Rickrushart Video Blog No. 2

Hello, I'm Rick Rush and today I'm thrilled to present my newest painting, entitled WildCards. Wildcards is dedicated to the 2011 World Series Champion St. Louis Cardinals. The Cardinals earned their post-season berth by winning the National League Wild Card on the last day of the season, hence the title WildCards. The foreground features: Albert Pujols, who had a record-breaking third game of three home runs and 4 for 5. Chris Carpenter is also included in the foreground, who went 2-0 in the World Series and had dramatic plays and dramatic pitches throughout the entire Series. The MVP is David Freese, who made hit after hit, homerun after homerun, that tied and untied ballgames and helped lead the Cardinals to the World Series championship. And then also Lance Berkman. Lance had several critical hits at key times in Game 6 and Game 7 in particularly, that kept the Cardinals in the playoffs and then the World Series and then led to them beating the Texas Ranger for the Series championship. The middleground features Yadier Molina, Rafael Furcal, Kyle Lohse, Chris Carpenter, and Allen Craig. Each of these vignettes capture key plays in the Series. The background features Busch Stadium and the St. Louis Arch. It also has some of the other buildings of downtown St. Louis. On the jumbotron, I've painted Tony LaRussa tipping his hat to the fans. Only a few days after winning his second World Series with the Cardinals, LaRussa announced his retirement. In addition to studying the tapes, I was invited by my good friend and collector to sketch from the stands. When it comes to capturing the emotion of a subject, particularly in sports, with all of the action and color, nothing beats being there and doing on-site sketches. I hope through my painting baseball fans everywhere can relive the experience of Game One, Pujols' Game Three, the epic of Game Six back in St. Louis, and then the final triumph, Game Seven, when the St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series in 2011, and is entitled in WildCards.