that could be heard were the faint whirring of ceiling fans in the press box, which in turn rustled loose papers that reporters paid no heed to. \nNormally, such a sound would be sublimely ignored. In this case, I could easily imagine the soundwaves carrying themselves all the way to the bleachers.\nFinally, at 7:09 p.m., Kerry Wood got the game underway by firing a strike to Cardinals leadoff man Fernando Vina. Vina held on for a single, and pointed to the sky as he reached first base. Wood was able to retire the next three St. Louis batters to end the inning, though.\n In baseball, when a pitcher cannot make his start, an "emergency starter" has to take his spot in the rotation. As Kile's death proved, nothing in something as inane as a baseball game could qualify as an emergency. But here Cardinal rookie Jason Simontacchi was indeed making an emergency start, the kind of which that no one ever wants.\nWith no music playing, the fans were also subdued throughout much of the first three innings. When the Cubs put three runs on the board in the bottom of the third, the game finally came to life and remained fairly normal until the seventh-inning stretch. Rather than having the regular "guest conductor" lead the crowd, organist Gary Pressy played a melancholy, haunting version of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," if anyone can imagine such a version even existing.\nI agreed with Commissioner Bud Selig's decision (something I don't do very often) to play the game on Sunday. It was a form of therapy that suited the Cardinals much better than sitting in their hotel rooms for another day after Saturday's game was cancelled.\nHowever, it was clear that their minds were not in the game. Two errors leading to four unearned runs for the Cubs in the sixth inning was proof enough of that fact.\nFor St. Louis, the question becomes whether or not the team can rebound and hold on to first place in the NL Central. They had already lost longtime announcer Jack Buck to cancer last Tuesday, and were in mourning. But Buck had been battling sickness for quite a while, and his loss was almost seen as imminent.\nKile, on the other hand, was a vital team member who was in seemingly pristine physical shape at the age of 33. The fact that he died of natural causes only made his death have a more stunning impact on the team.\nHistory shows that there is precedent for a team to rebound from a devastating loss. In 1920, Cleveland Indians shortstop Ray Chapman was beaned by pitcher Carl Mays of the Yankees. He died a day later in the hospital from head trauma. But the Indians devoted their season to Chapman's memory and won the World Series.\nPerhaps a good place for the Cardinals to start would be by retiring Kile's number, but it remains to be seen whether they will want to let this season pass before they do so. \nAt any rate, the Cardinals will have to move on. As manager Tony LaRussa said, "It's very possible to have your place for Darryl and still concentrate on competing and trying to win."\nAnd so they will.