The best fairy tales’ details transcend their origins. There’s barely a film or novel whose plot doesn’t at least borrow from our allegorical comfort food, from the lessons and lullabies that mark our time. Take the concept of a fish out of water. The reference dates back to the 14th century, first elucidated in the prologue to Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. “A monk, when he is cloisterless, is like unto a fish that’s waterless.” 

But admit it: Your mind went to The Little Mermaid.

It’s truly archetypal. From Cinderella at the ball, to Jack atop the beanstalk, to Goldilocks making herself comfortable in the three bears’ home, there are few tropes more constant than finding yourself somewhere you’re not supposed to be. 

It’s a feeling that Yankees superutilityman/superhero Matt Carpenter experienced all too keenly as he found himself making his way around an unfamiliar room in a place he knows as well as any other. “I’ve pretty much walked, I would say, every inch of this stadium at some point, whether it be on my own or doing something for the club,” Carpenter said from a perch behind a dais in the Cardinals’ media dining room, addressing a friendly group of St. Louis beat writers, columnists and TV personalities this past August. “And the visiting clubhouse is the one inch that I have not ever stepped on. So, it’s pretty weird to be over there.”

As Carpenter returned to St. Louis with the Yankees, so much was familiar, but nothing exactly as it had once been. Having spent the first 11 years of his big-league career there, the altered reality proved surreal and elusive, perhaps culminating with the realization -- driven home one night later, in Seattle -- that it was a brief detour before the clock struck midnight and the coach turned back to a pumpkin.  

Baseball is joyful and majestic and filled with opportunity, but it’s also captive to reality. Once it’s over, you’re not supposed to be able to go back again. When Joe Boyd turns into Joe Hardy and sticks it to those Damn Yankees, you know that it’s a Faustian fantasy. And still, the sports world tries its damnedest. Yankee Stadium devotes prime acreage to the idea that baseball is as much about celebrating the past as watching new history unfold. It gives itself over to myth, and to the ghosts that remain, a dichotomy that plays out just as clearly in St. Louis. 

There’s some fairy tale in every baseball story. Matt Carpenter’s might be the new archetype. The only question is, when will he wake up? And has he already? 

***

From a high vantage point behind home plate, Busch Stadium spreads out like a Charles Fazzino artwork. The entirety of St. Louis appears to be crammed into the frame, in a way that feels almost artificial. The Gateway Arch looms over center field, tall buildings and even a historic courthouse just outside the periphery of a sea of red seats. Long before those chairs are filled with red-clad fans, Matt Carpenter does his best Cinderella, walking barefoot along the grass and soaking in his environment. This is nothing new for the 36-year-old, who engages in a practice known as “grounding” or “earthing” before every game, leaving his shoes and socks along the foul line and trying to create a direct connection with the turf. As he returns to his old nest, Carpenter is right at home. 

“Being a homegrown player -- a guy that was drafted by the organization, came up and spent parts of 11 Major League seasons there -- the bond goes pretty deep,” Carpenter says. 

Ask anyone involved with the Cardinals, whether players or coaches or fans or St. Louis Uber drivers, and you’ll get a consistent message: This is a special place, almost one of a kind. Busch Stadium is a temple in the center of town to which loyal followers make their near daily pilgrimage. While playing for the Reds, Aaron Boone made his big-league debut in St. Louis, and he says that in the years between retiring from playing and taking his spot as Yankees manager, he spent more time working in St. Louis as an ESPN broadcaster than he did in any other city. “Going there in the summer, it was that place where you saw people from all over the region,” Boone says. “You saw them, and you sensed families and people on their summer vacation going to St. Louis for a weekend or a week to go see their Cardinals and the town.”

Admittedly, it can get to be a bit much to hear people cry their hosannas to “The Cardinal Way,” a mythology or reality (depending on your perspective) that seems at least partly inspired by how many of baseball’s most prominent broadcasters spent time in the area. St. Louis stans always seem to want to make sure you know how unique the place is. But beneath even the hardest concrete of cynicism, there’s some truth. 

“I’ve gotten two standing ovations in Busch Stadium as a visiting player,” Gerrit Cole says. “It bothers Carp.”

So when Carpenter debuted briefly in 2011 for a team that would go on to win the World Series, he immediately tickled the nerves that endear players to Cardinals fans. “The franchise and the city rally around hardworking players that grind -- bottom line,” says Cardinals first-year manager Oliver Marmol, who was Carpenter’s first roommate in pro ball. “That player that’s just gritty and, every second, you can tell he’s trying to figure out a way to win. And Carp, he was a grinder.” Over the next years, Carpenter proved to be much more than some try-hard. Despite being a less-than-projectable prospect when the Cardinals picked him as a fifth-year senior out of TCU, Carpenter became a stud at the top of the St. Louis lineup, beloved as much for his reliably exceptional production on the field as for his charity off of it, to say nothing of the intangibles he brought to town, including a salsa recipe not-totally-jokingly noted as a catalyst for the team’s late surge in 2018. 

The end came in brutal fashion, though, as Carpenter struggled to a .177 batting average in his last two years in Cardinal red, his power all but gone. After three All-Star campaigns, his production cratered; over 180 games between 2020 and ’21, Carpenter slugged just .291, his OPS+ 30 percent worse than the league average. With an $18.5 million option for the 2022 season, there was no question that the Cardinals would instead pay the $2 million buyout after 2021, but the season’s unceremonious culmination came in a 162nd game that was called due to rain in the eighth inning. Carpenter -- who didn’t start but entered in the third inning -- wasn’t able to receive any sort of uproarious farewell from fans who were dodging raindrops at the end of the afternoon. Two days later, the Cardinals lost in the NL Wild Card Game in Los Angeles; Carpenter didn’t get an at-bat. 

“I was really searching in the last couple of years with my swing, and when you’re searching, your confidence is not very high,” Carpenter says. “And the Major Leagues is a tough place to be when you’re not at your best.”

Carpenter signed a Minor League deal with the Texas Rangers, which put him in the same clubhouse this spring as another soon-to-be Yankees favorite, Jose Trevino. The catcher saw what Carpenter’s St. Louis teammates had known for so long. 

“I was usually one of the first ones in the cage,” Trevino says. “He probably was in there 45 minutes before me.”

***

Maybe it’s not quite Cinderella picking lentils out of a pile of ashes, but Carpenter wasn’t kidding when he said that he would do anything for the Yankees upon arriving in New York, even if it meant carrying luggage.

“There’s some phone calls that you can get that -- no matter what the role or opportunity is -- you just can’t say no to. And the Yankees are certainly at the top of that list,” Carpenter says of the invitation to put on the pinstripes after he opted out of his Rangers deal. “I, for sure, didn’t expect it. And for me, the opportunity to come here and load bags on the plane and put on the uniform -- that would have been worth it.”

If Carpenter felt comfortable upon arriving in New York in late May, perhaps it was because of some quick similarities he noticed between his old and new organizations. The Cardinals and Yankees share legacies of success; each team leads its respective league in World Series titles. But the similarities go beyond that, in a chicken-or-egg fashion that so many people associated with the teams understand.

Both the Cardinals and Yankees seem constantly surrounded by memories of past greatness, and by the links to the present. Both teams’ home clubhouses display the franchise’s retired numbers, and the Cardinals’ dressing area in Busch Stadium even has replica championship banners. Old-timers constantly hang around both teams, whether for formal visits or unannounced drop-ins.

“I think the culture is that we’ve got some people from the past,” says Yadier Molina, who -- like teammate Adam Wainwright and even the resurgent Albert Pujols -- offers young Cardinals players a model for future success as well as an understanding of past greatness. “They taught us about being great teammates, being a winner.” Or, as fellow Cardinal Nolan Arenado puts it, “This is bigger than just us. This organization has had way better players than all of us that have been through here, you know?”

It’s easy to hear echoes of the Yankees’ ethos. But much as it is exalted in the celebratory chants of Cardinals faithful, there’s also that which only the players on either side can see. Yankees pitcher Jameson Taillon is careful not to disparage his former teammates when he notes the jarring immediacy with which he learned how things work in his new home. After an offseason trade from Pittsburgh to New York, Taillon showed up to 2021 spring training in Tampa and saw right way that his new teammates were watching tape to prepare for spring training games. That urgency excited him, same as the first time he found Carpenter happily willing to stand in the box for him during a bullpen session. It’s the type of task that usually falls to a rookie or even a September call-up, not a 12-year veteran.

That desire to win is all that Carpenter knows, and he attributes it to the team he grew up with, and the echoes he notices now. It’s not for nothing that he has maintained his affection for the Cardinals -- and for “The Cardinal Way” -- even after how his time there ended. As he said before his first game back in St. Louis, the Yankees-Cardinals series would be the first time since he was drafted that he wasn’t rooting for the Cardinals to win every game.

“The Major Leagues is a special place, but there’s an upper echelon. It means a little bit more to put on pinstripes. It means a little bit more to put on the Cardinals jersey,” Carpenter says. “I think that there’s a massive amount of respect that needs to be paid to put on those iconic jerseys. And I hold that in a very high regard when it comes to former players. I think that’s why you see so many people come back and want to be a part of it, because it is a big deal. It means something, and guys cherish that.

“I think that success certainly leaves footprints, and the similarities of these two organizations are pretty remarkable.”

***

Field of Dreams might not quite be sold as a fairy tale, and Ray Kinsella is far too contemporary to hold a place alongside Snow White or Rapunzel, but it touches all the notes we expect from treasured fables. And it plays out some 25 minutes from Busch Stadium, where Carpenter’s name adorns a picturesque and perfectly maintained baseball diamond in Pagedale, Missouri. The park evokes the film’s spirit and helps explain a connection that endures.

Matt Carpenter Field is home of Beyond Housing’s Redbird Rookies, which is part of a larger collection of youth teams sponsored by Cardinals Care. The field, located just behind the Beyond Housing facility and right next to the Pagedale Police Department, looks as manicured and crisp as it did when it was dedicated on Aug. 22, 2019. It’s one of 24 fields that Cardinals Care has built or rebuilt, each at a cost of $125,000 to $175,000, according to Michael Hall, the executive director of Cardinals Care and the team’s VP of community relations.

Unsurprisingly, many of the names adorning the fields are of Cardinals royalty, such as Bob Gibson, Stan Musial or Ozzie Smith. But to Hall, Carpenter was a no-brainer. The three-time All-Star and his wife, Mackenzie, dedicated so much time and effort (and money) to the team and the community when they lived there, all but never saying no. Hall recalls that Carpenter was his go-to for appearances every year at the team’s Winter Warm-Up, that he took over as the face of Matt Holliday’s Homers for Health program when Holliday retired, that he would sign countless balls for fundraising efforts. Mackenzie, meanwhile, was always helping out with Wives for Wishes and with the Cardinals Family program.

“It just made sense to dedicate that field in his name,” Hall says. “He was, I think, genuinely touched.”

For Carpenter, the field is a tangible remnant of his affection for the area, one that he goes back to again and again over the course of several conversations. His Texas roots notwithstanding, Carpenter really made a home in St. Louis. He started a family with Mackenzie there and raised his two children in Cardinals red, a bond so tight the thought of his 5-year-old son’s confusion over going to a game at Busch Stadium but rooting against the Cardinals was the one thing that made Carpenter’s stoic resolve crack during the session with the St. Louis reporters.

“I have zero regrets as far as the way my career played out there, and I’m just thankful that I even had the opportunity to begin with,” he says. “Obviously the last year and a half or so wasn’t great, but that doesn’t erase all the good memories. I had way more good ones than bad ones. And that won’t take away those experiences for me. I don’t know how the fans feel, but for me personally, there’s no bitterness or disappointment.”

What was clear for all to see was that the feeling was mutual. Wainwright predicted that the Cardinals fans wouldn’t let Carpenter come to bat without making sure he heard them -- “He’s going to get a huge ovation, and he deserves every second of it,” said the 17-year veteran who is third on the franchise’s career wins list -- and that more than played out as expected. In each of the three games, as Carpenter stepped from the on-deck circle for the first time, Molina ceded the area around home plate to his returning brother, as fans bathed Carpenter in the love they didn’t get a chance to show him in his last game as a Cardinal. It was an emotional display, each one culminating in a heartfelt tip of the cap and an embrace between Carpenter and Molina. Then it was back to the action, as the Cardinals surged through the weekend sweep. Carpenter, meanwhile, cracked a couple of hits and nearly homered twice, but his shots fell victim to the humid St. Louis air and the unforgiving Busch Stadium dimensions.

“I played here long enough to know that if you think there’s a chance, there’s usually not,” Carpenter would lament afterward.

It was a bad weekend for a Yankees team in a down stretch. It would get worse on Monday.

***

Maybe these things just have a clock ticking down, or some supernatural forces manipulating the puppet strings. Who can say? Maybe it was a bite of the wrong apple or a rose under a glass cloche losing its last petal. Maybe it was a jersey pulled from a display case that was supposed to remain a shrine. 

Debbie Kendrick wanted to be at all three games of the Yankees series, but she only managed tickets to Sunday’s finale. For the occasion, she pulled out a jersey that she had won in a raffle several years earlier, Carpenter’s autograph legible on the red No. 13. She had never worn it; it had been in the frame since she brought it home. But this felt like the day she was meant to take it off the wall. 

“He was not just an amazing player, but he was an amazing person,” Kendrick says. “Whenever we would be in a pinch and we needed that home run, he came through. If we needed just an RBI, he came through. It just seems like it’s not even the same Cardinals without him.”

But maybe there was something about the jersey that was meant to stay behind glass. Maybe the magic has to end at some point. The next night, in Seattle, Carpenter fouled a ball off his foot during his first at-bat. He broke a bone and spent the next two months desperately hoping he’d be able to write a fairy-tale ending during the postseason. 

Second chances come around from time to time, but rarely the type that Carpenter got to enjoy. When his regular season ended that night in Seattle, it was with a 1.138 OPS and 15 homers in just 47 games for the Yankees. Beyond the numbers, though, he brought veteran leadership and poise to a team on an unexpected roller coaster, and he did it in a fashion that elicited the same type of love and devotion he had long engendered in St. Louis fans and teammates. 

“When you’ve got a guy like that, with the track record he does, the stats on the back of a baseball card kind of speak for themselves,” says teammate Aaron Judge. “For him to come in humbled and say, ‘I just want to be a part of this team and do what I can to help you guys win,’ that’s pretty special.”

Carpenter knows it, understands it well. This whole ride, after all, has been something of a miracle. “I’m extremely blessed with opportunities, just the way it’s all fallen into place,” he says. “My whole career, not just this year, starting from getting drafted out of college as a fifth-year senior, it’s all been very fortunate. And I’m very thankful.”

So, we leave him in limbo, like a child begging for one more page of the story before bed. Parents have all kinds of excuses in these moments, some better than others. There’s school the next day, there’s food burning in the oven, there’s a game about to start. Sometimes, though, the story’s just not done yet. We’re not always lucky enough to have a centuries-old Grimm work, tightened over the years into a perfectly crafted tale. Some of this stuff, we’re making up as we go along, trying to figure out the ending as our children stifle their yawns. 

If the Matt Carpenter story is a finished fairy tale, it was a good one. But if there’s more fantasy left in 2022? Well, that could be enough for us all to live happily ever after.