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Young Mike Brueggenjohann would always sit in the passenger’s seat. Walter Shockley in the driver’s seat. And from the Missouri town of Hermann, the grandpa took his grandson to Sportsman’s Park … without pressing the gas.

“We would sit in his car in front of his house,” Mike said, “and listen to Cardinal baseball.”

Jack Buck would narrate the old ballgame over the sometimes crackling, sometimes crisp airwaves of KMOX 1120 AM. Harry Caray, too.

“It’s how I became a Cardinal fan,” said Mike, who is now 65, lives in Ballwin and is an usher at Busch Stadium. “We’d sit there and Grandpa Shockley would root for the Cardinals, and he’d just tell me stories — he saw all the great players.”

Mike’s grandpa was born in 1900. He saw Ty Cobb play. Even Babe Ruth in the 1926 World Series, which the Cardinals eventually won for their first-ever championship. He worked many years for Missouri Pacific Railroad. Later as a groundskeeper for a country club. And inside the old Plymouth, he and Mike listened to ballgames from the 1964 season — when the Cards, yet again, beat the Yankees to win the title — and for the next few years of Mike’s youth.

“Man, he loved baseball,” Mike said. “I’ve got a four finger Stan Musial (model) baseball glove that was my grandfather’s. I just treasure that.”

Mike is a Cardinals lifer. Even without hemoglobin, his blood would be red. He’s been a Busch usher for more than a decade. He and his wife even traveled to London for those 2023 games against the Cubs. And he even camped outside the stadium during Game 6 of the 1982 World Series — shortly after Grandpa Shockley had passed away — to potentially buy standing room tickets to Game 7 (and while Mike and his buddies waited outside, they listened to the Buck broadcast on the radio).

And for a few years now, Mike has paid homage to Buck and Ozzie Smith and, really, Mike’s grandpa in the most unlikely of ways.

With his license plates.

It’s the most ӣ����Ƶ thing ever. You spot his car and you either get it or you don’t. See, Mike has personalized Missouri plates with the Cardinals’ logo and the letters: GOCRZE.

It makes for a unique tribute to Buck’s iconic call, from 40 years ago this week, of Smith’s improbable walk-off postseason home run.

It was Game 5 of the National League Division Series against the Dodgers. The series was 2-2. The score was 2-2. In the bottom of the ninth at Busch Stadium II, the defensive wizard Smith came to bat. The switch-hitter had only 13 career home runs — all right-handed. Exactly 3,009 career at-bats as a lefty, never once did Ozzie hit a homer.

And batting left-handed against righty Tom Niedenfuer, Ozzie hit a homer.

“Smith corks one into right, down the line, it may go!” the late, great Buck said from the radio booth. “Go crazy, folks! Go crazy! It’s a home run, and the Cardinals have won the game by the score of 3-2 on a home run by The Wizard! Go crazy!”

I texted a photo of the GOCRZE plates to Jack Buck’s son, Joe, who is also a legendary sports broadcaster.

“It’s pretty nuts,” Joe said, “that a random sentence that came out of his mouth — one that he didn’t love after he said it initially, and he looked at the radio engineer Colin Jarrett and said ‘Why did I say that?’ — was impactful enough to be somebody’s license plate. Something they see every day. I’m sure it makes him smile — and it would make my dad proud. And it shows the power of Cardinal baseball.”

Last month, the Cardinals invited back the beloved 1985 team for a reunion. That really was a heck of a year. The Runnin’ Redbirds went 101-61. Willie McGee won the MVP. John Tudor had a 1.93 ERA. And as for Smith’s home run, second baseman Tommy Herr said at the reunion:

“Yeah, that was crazy.

“When he hit it, it was kind of like a halfway between a line drive and a fly ball, because he didn’t hit that many towering fly balls. The whole time, we weren’t sure if it was going to be high enough to clear the fence or not. And it was, just barely. And the euphoria that creates in an instant is hard to describe.”

The Cards proceeded to win Game 6 thanks to a three-run Jack Clark homer, this one in the top of the ninth, against, yep, Tom Niedenfuer. The 1985 Cardinals won the pennant.

Can’t seem to recall what happened after that.

As for Mike, he has actually crossed paths with Ozzie at least four times over the decades. The first time, before he got the license plates, Mike gleefully told Smith that his own son wore jersey No. 1.

Another time, Mike just watched in awe from a Busch Stadium lobby as Smith shook each person’s hand with enthusiasm and kindness.

After Mike got the plates, he saw Smith at a grocery store. Got to actually tell him about the crazy plates.

“So,” Mike said, “I put a Sharpee in my car. I said to myself — if I see Ozzie again, I’m going have to sign my license plates.

“Six months later. I’m shopping — I see Ozzie. I said, ‘Hey, remember, I’m the guy with the Cardinal ‘go crazy’ plates.’ He goes, ‘Yeah, I remember talking to you.’ So I go out to my car and I’m thinking — am I going to bother one of the greatest shortstops ever for an autograph of a license plate?

“So I took really long putting my stuff in my car, because I was waiting for him to come out. I said, ‘Mr. Smith, can you do me a favor and sign my license plate?’ And he kind of had this look about him, like, is this guy crazy? But he was nice. He signed it for me.”