Want a Cardinals license plate for your car? You can buy one soon.
Editor's note: This "news" story was written by a St. Louis Cardinals fan.
By Jake Griffin
jgriffin@dailyherald.com
Illinois is finally showing some love to the best fans in baseball.
After a 17-year wait, Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White recently unveiled new license plates adorned with logo of the St. Louis Cardinals, who have won the World Series 11 times.
Legislation allowing the plates was passed in 2002. It's unclear why it's taken so long to come to fruition, but at least it wasn't 108 years. Though the franchise is in Missouri, the Cardinals' home field is just a couple of Paul Goldschmidt moonshots from the Illinois border where you are far more likely to find Illinoisans sporting Cardinal red than Cubby blue or whatever color the White Sox are wearing these days.
The plate design, with the Cardinals' iconic bird on the bat logo, was unveiled Thursday at Busch Stadium in St. Louis ahead of the first-place Cardinals' 8-0 drubbing of the Chicago Cubs.
Illinois Cardinals fans can begin ordering the new plates after Labor Day.
The cost to purchase a random number plate for a currently registered vehicle is $69.
Car owners with registrations that expire between September and the end of the year will pay $101 for a randomly numbered plate, plus an additional $40 fee.
Of that additional fee, $25 will go to a special public school fund and $15 will go toward the state's "special plate fund."
Starting Jan. 1, the registration fee increases to $151 with the specialty plate fee staying at $40.
Personalized and vanity plates cost even more, with those fees found at Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White's website, cyberdriveillinois.com.
"This is an exciting opportunity for fans to express pride for their team, while supporting education in Illinois," White said at Thursday's unveiling. "It is my pleasure to have the St. Louis Cardinals organization take part in this meaningful program."
The Cardinals are the first pro team based outside Illinois to receive a specialty plate.
Fans of the Bears, Blackhawks, Bulls, Cubs and White Sox long have been able to buy the specially designed plates and have raised more than $10 million for Illinois public schools during that time.
There are nearly 65,000 of these plates registered to fans currently, White's office reported.
Blackhawks fans have taken advantage of the program the most, with 22,110 specially designed Blackhawks plates on the road, according to registration records supplied by White's office.
White Sox fans have the second-most specialty plates, with 17,515. There are 13,794 Cubs plates, 8,170 Bears plates and 3,196 Bulls plates.
Don't look for specialty plates for the St. Louis Blues or Green Bay Packers anytime soon, though. A spokesman for White said the 2002 law applied only to the Cardinals and the now-gone Rams football franchise, which won its only Super Bowl title when it was in St. Louis.