Steve Kline with DK and 57 on his hat (AP photo) | ZOOM |

        ST. LOUIS — It's often considered America's warmest baseball town, and the reading has nothing to do with thermometers.

        It's where generations of St. Louis fans have offered their unconditional love, and generations of Cardinals, known by affectionate nicknames, embraced it. The Gashouse Gang. Dizzy and Daffy. Stan the Man and the Wizard of Oz. Big Mac. “It is,” Mark McGwire said, upon signing the contact that would see him retire a Cardinal, “a great baseball town.”

        These days, a great baseball town grieves, and its team struggles.

        On Saturday, Cardinals pitcher Darryl Kile was found dead in his Chicago hotel room. A wife and three children were left behind. Kile's stunning loss, at 33, came just days after the passing of beloved broadcaster Jack Buck and left the Cardinals family to search for meaning in the summer game amid so much sadness.

        It's against this backdrop that the Reds come to town for a three-game series beginning today. The Reds' extra-inning victory and the Cardinals' extra-inning loss Thursday put Cincinnati just a game behind St. Louis in the National League Central Division. After the Reds rallied for a 5-4 victory in Chicago, the Cardinals couldn't hold a 2-0 lead in the ninth and lost 7-2 to Milwaukee.

        St. Louis has lost five of its last six games, including three of four since Kile's death. With first place on the line, the Cardinals' task this weekend will be to play some of their best baseball right when baseball seems to matter the least.

        “Darryl was so special . . . we're gonna miss him all the time,” Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said before Thursday's game. One of Kile's batting jerseys rested in a corner of his office.

        “We're gonna miss him for years to come. He was a very special individual, a special teammate, a special friend and a special pitcher. The only way you get through this is to focus on the job when you're out there (on the field).”

        Said second baseman Fernando Vina: “You don't forget him. You never forget him. But you have to carry on.”

        For the Cardinals, carrying on on the field has not been easy.

        Once the team learned of Kile's death, the Saturday afternoon game in Chicago was canceled. On Sunday night — Kile's scheduled start — the Cardinals resumed playing in an eerily quiet Wrigley Field and played listlessly in an 8-3 loss to the Cubs, then lost 2-0 at home to Milwaukee on Tuesday. A 5-2 victory over Milwaukee on Wednesday night was their first since Kile's death.

        If things can't truly get back to normal, maybe they can get back to tolerable, Vina said.

        “(Wednesday night) was definitely better,” Vina said. “(Sunday night) was rough — you can imagine. One day you're laughing and joking with the guy, and the next, he's gone and he's not coming back. That first night was real tough. But all you can do is keep grinding.”

        Coming home helped. On Tuesday night, the Busch Stadium crowd observed 57 seconds of silence — 57 was Kile's jersey number — before the game against the Brewers.

        And Wednesday, teammates, former teammates, friends and fans gathered at Busch for a public memorial service. The crowd of about 5,000 included former Red Pete Harnisch, a teammate of Kile's in Houston; Chris Pronger of the NHL's St. Louis Blues; 10 current members of the Arizona Diamondbacks and Houston Astros, coming in on a private jet from Houston; and Oakland Athletics manager Art Howe, Kile's first manager in Houston, whose presence meant he'd have to miss half a game of his team's key American League West matchup in Seattle.

        “I just felt I had to be here,” Howe told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

        The service not only helped Cardinals players cope with their grief, it also helped them share it.

        “Darryl touched the entire baseball world, the whole sports world,” said reserve infielder/outfielder Eduardo Perez, a former Red. “You saw how many people have been touched by him.”

        Other reminders of Kile abound at Busch Stadium.

        Outside the park, gloves, caps, flowers, redbirds, teddy bears, pennants and handwritten notes were left in a makeshift memorial, not far from where fans left Buck a similar tribute.

        On the players' left sleeves is a black circle with Kile's initials, DK, and uniform number, 57 (on the right sleeves: a black bar with Buck's initials, JFB). On the right-field wall is another black circle with “DK 57.” You'll find another 57 scrawled on the left side of coach Jose Oquendo's cap, and on the right side of reliever Steve Kline's. There's a black ring around the pants leg of starting pitcher Bud Smith.

        In the clubhouse, Kile's jersey still hangs in the locker between those of pitchers Matt Morris and Dave Veres. Above the locker now is a plaque: “Darryl Kile 1968-2002. Husband, Father, Teammate, Friend. God Bless You. You Are Gone But Not Forgotten. We Love You Darryl. Your St. Louis Cardinal Teammates.”

        “We deeply miss Darryl Kile,” Perez said. “He was such an integral part of this team, and not just when he was on the field. He was an integral part of the clubhouse.

        “We learned a lot from him. The best thing we can do is to be better teammates to each other, like he was here to teach us. That's the best way we can honor him.”

        In Kile's last start, he allowed just one run in 7 2/3 innings as the Cardinals beat the Anaheim Angels June 18 and moved into first place in the Central. Another way his teammates can honor him, they figure, is by staying there.

        On Thursday night, after an afternoon shower, the sun came out. There were a few smiles around the batting cage. Kids lined up at the alongside the railing, seeking autographs as usual.

        Then the game started, and Smith, struggling with a 7.90 ERA, came up with five scoreless innings. Vina made a dandy play to rob Eric Young of a hit. Kile's friend Veres, whom he played with on three different teams, contributed three scoreless innings in his first appearance of the week.

        Then the bullpen failed.

        LaRussa simply said, “It was a tough loss.”

        Across the field today, the Reds will feel for the Cardinals. But they do have a job to do.

        “I've never been through anything like this,” Reds manager Bob Boone said. “I don't know what to expect.”

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