Baseball-Related Program Activities

Found while I was looking for something else: a newspaper ad for KWK radio in St. Louis.

Labels: advertising, Cardinals, kwk

6:02 -- Why, they've got a special graphic to use when Craig Biggio gets a hit.

6:11 -- Xavier Nady, who has a great name, hits a home run to tie the Pirates-Astros game at 2.
6:21 -- Hey, the Twins aren't on WCCO anymore, which is kind of like the Cardinals not being on KMOX anymore. Herb Carneal may well be rolling in his grave already.

6:25 -- The Pirates-Astros game isn't quite as speedy now that it's gone into extra innings.
6:32 -- Perhaps somebody with more time on their hands than Levi or me -- probably a member of SABR -- has calculated the percentage of World Series and/or pennant winners that won their first game of the season. I'm suddenly interested in what that statistic is.
6:33 -- Jason Bay hits a 2-run homer in the top of the 10th. He should be on the Devil Rays instead of the Pirates, given that both have "Bay" in their names.
6:38 -- The Astros strike out, in the bottom of the 10th, for the first time in the game.
6:42 -- The Pirates win a game! The Pirates win a game! And now there's only one game in progress.
6:43 -- In this post-literate age, "DQ Grill & Chill" seems to be the new name for "Dairy Queen Brazier." I wonder how Bob Greene feels about that. (The former columnist for the Chicago Tribune, not Oprah's personal trainer.)

You know, after I got fired two years ago, I should have tried to contact him to commiserate. We could have had a chat over Blizzards or something. I don't even remember exactly what our disagreement was about.
6:53 -- The Twins announcers are comparing former Devil Ray and current Oriole Danys Baez to Rick Sutcliffe, and talk about how he hooks his hand around behind him before he delivers the ball. At one point, they call him "a hooker."

Labels: astros, bob greene, Cardinals, craig biggio, dairy queen, danys baez, devil rays, herb carneal, jason bay, pirates, rick sutcliffe, twins, xavier nady

I became a baseball fan the summer I turned eleven. My mother was taking classes towards a degree in social work at a college about an hour's drive from Carmi, and my brother and I would ride along with her a couple of nights a week to the campus. On the drive, we would tune in to the Cardinals, carried at that point on the clear-channel powerhouse of KMOX. The Cardinals were very good that summer, holding off a tough Mets team to win the division and then the pennant before a disappointing World Series performance. Jack Buck and Mike Shannon described it all, and made us fans.

Sometime in the next few years, as my baseball fandom turned into the sort of obsession that only preteen boys, it seems, are capable of, I discovered on an out-of-the-way bookshelf in our house a musty, digest-sized baseball magazine previewing the 1974 season. Opening it, I discovered on the first page a nearly inscrutable scrawl, one bearing no little resemblance to my own:

June 1974--Play Ball, Boy! Love, Col.

It was a gift, given at my birth and no doubt tucked away at the time and forgotten, from my great-grandfather, Grandpa Colonel, about whom I've written before. Living his whole life in rural Kansas, he spent a lifetime enjoying baseball--and the Cardinals--the same way I grew up enjoying them: on the radio, far from the ballpark. Jack Buck may be gone--as is Grandpa Colonel--but the radio is still my favorite way to experience the game if I can't be there, and sound of baseball on the radio is still, for me, the heart of summer.

I never was much of a ballplayer, but I find myself thinking of Grandpa Colonel's admonition every spring. Last Sunday, I spent the morning playing catch with my nephew at Montrose Beach, throwing until our arms ached. Tonight, Stacey and I open the house to friends--several of whom haven't visited since October--for chili, brats, cornbread, and beer, all in honor of the return of spring. One of these days, we'll have to get Jim here for the opener.

It's the Cardinals and Mets. The last time we saw these two teams, they played one of the most exciting, stressful, and rewarding games I've ever seen. Tonight, like every spring, it starts all over again.

Play ball.

Labels: baseball books, Cardinals, Jack Buck, KMOX, Mets, Mike Shannon

Vivaelbirdos poster Brock20 found this video of a kid, all of about four years old, doing imitations of the batting stances of several Cardinals. He's got them cold--check out the swing and follow-through on Pujols--and the deadly home run stare. Hard to believe a four-year-old can mimic that ice-cold look, but he does. It's uncanny. His Jimmy Edmonds is really good, too.

Meanwhile, his kid sister sings "Row Row Row Your Boat" in the background.

Opening Day is getting close.

Labels: Albert Pujols, Cardinals, Jeffrey Maier, Jimmy Edmonds, youtube

Right now, this is my nominee for the best non-Cardinals-win-the-World-Series sports story of the year. Don Carman, he of the 53-54 record and the 4.11 E.R.A. over a ten-year career, is now one of my favorite players.

Close competition is Toby's excellent eve-of-the-World Series article about Carmi resident and former Tiger and Cardinal Bob Sykes. Toby, is that available online for me to link to anywhere?

And as we enter the holiday season, some baseball things I'm thankful for:
Jimmy Edmonds, and his new contract that makes him likely to retire a Cardinal.
Adam Wainwright's curveball and its ability to freeze Carlos Beltran, if for no other reason than my mom's good health. I'm not sure she would have made it had he hit the bases-clearing triple we all were clearly imagining.
Endy Chavez's catch, and the fact that it ultimately didn't matter
Manny Ramirez's swing. And his hair.
Dusty Baker's firing. Is that too mean for a holiday list?
Jackie Robinson. 'Cause you can't ever be too thankful for Jackie Robinson.
Rickey. GMs, he's ready to play. Just call.
Yadier Molina's October power surge. And his girlish smile.
Stacey's jack-o-lanterns. 10-0 in the Fall Classic and counting.
Labor peace.
J.D. Drew's silly, silly baserunning, and the fact that that play also involved Jeff Kent and his mustache.
The Big Unit, even though he's a Yankee and, apparently, past his peak. Oh, that slider, and that hair.
Mike Shannon. So long as he's broadcasting, a part of me will still be a kid.
Opening Day, and living a mile-and-a-half from a ballpark, a childhood dream unexpectedly realized.

And, finally and forever, Albert Pujols. 'Nuff said.

I know I'm forgetting dozens. Feel free, ye millions of readers, to add your own in comments.

Labels: adam wainwright, bob sykes, Cardinals, carlos beltran, don carman, dusty baker, Jimmy Edmonds, Manny Ramirez, Mike Shannon, randy johnson, Rickey Henderson, yadier molina

Jim pointed out the other day that Ed Goren, the President of Fox Sports, wrote to the L.A. Times in support of Tim McCarver. Among other things, he said that McCarver is "the best first-guesser in the business."

Now, much as I like to complain about McCarver, I'm sure there were times in this World Series when he displayed his reportedly impressive first-guessing ability. But the one example that Goren chooses to cite lays bare the reasons that Fox's baseball coverage is so utterly terrible.

Here's Goren's example: "Who else would have suggested that Tony La Russa remove right fielder Chris Duncan for defensive purposes in Game 5 before he botched a fly ball into a double?"

Hmm. Who else? Let's see:

1) Steve Stone

2) Me

3) Any Cardinals fan who had seen Duncan play at any time in person on on television, or who had heard a Cardinals game on the radio in which he played. Those people would know that Duncan is by trade a lousy first baseman, but that, given that there's no place for non-MVP first basemen in St. Louis this decade, he's learning to play the outfield. And he's not very good at it.

4) Any fan of one of the teams the Cardinals played against this season after Duncan was called up and began playing regularly.

5) And, oh, yeah: Anyone who had watched Game 5 of the 2006 World Series up to the point when McCarver suggested replacing Duncan . . . and who had therefore seen Duncan's earlier error, an embarrassing botched pop fly.

That Goren didn't realize himself that it might be worth removing Duncan is bad enough.

That he also didn't realize that many, many, many of the people watching might have figured out on their own that removing Duncan might be a good idea is bad enough.

But that he realizes neither of those obvious facts, and then, therefore, thinks that Tim McCarver is a genius because he points out what we've all realized tells you all you need to know about why Fox's coverage of baseball is so bad.

They do not care about, like, enjoy, or understand the game. Nor do they care about or understand those of us who do.

Labels: Cardinals, chris duncan, tim mccarver, tony la russa

Seven Octobers now we've been hosting Baseball Open House at the Rocketship, and this year's has to rank as our most successful:

* We had good friends in attendance throughout, ranging from two or three people all the way to a high of eleven (plus me and Stacey) for Kenny Rogers's glorious (pine-tar-aided?) dismantling of the Yankees in the LDS.

* Half a dozen or so friends made their first Baseball Open House appearance.

* We hosted people for every night game in the entire playoffs except three, two of which were graciously hosted by TITANIA, and the other, the World Series opener, which we watched with the whole Stahl family at my brother's house in Indianapolis following my running of the Indy marathon.

* We cooked up a mess of food, relying more than in any previous October on the seasonal produce that we get each week from our membership in a local community-supported farm; in that way, we were closer to the autumn outdoors than ever before.

* Stacey's baseball jack-o-lanterns ran their World Series game-winning streak to 10. Damon went 4-0 in 2004, Ozzie Guillen went 4-0 in 2005, and the Yadi-o-lantern went 2-0 to close out the 2006 series.

* Despite the brevity of many of the series--the teams only played six games over the minimum this October--we saw some very exciting baseball. As my mom put it on the phone minutes after Adam Wainwright struck out Carlos Beltran with the bases loaded to put St. Louis in the World Series, "That one nearly killed me!" Even the fans without a rooting interest in the game knew what she meant.

* We had champagne in the fridge, and we got to use it. We drank some after the aforementioned strikeout of Beltran, and we put back more of it after Wainwright snapped off the same curveball against Brandon Inge . . . which leads to the final reason this Baseball Open House was such a success . . . .

* THE CARDINALS WON THE WORLD SERIES! FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE I WAS EIGHT YEARS OLD AND NOT YET REALLY A FAN!

Thanks, Cardinals. Thanks, everyone who came out. Thanks, Jim, for another season of BRPA. I'll try to be a more reliable poster in 2007, and maybe you can make it for Baseball Open House next October.

The only proper way to end this is to turn the mike over to the Rajah:

"People ask me what I do in the winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring."--Rogers Hornsby

Pitchers and catchers report in about 100 days.

Labels: adam wainwright, brandon inge, Cardinals, carlos beltran, food, tigers, world series

2006 ends as it began...with Chessie on the floor near a TV that's showing a baseball game.

Labels: Cardinals, cats, tigers, tv, world series

Levi's normally a vegetarian, except when the Cardinals are in the World Series, and that's because he has a superstition that involves eating Lit'l Smokies. And therefore...



Note that Levi is looking around furtively for any fellow vegetarians who might be ready to pounce upon him for this breach of vegetarianism.

Also note that this picture was taken Wednesday night, and Levi is in his kitchen instead of being in front of the TV. Suddenly introducing meat can cause problems for digestive systems that aren't used to it -- and something else that can cause problems for digestive systems is four episodes of "The War at Home" interspersed with Joe Buck telling America that it's still raining in St. Louis. So Levi is wisely attempting to minimize the amount of Kaopectate he'll need later.

On another note, after Johnny Damon in 2004 and Ozzie Guillen in 2005, this year's baseball-related jack-o'-lantern carved by Stacey is...



...Yadier Molina.

Also, in today's L.A. Times, Bill Plaschke writes a column that boils down to "the baseball season should start 10 days earlier so I'm not quite as cold while I'm being paid to attend the World Series." You know, it's warmer during the day, too.

Labels: Cardinals, food, jack o' lantern, tigers, world series, yadier molina

Hey, New York City

Wasn't this weekend supposed to be

the start of the big Subway Series?

Guess that's not happening.

Unless there's a subway between St. Louis and Detroit.

[adult swim]

Labels: Cardinals, Mets, tigers, tv, yankees

You know things have been going badly for your team when NPR has a feature on their near-choke. But after two weeks of unwanted drama, the Cardinals pulled out their sixth Central Division championship in seven years, which means that, because in the one year they didn't make the playoffs, 2003, the Cubs won the division, there's been a team in which Stacey and I have a serious rooting interest in the playoffs every one of the seven years we've been hosting baseball open house at the Rocketship.

Some notes from last week:

1) Wednesday night, when the Cardinals desperately needed a win against San Diego to end a seven-game losing streak, late in the game Cardinals broadcaster John Rooney said, regarding the extra-inning Astros-Pirates game, "You'll hear the crowd start bubbling in a few minutes, because the magic number has just dropped to four." Stacey and I, while listening to the Cardinals game on the Internet, were also following the Pirates-Astros game on mlb.com's Gameday, and from what we could tell, the game wasn't over--the Pirates had by no means won.

Rooney came back from a break for a San Diego pitching change saying, "We had some wrong information on that Pittsburgh-Houston game." But before he could explain what had actually happened, Albert Pujols hit one into orbit, giving the Cardinals a good-sized lead. Rooney got caught up in describing the action, and he didn't get back to apologizing and explaining for probably five minutes. Houston would go on to win that game, leaving Rooney in very real danger of having fatally jinxed the team.

2) That mistake also ties in with my brother's biggest complaint about Rooney, whom I've been a big fan of since his days keeping Ed Farmer in check on the White Sox broadcasts: he's profligate with his home run hopes. About once per game, he'll get all excited about a long fly . . . that dies short of the warning track. If you're like me and my brother, and still get most of your baseball through radio announcers (admittedly via the Internet), it's an extremely frustrating habit.

3) On Friday night, with Pujols at the plate again, Mike Shannon delivered the following call:

Shannon: Here's the pitch. Pujols swings, and Ha-ha! You can't sneak the sun past the rooster, boy! And the rooster just crowed!

Rooney: Cock-a-doodle-doo!

Rooney and Shannon work together better than Rooney and Wayne Hagin ever did. I hope Rooney's okay with Shannon's prominence on the broadcast, because they really do make a good team. Shannon, though not a great (or even good, really) play-by-play man, is a wonderful friend to listen to on the broadcasts. So long as he's there, I'll still feel like listening to Cardinals games is the same experience I grew up with, despite Jack Buck's death.

4) Saturday, Stacey and I watched the Cardinals on Fox--cleverly synching up the Internet radio feed to the Tivo so that we could hear Shannon and Rooney instead of Piniella and Whoever--through the end of the seventh. The Cardinals were down 2-0 at that point, but I gathered my things to go to Wrigley Field, because I had a ticket to my last game of the year, an inconsequential tilt between the Cubs and Rockies.

I hopped on my bicycle . . . and got two blocks away, to Wilson Avenue, before I thought, "Why am I leaving an important game, one that I care about, to go see an utterly inconsequential game?" I turned around and got back home for the bottom of the eighth, which allowed me to see Sandfrog lead singer Scott Spiezio's game-breaking triple. As soon as the game was over, I was back on my bike, and by the first pitch of the second inning at Wrigley, I was in my seat.

5) I hope there's no long-term karmic damage from my rooting for Larry "Chipper" Jones and the Braves this weekend. Similarly, I hope St. Louis doesn't get the punishment it probably deserves from the gods for doing the Tomahawk Chop a couple of times this weekend at Busch Stadium. As Lando might say, "There was nothing we could do. They arrived just before you did." Or something like that.

Go, Cardinals!

Labels: Albert Pujols, Cardinals, chipper jones, ed farmer, john rooney, Mike Shannon, scott spiezio, star wars

There's a Cardinals version and, in honor of Talk Like a Pirate Day, here's the Pirates version -- but the cutest one is, of course, the one with Li'l Mister Met. (The Angels one might be the cutest if it had monkeys -- but it doesn't.)

Levi and Mrs. Levi: are you sure you don't want kids?

Labels: angels, Cardinals, Mets, pirates

After Gary Bennett's out-of-nowhere performance against the Cubs this weekend (.700/.750/.833, with a homer and a game-winning single Saturday and a game-winning grand slam Sunday night), I hope each player on the Cardinals roster--including the guys on the DL--bought him a stiff drink last night.

And then I hope he staggered around the bar, drunk as a lord, shouting, "Don't you mess with me--I'm freaking Mike Piazza!"

Labels: Cardinals, cubs, gary bennett, mike piazza

This is from KWK radio in St. Louis in the late 1950s or early 1960s, and you can be the judge of whether they were thinking baseball, football, or both.

Labels: Cardinals, jingles

Levi was at the Cardinals-Cubs game today. I watched the Comcast SportsNet broadcast from home.

Levi had to watch the Cardinals not score any runs in the top of the 9th inning and lose 3-2, but I saw something else instead of the last two outs...



I remember being impressed back in 1989 that ABC had a slide specifically reading "World Series" at the ready to throw up on screen when they lost their feed from San Francisco. As you can see, Comcast SportsNet is not as classy as ABC. (And no wonder they're experiencing technical difficulties -- their cnntrol room looks blurry and smeared.)

Labels: Cardinals, cubs, tv

Remember, the Cardinals are no longer on KMOX. Now it's also possible that the Pirates may be leaving their longtime radio home, KDKA.

Labels: Cardinals, pirates, radio

From a Post-Dispatch article on Daryl Kile's abiding influence:

"Every once in a while -- not very often -- you come across people who make everybody else around them better," Matheny said. "I've never seen anybody put so much effort into other people and you could tell it was sincere."

Labels: Cardinals, daryl kile, mike matheny

Cardinals fans have spent the past couple of weeks worrying that the Cardinals might, as rumor had it, sign Jacque Jones from the Twins. Jacque Jones is not a very good baseball player, and he was destined to be overpaid.

So the Cubs signed him! For three years! For $16 million!

Dan Szymborski of Baseballprimer.com has a hilarious analysis of the signing at their Transaction Oracle. I can't figure out how to permalink to the post, so you should go here, then scroll down just a bit until you find the Jones signing. It's worth it.

Labels: Cardinals, cubs, jacque jones, twins

Matt Morris has reportedly signed a 3-year, $27-million deal with the Giants, reuniting him with his favorite backstop, Mike Matheny, and ending a nine-year career as a Cardinal.

Matt's been one of my favorite baseball players since his rookie season in 1997, when he went 12-9 with an ERA of 3.19. I learned that season that Matt sometimes rode his bicycle to the park on days he wasn't pitching, and that was all I needed. He was always fun to watch pitch. He comes across as one of those guys who manages to be ultra-competetive without being a prick. His Cardinal career also coincides exactly with the period of my most intense baseball fandom: post-college, with more time on my hands and the Internet to keep me close to my team. He'll always be one of the faces of that era of baseball to me.

His best moments in a Cardinals uniform, though, came in one week in October of 2001. Twice in six days, he dueled Curt Schilling and the Diamondbacks in the Division Series. The Cards came out on the wrong side both times, as Morris lost the first game 1-0 and took a no-decision after 8 1-run innings in a 2-1 loss in the deciding game five. It was tough, stressful baseball, the kind that makes us ordinary people wonder how anyone can block out the drama long enough to actually participate in it. Up against Schilling at his world-beating best, Matt Morris threw a couple of the best games of his life.

He ends his Cardinal career having started the tenth-most games in team history, 209. with a 101-62 record, a 3.61 ERA, and an ERA+ of 119*. He's fourth in team history in strikeouts, with 1337, and sixth in winning percentage at .620. Oh, and he's sixth in hit batsmen with 49.

Thanks, Matt. Good luck in San Francisco. I think you'll like the city and that big ballpark.

*ERA+ is a complex stat designed to show how a pitcher performed relative to other pitchers in the league that year. 100 is average, anything over that is good. Matt's best was a 166 in his injury-shortened 1998. Last year, an off year for him, he still managed a 104.

Labels: Cardinals, curt schilling, giants, matt morris

No reason for me to pause the TiVo tonight. If there's any good news for Levi, it's that he can now join all right-thinking Chicagoans (and probably much of the country as well) in cheering for the White Sox.

Labels: astros, Cardinals, roy oswalt, white sox

Well, well, well.

1) That was a nice reminder that what we're all seeing every time Pujols plays is a Hall-of-Fame career in the making. Cardinals fans are extremely lucky to have him, and we ought to appreciate it with every at-bat.

2) Even were the Cardinals to go on and get trounced tomorrow night, Pujols (and, to give credit properly, Eckstein and Edmonds, who had tough at-bats before him) at least took what had been a frustrating, disappointing series and gave us something we'll remember for a long time.

3) My brother's two concerns post-game? He was hoping the construction guys hadn't started the wrecking ball back in the 7th for Busch Stadium. (Fox had, as their highlight reel of Busch over the years demonstrated.) Second, he wanted to know if Fox had reconsidered their choice of Lance Berkman as Chevrolet Player of the Game--chosen, as usual, in like the second inning.

4) In the 9th, with one out, Barbara Bush--visible all game as a little Boglin head perched just above the railing behind home--started packing up her bag. "Why," she probably thought, "would I want to sully my beautiful mind with thoughts of Brad Lidge blowing this game?"

Labels: Albert Pujols, astros, brad lidge, busch stadium, Cardinals, david eckstein, jim edmonds, lance berkman

Well, Levi, I'm sorry the Cardinals didn't make it to the Series this year -- but White Sox vs. Astros, now there's a couple teams you don't see in the Series very often!

The game's not actually over yet, but I've got the TiVo paused with two outs in the top of the 9th, the Astros ahead 4-2, and Fox running all the Astros history footage they can get their hands on. So it's pretty much a foregone conclusion; I mean, the only hope the Cardinals have would be something along the lines of Brad Lidge giving up a 3-run homer to Albert Pujols, and how likely is that?

Labels: Albert Pujols, astros, brad lidge, Cardinals, white sox

Four consecutive complete games? In the postseason? The White Sox bullpen must really suck!

On another note, since Levi has some stuffed animals that he lines up to watch Cardinals games with him, I decided to do the same on Saturday night with my stuffed animal collection...



I'm sure all the birds were rooting for their brethren the Cardinals, and cats are always in favor of birds running around, and I told Wallace they put cheese on their toasted ravioli in St. Louis, so he was happy -- but I suspect Shaun the Sheep was pulling for Mike Lamb and the Astros. I have no idea what Goofy was thinking.

Labels: astros, Cardinals, mike lamb, white sox

The banner at Petco Park that turned "Western Metal Supply Co." into "Western Division Champions" was very clever. Perhaps in New Busch Stadium, the Cardinals can have a legend under the scoreboard clock reading "Central Time" that can be appropriately altered in applicable Octobers.

Labels: Cardinals, padres

When we left Bill James, he was at Royals Stadium for Game 1 of the 1985 World Series, complaining about having paid $30 for a ticket. But then he realizes, "No one has a divine right to attend the event, and if you're not willing to pay a good price for the tickets, you shouldn't be there." However...

All season, whenever Susie and I had gone into games we had been extremely fortunate as to the people seated around us; we made it through almost the entire season without being in earshot of an obnoxious drunk. On this memorable occasion, the law of averages caught up with us. We were seated three rows behind the last human being in the Western hemisphere that I would ever want to marry into my family; she is to this day known in our house only as That Dreadful Woman. That Dreadful Woman combined the virtues of a coquettish Southern Belle, the kind that during a Tennessee Williams play you always want to reach onstage and strangle to speed up the plot, with those of your ordinary garden-variety obnoxious drunken fan. She had a voice that would remind you of a clarinet with a broken reed, set to the volume of an airhorn, and I suppose that she had been a cheerleader two or three years ago, for she was determined to lead the section in cheers. She was a Cardinals fan, which was not the problem; in fact, the ingrained hospitality with which Midwesterners receive guests is probably all that kept her alive as the game progressed. Whenever anything happened...no, that's not right...whether anything happened or not she would leap to her feet almost with every pitch and, turning around and gesturing with her arms as if tossing an invisible baby into the air, implore the section to screech along with her and give her some sort of reassurance about how cute she was. After about a half-inning of this, every time she got up she would, naturally, be greeted with a chorus of people yelling encouraging things like "Sit Down," "Shut Up," "Watch the Game," "Lady, Pleeeese" and "Will you get your ass out of the way?" However, being apparently none too swift even when sober, she could not take in that it was not anyone in particular who was yelling these things, but everyone in the entire area taking turns. Having focused on someone who was abusing her, she would fasten onto the luckless soul -- several, I am sure, will never go back to a baseball game as long as they live -- and begin to whimper accusingly about how she didn't mean to do any wrong and she was just trying to enjoy the game and didn't they want to enjoy the game and didn't Royals fans like to have fun and what had she done except cheer for her team and couldn't they be friends? Eventually she would shake hands with whoever it was; this was, after all, the only way to get her to stop whining in your face. Then she would grab her camera and put her arm around her new friend and have her husband (or boyfriend, or whoever the poor bastard was) take a picture of the event.

She had other uses for the camera -- for example, she would try on a funny hat, hand off the camera to a stranger and have him take a picture of her. She would do this, mind you, with the inning in progress.

The rest of the fans in the right field bleachers were not exactly a prize aggregation, either. There was an ABC crowd camera near us, and scattered around were several dozen children and nitwits whose attention was entirely focused on it. Whenever this camera panned near us they would leap to their feet and hold up banners, requiring the people sitting behind them, which was all of us except the front row, to jump up and down constantly in an attempt to follow the game. There were several beach balls bouncing around, enough that it took the baseball fans in the area two or three innings to capture each one and neutralize it with a pocket knife. It was easily the worst Kansas City baseball crowd that I've seen.

Also seated around us were a number of die-hard, life-long Cardinal fans who had driven over from St. Louis (five hour drive) to see the game. By the fifth inning, That Dreadful Woman had most of them discussing whether they should continue to support the Cardinals or perhaps should switch to the Royals. Several people offered to buy the Dreadful Woman a beer if she would just go stand in line to buy it. She took one guy up on his offer, apparently not understanding the purpose of it -- she wasn't easy to insult, this girl -- and as she was leaving a guy about ten rows behind us shouted, 'Remember where your seat is -- section 342." Needless to say, Section 342 was in an entirely different part of the ballpark, but it didn't work. We enjoyed the game for a half-inning until she returned.

The next night, Bill James goes back for Game 2...

As Susie and I were walking down the aisle toward our seats the man in front of us yelled gleefully "I don't think she's here!" We broke out laughing; we were looking for the same thing. We had the same seats for all four games in Kansas City, if there were to be four games in Kansas City, and the thought of spending three more games trying to get HER to shut up had considerably dampened our enthusiasm for the event. We never saw her again, but it was easy to spot the people who had been in the same seats the day before. They were distinguished by the wary looks that they cast around until the offending seat was occupied.

Labels: bill james, Cardinals, royals, world series

Actual quote from an e-mail from my father: "Better you should have never been born, than to post something good about
Harry Caray." Obviously, I can't resist now. Bill James on Harry Caray, from the 1985 Baseball Abstract:

Cable television has arrived to the distant Balkan outland that I call home, and I have been watching Harry Caray whenever I get the time. It's the first significant exposure to Harry that I've had in fifteen years, and I realize with a sense of shock how much of my own attitude about the game and about my profession, which I thought I had found by myself, I may in fact have picked up from hundreds of hours of listening to Harry Caray as a child.

Or perhaps it is a false pride, but I love Harry Caray. You have to understand what Harry Caray was to the Midwest in my childhood. In the years when baseball stopped at the Mississippi, KMOX radio built a network of stations across the midwest and into the Far West that brought major league baseball into every little urb across the landscape. Harry's remarkable talents and enthusiasm were the spearhead of their efforts, and forged a link between the Cardinals and the midwest that remains to this day; even now, some of my neighbors are Cardinal fans.

This effect covers a huge area and encompasses millions of people, many times as many people as live in New York. A Harry Caray-for-the-Hall-of-Fame debate is in progress. To us, to hear New Yorkers or Californians suggest that Harry Caray might not be worthy of the honors given to Mel Allen or Vince Scully is a) almost comically ignorant, sort of like hearing a midwesterner suggest that the Statue of Liberty was never of any real national significance and should be turned into scrap metal, and b) personally offensive. That Harry should have to wait in line behind these wonderful men but comparatively insignificant figures is, beyond any question, an egregious example of the regional bias of the nation's media.

But besides that, the man is really good. His unflagging enthusiasm, his love of the game, and his intense focus and involvement in every detail of the contest make every inning enjoyable, no matter what the score or the pace of the game. His humor, his affection for language and his vibrant images are the tools of a craftsman; only Garagiola, his one-time protégé, can match him in this way. He is criticized for not being objective, which is preposterous; he is the most objective baseball announcer I've ever witnessed. He is criticized for being "critical" of the players, when in fact Harry will bend over backwards to avoid saying something negative about a player or a manager. But Harry also knows that he does the fans no service when he closes his eyes and pretends not to see things. A player misses the cut-off man, Harry says that he missed the cut-off man, the player complains to the press, and some sweetlicking journalist, trying to ingratiate himself to a potential source, rips Harry for being critical of the player.

Harry is involved in another controversy now over the firing of Milo Hamilton, onetime heir apparent to Jack Brickhouse. Hamilton as a broadcaster is a model of professionalism, fluency, and deportment; he is, in short, as interesting as the weather channel, to which I would frequently dial while he was on. Milo's skills would serve him well as a lawyer, an executive, or a broker. He broadcasts baseball games in a tone that would be more appropriate for a man reviewing a loan application. He projects no sense at all that he is enjoying the game or that we ought to be, and I frankly find it difficult to believe that the writers who ripped the Cubs for firing Hamilton actually watch the broadcasts. Is Harry to be faulted because the fans love him and find Hamilton a dry substitute?

People confuse "objectivity" with "neutralism." If you look up "neutral" in the dictionary it says "of no particular kind, color, characteristics, etc.; indefinite. Gray; without hue; of zero chromel; achromatic. Neuter." That pretty well describes Milo Hamilton. To Harry Caray, the greatest sports broadcaster who ever lived. This Bud's for you.

Dad, you'll be pleased to know that Bill James lost me somewhere around "Vince Scully." Surprised he didn't also refer to "Melvin Allen." Also, it seems Milo Hamilton must have run over his dog or something.

Another quibble is that broadcasters don't go into the Hall of Fame per se, they just win the Ford Frick Award. Harry Caray won in 1989, and despite Bill James's best efforts, Milo Hamilton won in 1992.

Labels: bill james, Cardinals, cubs, harry caray, jack brickhouse, mel allen, milo hamilton, radio, vin scully

Wonder how your favorite team keeps motivated over the long season?

Now you know.

PS If I'm very, very lucky, I'll get to see the Cardinals clinch their fifth division title in six years at Wrigley Field Thursday night.

Labels: art, Cardinals

Some days, you look out your office window and wish you'd taken the day off to go see the Cardinals and Cubs at Wrigley Field, like you used to always do back when tickets were more readily available after the first day of tickets sales and such outings didn't, therefore, have to be so rigorously planned.

Other days, you don't.

Labels: Cardinals, cubs

Acting as if I'm a real columnist having a lazy day, I present a "News and Notes" column!

1) Headline in the Sun-Times following the Palmeiro news: Caught 'roid-handed. Another good headline this week, despite not being baseball-related, was the Trib's headline announcing the appointment of a federal monitor to watch the city's hiring practices: City gets a Hall monitor. I imagine the headline writers are all staying up late these days practicing their headlines in the hopes of Daley being indicted. Me, I'm just practicing my gleeful chortle. Maybe I'll get to warm it up chortling over Rove.

2) Palmeiro and Sandberg are linked yet again, this time in Sandberg's Fire Sermon in Cooperstown on Sunday being followed so closely by Palmeiro essentially giving back his "Redeem in five years" ticket to the Hall. Those of you up on Cubs gossip will know how they were linked before, but if you need a refresher, contact me in some way that enables me to tell you the story while not being sued for libel.

3) Albert Pujols has stolen 11 bases this season without being caught. Next up for Prince Albert: some work in the offseason on his change-up so he can pick up some innings out of the bullpen.

4) Speaking of running, poor Lenny Harris, in legging out a three-run double against the Cardinals the other night in Florida, catapulted himself to the top of my list of worst baserunners in the game. He's been a slow runner for years, plagued by leg and weight problems, but these days, his build is Kruk-like and he runs as if he's on two peglegs. If this were a backyard whiffleball game, everyone would agree on special slowness rules for his ghost runner.

5) TV Guide is changing its format to not have nearly so many listings. How will I ever know when Scooter's going to grace my television? I guess I'll have to go to Jeanniezelasko.com to find out. I wonder if Jim has any thought about the changes to TV Guide?

6) In a discussion at work the other day about how to encourage bloggers who have written about our products, the idea of just contacting them with a thank-you came up. Or maybe we should send them minor-league baseball tickets?

7) After the Sox/Tigers game I attended recently at Comiskey, I was walking out next to a girl who said to a friend, "There's my bus, gotta go." She looked up to the ballpark, blew a kiss, and said, "Love ya, Comiskey."

8) After today, there's a third of the season left, and Ken Griffey Jr. has still not visited the DL.

9) For a while a few weeks back, an image search for Johnny Damon brought up a certain pumpkin as the fourth response. It's fallen back to ninth lately. Get to work, readers!

10) The Post-Dispatch reports today that the Cardinals are, after all, leaving KMOX and buying 550 AM KTRS. I think it's a big mistake, as do many other Cards fans, and I'm sad to hear about it. KMOX was the Cardinals for me for my childhood. But this is really a topic that deserves its own post soon.

Labels: Albert Pujols, Cardinals, johnny damon, ken griffey jr., lenny harris, radio, rafael palmeiro, ryne sandberg, steroids, tv guide

Don't ask me why I specifically remember this: on July 3, 2003, Levi and I were at Wrigley Field for a Cubs-Cardinals game when somehow the talk among Levi and his season ticket buddies turned to Viagra spokesman Rafael Palmeiro, and specifically, various baseball terms that had now turned into double entendres where he was concerned. I piped up with "He really got some good wood on that one," which was enjoyed by all. Actually, I probably remember it because it's one of those rare times I managed a bon mot at exactly the right moment, rather than 90 seconds later and after the conversation had gone in a completely different direction.

Anyway, slightly over two years later, on July 27, 2005, Bob Costas appeared on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and used basically the same line.

I've got my eye on you, Costas!

Labels: bob costas, Cardinals, cubs, rafael palmeiro, viagra

In last night's Cards/Giants game, the last game before the dreaded All-Star Break, the 2nd-base mike caught a great bit of conversation among Lance (Son of Joe) Niekro, umpire Tom Hallion, and Mark Grudzielanek.

Niekro attempted a steal of second, and as Grudzielanek applied the tag, the pair got all tangled up, with legs and arms jumbled everywhere and Niekro's head getting intimately acquainted with Grudzie's crotch. They took several seconds to unravel (It reminded me of the way NFL refs pull guys one by one off a pile.), then Niekro said to the ump, "Was I out?"

"Yeah," Hallion replied.

"Shit," said Niekro.

"After all that," said Grudzielanek.

Labels: Cardinals, giants, lance niekro, mark grudzielanek, tv

Levi's wife Stacey called this to my attention via nacho.org: on July 16th, the first two innings of a minor-league game between the Schaumburg Flyers and Kansas City T-Bones will be played on an X-Box and projected on the stadium's video board. (Sorry, I think you may have to register to read that article on the Kansas City Star's site. But I've pretty much given you the gist of it.)

Incidentally, I know from the logs that Levi hasn't been visiting baseballrelated.com very often, and he obviously hasn't been posting as much as he did last year -- it could be he's busy at work, it could be there's not much to excite him because we're not doing a trip this year, or it could be that he doesn't have much to say about his beloved Cardinals because they've been winning all the time and will probably win the NL Central in a walk because every other team in the division is hapless, and therefore the Cardinals are downright boring. Or maybe it's because the comments are still broken -- sorry, but I'm waiting to deal with it until I get DSL installed at my not-quite-so-new apartment, which I can't do until SBC's computer system decides I have an account history.

Original comments...

Levi: It's primarily because I've been busier at work.

And the missing comments do take a lot of the fun out of it.

But I'm trying to make a point to visit more often and post reliably, because I miss it.

Labels: admin, Cardinals, kansas city t-bones, schaumburg flyers, stacey shintani, video games

I didn't realize it, but apparently, yesterday was Throwback Uniform Day throughout the major leagues. I was tipped off by my father, who I called for Father's Day today; he had gone to see the Devil Rays play the Cardinals Saturday night, and reported that the Cardinals were wearing their 1982 powder blue road uniforms -- from back when we as a nation decided gray didn't look good enough on TV -- and the Devil Rays were wearing early 1960s uniforms from the University of Tampa, i.e., Lou Piniella's old college baseball uniform. Unfortunately, this is the best picture I could find showing the front of the Rays' uniforms.

Labels: Cardinals, devil rays

Levi saw the Cardinals win in New York today. Hope he didn't get spit on by any Mets fans, although if they hit his grungy old Cardinals cap, who could tell? Ha ha!

Still 4 hours and 55 minutes until the start of tonight's Dodgers game, for which I will be in attendance.

Normal train service has resumed between New York and Newark.

Labels: Cardinals, Mets, trains

As far as I know, Levi is in New York right now. He tells me he's going to the Mets-Cardinals game on Saturday (and I'm going to the Dodgers-Braves game here in L.A. on Saturday).

Now, he's with his wife and some friends from the U.K. Their plans were to rent a car and drive from Chicago to New York (and then back) so the British folks could see the country, or at least what one can see from the Interstate between Chicago and New York. Since even Levi knows a car can be a liability in New York, I first suggested two one-way rentals, but those were ridiculously expensive. So my other suggestion was that Levi park the car in New Jersey near public transportation, and the only good place I could come up with where he could definitely park it overnight and it would be reasonably secure was the long-term parking lot at Newark International Airport.

I gave Levi careful directions for how to get from the airport to the apartment the group is renting near Columbus Circle, via NJ Transit commuter train and subway. They were supposed to arrive this afternoon sometime.

This evening, this happened, on the very train tracks Levi would have been traveling over between Newark and New York. Perhaps Levi has started smoking, and threw his cigarette out the window when he saw the conductor coming. At any rate, I certainly hope Levi was safely in New York by that point, since my careful directions did not account for the possibility of trains not running due to a fire!

Levi, on the off chance you're reading this: if those tracks aren't open yet by the time you're leaving NYC, I think the best alternate way to get back to Newark Airport would be to take the downtown C train to World Trade Center, then take the PATH subway (separate fare) to Newark Penn Station, and then take the next NJ Transit train to Newark Airport.

Original comments...

Levi: The fire occurred about an hour after we crossed, right around the time I was praising Jim for giving us flawless directions that were easy to follow, and about four minutes before the crazy woman from whom we rented an apartment started hollering about how she wasn't told there would be four people staying there.

Big Ben: For future reference, the terminus of the Gladstone Branch of the NJT Morris & Essex lines (Gladstone Station) has free parking. I've parked there for as many as five days with no trouble. It's not necessarily secured, but it's in a quiet New Jersey 'burb that feels pretty safe. The Summit station on the same line has paid ($5/day) parking that is probably a little more secure.

levi's help-mate: hey there jim,

levi probably already told you, but we passed over that bridge two hours before the fire. and he probably also told you that on the way home we stopped in philly to catch the cardinals again!

- stacey

Labels: Cardinals, Mets, trains

Last night's Cubs game, an 11-9 loss to the Reds, is most clearly summed up with the following:

The Cubs, in the course of getting 15 hits, one walk, and two extra baserunners on errors, allowed the Reds' staff to get by with only 118 pitches.

The Reds, meanwhile, forced the Cubs staff--seven pitchers in the game, including four different lefties from the bullpen--to throw 202 pitches.

Adam Dunn--a BRPA 2004 favorite--managed to eat up 33 pitches all by his lonesome, going 2-4 with two walks and a home run.

The Cubs have, in the 13 years since I moved here and became a fan, never even come close to addressing their most consistent problem: their impatience. Only Grace--and New Sammy for a few years--understood the value of getting into a hitter's count.

Now, to be fair: when Eric Milton is pitching against you, the best method really might be to close your eyes and swing at whatever, since he gives up an astonishing number of homers (four last night). But when hacking is your approach for every plate appearance by every hitter, you should probably have a talk with your hitting coach and your general manager.

Meanwhile, in St. Louis, the Cardinals drew eight walks and won 5-3 over Milwaukee, running their record to an NL-best 13-5.

Original comments...

thatbob: And I thought Milwaukee was unbeatable!

Labels: adam dunn, brewers, Cardinals, cubs, eric milton, reds

See, I'm not the only one to make the "cardinals"/"Cardinals" joke. Today's "Over the Hedge"...



Yes, it does say "chose" instead of "choose" in the second panel. What do newspaper syndicate editors do all day?

Labels: art, Cardinals

Hey, Levi, are you enjoying the fact that, so far this baseball season, there's been so much talk about Cardinals? Why, they've been getting a ton of coverage on cable news channels, not just ESPN!

Original comments...

Becky: I can't wait to see which one is going to the Pope. And will they let him do it from STL, or will the whole team have to relocate to the Vatican?

Pujols for Pope!

levi's help-mate: silly becky, the new pope will undoubtedly be from the more enlightened world of japan. check out what they are doing with cell phones!

http://www.mobile-weblog.com/archives/live_baseball_for_mobile_phones.html

Becky: I would like it if they showed your strat-o-matic games on your little phone cartoon

Jason: Cardinal Fang! Get.....THE COMFY CHAIR!!!!!!

Cardinal Fang: Yes sir.

Labels: Cardinals

Someone on Baseballprimer found a bunch of Korean baseball cartoons. As Dan Rivkin would say, they're awesome!

If you've got a lot of time to kill at work, you can read the comments to the post at Baseballprimer for some translations. And the guys at The Birdwatch have picked out some related to the Cardinals.

Original comments...

Dan: Wow, those ARE awesome!

Levi: In Korean, "Those are awesome" translates to: "그들은 최고 이다!"

At least according to a robot.

Dan: I think my favorite is the one with the nude Tony Batista, but I also really like the one with Bernie Williams and his guitar and the Yankees watching porn.

Labels: art, Cardinals, Dan Rivkin, korea

Hanger-on Jay passes along this note about the August 22, 2004 Cardinals-Pirates game: "At the game you attended in St. Louis, reliever Steve Kline got on base on a sacrifice and a fielder's choice and then scored on either a triple or a grand slam from Larry Walker. Well, it turns out you have personally witnessed every run that Kline ever scored."

Original comments...

Levi: I do love Steve Kline. I've been imagining him playing with his kids in the snow while wearing his new Orioles cap. Hunting deer while wearing his new Orioles cap. Changing the oil on Tony Womack's purple Lamborghini while wearing his new Orioles cap.

He'll be ready for Spring Training.

Luke, hanger-on: I'm not big on recounting dreams, but ...

Last night I dreamt I saw Stacey at a Critical Mass. I asked where Levi was -- and he was on a baseball-related trip to Florida.

Unfortunately that's all I remember.

Luke, hanger-on: I'm so sorry: Another dream. Apropos of nothing but baseball.

In this dream I'm organizing a trip to the ballpark with Owen, someone I went to school with in Oregon 10 years ago and haven't thought of since. It occurs to us that a lot of the people who would come to a game with us were named Ed, so I propose we call our event "Eds Go Out to the Ballgame." We'd invite anyone whose name was Ed, and those whose name wasn't Ed could change theirs, and we'd get Ed Debevic's to sponsor us.

Two minor dreams about baseball in one week. I'm now thinking of the Peanuts series where Charlie Brown wakes up and the sun is a baseball, and by the end of the week his head is a baseball.

Three weeks, pitchers and catchers.

Labels: Cardinals, jay temple, larry walker, steve kline

In 1996, Levi was in the U.K. and the Cardinals battled the Braves in the NLCS. The Braves beat the Cardinals 14-0 in Game 5, and then 15-0 in Game 7, becoming the first team to win the NLCS after being down 3 games to 1. So I mailed Levi, across the ocean, a sympathy card with a few news clippings enclosed.

This year, shortly before Game 4 of the World Series was about to begin with the Cardinals already down 3 games to 0, I stopped off at the drugstore and bought a sympathy card. There was no reason to include news clippings this time, so instead, so it was more than just a card, I broke out my disused colored pencils to do some illustration, making a certain logo into a sad and tearful Cardinal.

I was finished by the sixth inning, and we all know what happened next. I put it in the mail the next day.



The preprinted message on the right reads "Although no words of sympathy can ease the loss you bear/Still, may you find some comfort knowing others truly care." Appropriate, huh? The message I wrote on the left reads, "Well, we'll see what happens in the next 86 years... (signed) Jim." There was a raised illustration of a bouquet of flowers on the front of the card, so I couldn't draw on the bumpy surface on the left side (which I didn't think about when I was buying the card). I think I did a pretty good job, except for the fact that I somehow managed to end up with the cardinal leaning backwards. It's more straight up-and-down in the real Cardinals logo.

Original comments...

Levi: I don't know that this presentation does the card justice. The crying Cardinal looks very, very sad.

But Jim, does the fact that you were working on this card during the final game mean that the Cardinals' loss is your fault?

Jim: I was watching the game TiVo-delayed, so nothing I did could possibly have affected the outcome. At least that's my excuse.

Jason: It looks like the Cardinal is about to fall backwards off the bat in despair. And nice lettering job! Could you now draw a happy Devil Ray to celebrate the escape from the AL East cellar?

Labels: art, Cardinals

Well, Levi, aside from the fact that you had a rooting interest in the team that lost the World Series, I would hope you can agree with this statement: overall, this was a great baseball season. Maybe you wouldn't use the emphasis, but I would (and did).

Original comments:

Lucas: My condolences, Levi.

Toby: Sorry, Levi. When are you coming home? I have a CD for you.

Dan: Levi, I feel your pain -- 'twas me in '00. I didn't speak to anyone for days. And I still don't like talking about it.

Steve: Even though it didn't turn out right for the Cardinals this year, thanks to Levi and Jim for making this one of the most enjoyable interactive baseball seasons ever. This blog was like an angioplasty in the artery that led to my black baseball loathing heart. There are many things that still bug the hell out of me about baseball but this is neither the time nor the place. Thanks again.

Labels: Cardinals, red sox, world series

"People ask me what I do in the winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do: I stare out the window and wait for spring."
-- Rogers Hornsby

Here's hoping the Cardinals stave off winter one game at a time until at least Sunday.

Original comments...

Luke, hanger-on: Only 129 days until pitchers and catchers report.

Levi: I was counting on someone knowing the number. I was consoling myeslf that it's about four months.

Thanks, Luke.

Labels: Cardinals, red sox, rogers hornsby, world series

Don't worry, Levi; my co-worker Joe and I spent our lunch break on Tuesday coming up with horrible "curse" scenarios that would cause the Red Sox to lose in spectacular fashion. Among them: Curt Schilling has a perfect game going, until his legs fall off. Also, Tim Wakefield gets hit by a truck.

Original comments...

Jason: Other curse scenarios:

Johnny Damon gets lost during a tour of the Anheuser-Busch brewery.

David Ortiz loses his shirt at one of the local riverboat casinos, so he has to serve as a greeter for the rest of the series until his debt is paid off.

Bill Mueller gets married to Bill Buckner's daughter, and decides to take her last name.

Manny Ramirez gets stuck atop the Gateway Arch.

Terry Francona turns into Terry Francenstein.

sandor: Of the three post-game Red Sox interviews I've seen in this series, all three players spent their first moments behind the mic profusely crediting God for all of their good fortune.

So it wouldn't seem totally unreasonable to me, if in fact God is responsible for the Sox players' success, for Him to suddenly... change his mind. Who better to put on a curse than the cursemeister Himself?

Levi: Or, if Satan is responsible for their good fortune, I could see him getting really pissed and pulling the plug.

We'll know that tonight when Jason Marquis, with a freshly-grown goatee, hits three home runs and throws a two-hit shutout.

Labels: Cardinals, curt schilling, joe warner, red sox, tim wakefield, world series

In Sunday's game, Bill Mueller had the potential to become the next Bill Buckner, but a funny thing happened: the Red Sox won in spite of his errors. Well, also, it was only Game 2, so the Sox didn't have a chance to win it all the way they did in Game 6 in 1986.

Anyway, perhaps this is a sign that Babe Ruth's ghost has finally stopped haunting the Red Sox. Hopefully, he is now haunting Horatio Sanz for doing the worst Babe Ruth impression ever on this week's "Saturday Night Live." It was such a horrible impression that they had to start playing the wrong lip-sync track for poor Ashlee Simpson in order to distract the viewers from its horribleness. (The Babe Ruth impression, I mean, not necessarily Ashlee Simpson's lip-sync track.) It also doesn't help that Horatio Sanz is incapable of doing a comedy bit lasting longer than 90 seconds without cracking up for no good reason.

Original comments...

Jason: I didn't know anyone still watched SNL.

Jim: But it's so easy to TiVo through the boring parts, and occasionally there's something that makes it all worthwhile.

Labels: bill buckner, bill mueller, Cardinals, horatio sanz, red sox, world series

Some people, when their team wins the pennant, pour champagne on their heads.

Me, I paint the second eye on my Daruma doll, four years after painting the first eye and wishing for a Cardinals World Series.

Such a ritual has the benefit of requiring much less clean-up than one involving the bubbly.

Original comments...

stacey: under the category of "bad wife" - i've carved a johnny damon pumpkin to celebrate the red sox:

http://www.therocketship.com/baseball/images/johhny.jpg

Labels: Cardinals, world series

Oh, too excited to organize my post today. And still too busy at work. So it's a list again.

1) I kept telling everyone all day that the Cardinals would beat Clemens. After all, he'd lost 190 games in the majors--26 of them in the post-season! No Cardinal pitcher has lost anywhere near that many (Now, I do think Jeff Fassero may have lost 190 games for the Cardinals in 2003 alone, but we shipped him off to Colorado.). We surely had the edge going in.

2) The last time the Cardinals were in the World Series, I was in the 7th grade. My history teacher, John Reker, a Cubs fan, was not very gracious when the Cardinals imploded against the Royals.

3) I will understand if some unreliable folks among you are rooting for the Bostons. I realize that no one in America outside of Cardinals fans and Yankees fans is rooting for St. Louis. But we've already won the title that has always mattered most to me: the National League Pennant. I'm with John McGraw on this one--who really cares what that upstart, pipsqueak beer league does? Sure, you want to win the World Series, but that's gravy.

4) Brian Gunn of Redbird Nation (who isn't just getting links here--the Wall Street Journal seems to mention his column a couple times a week these days) quoted Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated as describing the NLCS as "a glorified game of HORSE between Pujols and Beltran." I guess Pujols, with his 4 homers and .500 batting average, ended up on top.

5) That catch that Jimmy Edmonds made is the biggest catch I've ever seen him make. Maybe not his absolute best, in a Platonic, form-of-perfect-outfield-catch kind of way, but definitely the most important great catch he's made. I think it's far more impressive than the Mays catch that's always replayed: he covered a lot of ground, back to the ball, laid out full-length, and caught the ball over his shoulder while landing. It made the difference between 3-0 and 1-0, and might have singlehandedly saved the nation from a week of bad political metaphors on Fox sports.

6) And last, but not least: did someone put Scooter out of our misery? We haven't seen him since his two appearances in game 6. I'm not complaining, mind you.

Y'all are welcome at the Rocketship on Saturday night for chili.

Original comments...

Dan: On point No. 2... You mean overwhelmed by the Twins ('87), right? Joaquin, specificaly, imploded in '85, although I've heard way too many Cardinals fans blame it on the umps.

Levi: Oh, you're right. I blame the 1985 implosion largely on Whitey Herzog. After that call, rather than calling a meeting and rallying the troops--as LaRussa would have done--he kept up the whining and basically conceded the Series.

Luke, hanger-on: I'll have you know, Levi, that I was the Cardinals never lost a game that I watched while wearing a red shirt. I'll also note that I wore red socks for the last two games of the ALCS.

I wouldn't suggest either team owes me a share of their championship bonuses.

But I woudln't say they don't, either.

Hurrah for chili! Hurrah for the best postseason in history! Or at least this millennium!

Cushie: I'm a bit conflicted. Would love to be watching this series at the Rocketship with good chili, but I have to go with the Sox due to the whole New England thing going on. However, as I'm in Old England I am instead figuring out how nocturnal I'm about to come. If the games go six hours I'm totally screwed. You guys get worried when games go until 1am, my games start at 1am.

Levi: I spent the fall of 1996 in London, and I listened to any games that I could pick up on Armed Forces Radio, but that did mean being up at nearly 2 am for the first pitch. That made for one of the worse nights in my life as a fan, when the Cardinals gave up 10 runs in the first inning of game 7 to the Braves. Even worse, at work the next day, very few people even understood why I was having a bad day.

Levi: LaRussa's got wa.

Jim: This year, it looks like the World Series is being carried live in the U.K. on Channel Five, and then repeating the next day during normal waking hours on a cable channel called, of course, North American Sports Network.

Cushie: Yes, Channel Five has it, and that's regular network tv. It's just damn late. It's hosted by some serious meat-heads (one British, one American). The funny part is that even though this is commerical TV, they don't show ads during all the long breaks. Instead, they kick it back to the meat heads in the studio for more dumb banter. But I shouldn't complain- at least they're showing it. And it's good preparation for staying up all night next week for the election results.

Labels: Cardinals, jeff fassero, Jimmy Edmonds, red sox, roger clemens, Scooter, world series

One final accomplishment from the trip in August: we saw both World Series teams, twice each.

I think we're going to have a schism among the proprietors of this blog now, since I'm going to be rooting for the Sox.

Original comments...

Levi: I figured during our trip there was a slim chance that we'd see two of the teams that we saw twice end up in the World Series. And I didn't figure those teams would be the White Sox or Dodgers.

Jim: You thought the Brewers and the Tigers were going to be in the Series?!

Labels: Cardinals, red sox, world series

Why, oh, why could Jeff Kent not have looked out at his truck yesterday morning and decided it needed a quick wash?

Original comments...

Steve: Hello friends, I haven't checked in for a while but are any of you Damon lovers troubled by the fact that he's gone from hero to zero in about 10 seconds? His .009 batting average is not going to help the Red Sox dispatch the Yankees and it will also make it difficult for him to get that Pert plus endorsement even though Piazza is kind of washed up. In no way am I trying to say "I told you so" because I never did and am frankly upset at his poor performance but I would say at least 75% of the Red Sox problems start with Mr. Lovelylocks. What say you who have been lining up to get his autograph on your boobs all season? And I don't just mean Stacey!

ps Levi is excused from replying because he has bigger fish to fry right now. I bet his sinker is almost ready and he's warming up to take on Beltran.

Levi: You're right about Damon, sad to say, but he did score the winning run last night.

Oh, and I owe you whatever it is I owe you, as Mr. Bonds did not hit .400. Aargh.

thatbob: My adulation of Damon has almost nothing to do with him being a baseball player, so likewise has almost nothing to do with his slump. I mean, I feel bad for him professionally, and if we were on speaking terms I might even suggest a shave and a haircut to, you know, try and change his luck. But I would still want him to grow it all out again in the post-season.

Has any writing on this blog suggested that (we) like him because he's any good?

stacey: yeah, i'd have to say i'm with bob on this one. my all-cute team has absolutely nothing to do with baseball talent. although johnny's slump is really heart-rending.

Toby: Darn! I knew there was something I forgot the last time I saw Levi. I meant to get his autograph on my boobs.

thatbob: sure hope this link works:

http://www.boston.com/ae/events/halloween/pumpkin_photos?pg=7

Luke, hanger-on: J Damon homered to right, K Millar, B Mueller and O Cabrera scored.

How 'bout them apples?!?

Luke, hanger-on: J Damon homered to right, O Cabrera scored.

And them apples!

I'm never cutting my hair again.

thatbob: Luke (and everyone not watching from the Rocketship) sorry you missed the discussion we had (initiated by Matthew or Ross?) about JD hitting for the SuperCycle. You know: a 4 run homer, a 3 run homer, a 2 run homer, and a solo shot. It looked like he was working towards it with 2 men on for a couple of at-bats, but alas. Well, maybe we'll get to see it in The Series.

Labels: astros, Cardinals, jeff kent

So now where's the headline reading "Red Sox: Always Finding New Ways to Win"? Nowhere, so far.

On another note, Levi is obviously working too hard to cheer for the Cardinals in the most effective manner. He may not even have the stuffed animals lined up on his couch correctly!

Labels: Cardinals, red sox

I'm over 6 feet tall, I have a full head of hair, I have a cat who doesn't get up on the kitchen counter, and also...



Jason and Todd got tickets through a contact at their job, so there we were in the top deck of Dodger Stadium for Game 4 of the National League Division Series, the Dodgers needing a win against the Cardinals to stay alive.

Jason invited me, and Todd invited his wife Jenn, of course. So here she is eating pizza...



This was the first time I had sat in the top deck at Dodger Stadium. It was not bad. I'm pretty sure I was closer to the field than when I had sat in the upper deck in San Diego in May, and I was definitely closer to the field than I was in the upper deck in Philadelphia in August. And these seats are only $6.00 general admission during the regular season. (They were jacked up to $12.00 reserved for this first round of the playoffs.)



It must be the playoffs, because there's the bunting...



And a special logo painted on the field...



And a blimp...



And what seems like hundreds of umpires...



So many umpires, in fact, that they don't display them at the bottom of the scoreboard because there's only space for four of them (it's not really visible in this photo, but trust me, they'd normally be at the bottom)...



And they handed out everyone's favorite loud and annoying item, Thunderstix...



So let's all think blue! Or think 76 or 980, if you'd rather think about numbers than colors...



Odalis Perez pitching in the top of the first...



And then some stuff happened that I didn't take pictures of because I was trying to follow the game, but night fell with the Dodgers behind 6-2...



It was time to summon the giant floating heads of Eric Gagne...



He did pretty well against the Cardinals, but the damage had already been done...



Noted Kenny G fan Ray King got into the game and was effective against the Dodgers...



Perhaps he and Mike Metheney were humming "Songbird" during their meeting on the mound...



Since this auxiliary scoreboard wasn't needed for its usual purpose of displaying out-of-town scores, it was instead pressed into service for additional statistic display duty...



See the taillights in the parking lot? Yep, people are leaving in the 8th inning, despite the number of come-from-behind wins the Dodgers have had this season...



It's the bottom of the 9th, the Dodgers are down by four runs, the fans are being exhorted to show their blue (not "show they're blue"), and this is all seeming familiar to Jason and me, as if it happened just a week and a half ago...



Speaking of which, the note about Alex Cora that was displayed as he was batting in the bottom of the 9th seemed very familiar...



But on September 28th, the Dodgers were facing the Rockies' bullpen. The Cardinals' bullpen, and Jason Isringhausen in particular, is a somewhat different story. So, long story short, some happy Cardinals...



The Dodgers wish them well in the NLCS, especially if they're going to be playing the Braves...



And even though the Dodgers lost, it was a great and highly improbable season, so the stadium crew thinks it deserves a playing of "I Love L.A."...



Oh, and by the way, this game set a new Dodger Stadium attendance record...



Go Cards.

Original comments...

Levi: Ah, that was a fun series. And I feel really good about Round 2, whomever we face. I'm rooting for tonight's Braves/Astros game to go 22 innings.

And I loved seeing the hugs and handshakes. It made me really happy, and it seemed a better send-off for the Dodgers than just retreating to the clubhouse would have been.

Labels: Cardinals, dodgers, game report, jason kaifesh, jenn carney, photos, todd carney

A thought on Saturday night's Dodgers-Cardinals game: since Joe Buck was off for his NFL football broadcasting duties, wouldn't it have been great if Fox had told Tim McCarver to stay in St. Louis and instead had the game called by a certain Los Angeles-based announcer who's been around since the last Ice Age and has more broadcasting talent in his little finger than Tim McCarver has in all the shoe-polished strands of his hair combined?

No such luck, and even if I had been watching live instead of TiVo-delayed, I couldn't have listened to him on the radio because of the delay inherent in DirecTV. Eventually, I put the TV on mute and listened to Brian Wilson's "Smile" on my iPod instead.

Original comments...

Toby: Levi, Did you happen to catch Fox Sports' "Beyond the Glory" special on Kirk Gibson's WS Game 1 HR in 1988? It was narrated by Joe Buck. ...Was a great piece.

The thing that struck me, though, was that they played Vin Scully's call of the homer first, then used Jack Buck's a little later. I had never heard anything but Jack Buck's call of that homer. It was very interesting.

You're so right about Vin Scully and McCarver, though. Why does he seem to worry so much about how deep the outfielders are playing?

Toby: Whoops - Just noticed that Jim posted that. Regardless, my comments wouldn't change--just direct it at Jim, instead of Levi.

Jim: They did an entire "Beyond the Glory" on Kirk Gibson's home run? Wow. I've closed-captioned a couple of those, and they're pretty good, but I've never watched one at home.

In the video of the home run, you can see one car in the parking lot beyond center field leaving early. Its taillights suddenly come on just as the ball leaves the stadium, and it apparently syncs up perfectly with Vin Scully's call, as if the occupant of the car was listening to the game on the radio and reacted to the home run by slamming on the brakes.

By the way, it turns out that if you actually go to a Division Series game at Dodger Stadium, not only do you not have to listen to Tim McCarver on your TV, you get to listen to Vin Scully's calls of memorable moments from the past season. His call of Steve Finley's grand slam to clinch the division was something like:

"Wherever it comes down, the Dodgers are division champs." (35 seconds of crowd noise)

Can you imagine Tim McCarver being quiet for 35 consecutive seconds?

Toby: NO! He'd be talking about how one of the fans in the seventh row was playing too deep to catch the home run ball.

maura: chris berman was silent after vladdy's grand slam the other night. as was ALL OF FENWAY. it was totally creepy and everyone at work was just looking at each other all alarmed-like.

thatbob: fucking yanx

Labels: Cardinals, dodgers, joe buck, music, tim mccarver, tv, vin scully

I'm still busy busy busy at work, but I couldn't let the first games pass with no comment, so here's a quick post with no links, mainly designed to get other people's impressions of yesterday's games.

1) I know one game does not a series make, but I very much enjoyed the dazed look that Odalis Perez wore when he left the mound in yesterday's Cards/Dodgers game. The last time a team hit five home runs in a game in a division series--wait--no team had ever done that before. It was a good start.

2) I was a bit bothered by the curtain calls at Busch Stadium yesterday, though. Curtain calls seem to me to be a bit disrespectful. I know players feel like the crowd is compelling them to come out, and they have to do it to shut up the crowd, but like a band after playing a perfunctory encore, they should just ignore the noise. Eventually it'll go away. No matter how hard I stomped my feet at his show, Nick Lowe wasn't going to come back out and play "I've Been Everywhere."

3) The Red Sox did as expected. I expect they'll do more of the same in games 2 and 3. And Johnny Damon's hair seems to be even longer than before: it's down past his shoulders.

4) I finally saw Scooter the Talking Baseball last night. Acting as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world, Joe Buck said, "And now, to tell us some more about the change-up, here's Scooter." And there he was, unsettlingly flesh-colored, with a weird stitching mouth and backwards ball cap. Until that moment, I was still trying to make myself believe that he was a figment of Jim's imagination. But no: Fox really does think kids are this stupid.

5) After the umpires took back the Sierra home run last night, deciding that it was foul after all, I decided that the only thing better than a Yankee making an out is a Yankee thinking he's hit a home run, then making an out. I decided that every time a Yankee hits a foul ball--even just a grounder--the umpires should wave their fingers for a home run, make the hitter run the bases, then confer and send him back to the plate. Now that would be fun.

Original comments...

Levi: Oh, and how could I have forgotten the way the radar gun reading bursts into flames any time a pitch gets above about 92 mph? What a wealth of new excitement that brought to my enjoyment of the game! Thank you, Fox! Thank you!

maura: that near-hr was ruben sierra's, actually. he promptly struck out.

Levi: Thanks, Mo. I fixed it.

Jason: When is Fox going to bring out the blue dot to follow where the ball goes? And when will we see Calista Flockhart eating a hot dog?!?!?

stacey: i was DEEPLY disappointed that sierra was not required to run the bases in reverse.

Labels: Cardinals, dodgers, joe buck, johnny damon, odalis perez, red sox, ruben sierra, Scooter

Work has continued being busier than I'd like, so there's just this today, from an article on the Cardinals in Sports Illustrated:

"On Sept. 20, after a 7-4 victory over Milwaukee clinched the NL Central title, La Russa cut himself and his charges loose, romping around the visitors' clubhouse at Miller Park soaked in champagne and beer. When King gave him an impromptu ice bath from a plastic wastebasket, La Russa, easily 75 pounds lighter than King, chased the reliever around the clubhouse, leaping on top of him and riding him piggyback, fists pumping in the air."

Wild weekend of baseball coming up.

Original comments...

Dan: Where was John Mabry throughout all this?

Jim: He was scoring dope for a teammate!

Ha ha! Sorry.

Labels: Cardinals, ray king, sports illustrated, tony la russa

I've had a bunch of BRPA2004-related items bouncing around my head all week, some new, some forgotten items from our actual trip, but work has been busy. So now, with a free fifteen minutes, a list:

1) Overheard on our way across the Roberto Clemente Bridge to PNC Park, we overheard a kid tell his dad, "We'll be at the game today, so we won't have to watch it on TV!"

2) In Pittsburgh, for sale on the street near the ballpark, there was a yellow t-shirt with fake bullet holes on it that read, "Where was Ray Lewis when Joey Porter got shot?" On the back, it read, "Scoring dope for a teammate!"

3) And on a t-shirt I saw outside Comiskey, "Baseball's not boring. You are." Luke and I agreed that while the shirt was more or less right, we would neither one wear it.

4) King Kaufman of Salon.com has been running the Barry Bonds is MVP Stat of the Day for a week or so in his column, running through all the ways in which Bonds is almost lapping the league offensively. It's been fun--as King Kaufman usually is--so you might check it out. My favorite part of it was a reader's response to Kaufman's suggestion that a new term needs to be created to describe second place when it's as far from first place as is usually the case when you're looking at Bonds's stats. A sad Democrat suggested "Mondale."

5) The Cardinals clinched their fifth division title in nine years Monday while in Milwaukee. According to the Post-Dispatch, several Cardinals after the audience had left climbed to Bernie Brewer's house, posed for photos, and slid down the slide. I assume Steve Kline was involved.

6) I can't find the story, but it was also reported that at Monday's game, Tony LaRussa was nearly taken out by Bratwurst when he came out of the dugout right in the middle of the sausage race. Where's Randall Simon when you need him?

Original comments...

Jim: It mentions the Tony LaRussa bratwurst incident in the same Post-Dispatch story where it mentions the Bernie Brewer slide incident.

By the way, for those not fortunate enough to be hangers-on: after Levi saw the "where was Ray Lewis when Joey Porter got shot" T-shirt, it was pretty much all he talked about for the rest of the trip. And it's not even baseball-related, except for the fact that the vendor was attempting to sell it to people attending the Pirates game.

Speaking of which, sad news from Pittsburgh...not baseball-related, but related to a different kind of ball. I know Kevin Martin, subject of the article, from 1998, when I was a member of the Steel City Pinball Association, although I'm not sure if he'd remember me at all. You may note, if you scroll down to the individual standings, that he had a 49-17 record and I was 27-39. He also has enough money to buy warehouses, and a Ferrari.

Levi: The Ray Lewis t-shirt just astounded me with its vitriol and crassness. I mean, it wasn't even a t-shirt about the team playing that day, or a Pittsburgh team at all--it was a t-shirt about one of the Steelers' rivals! Talk about unpleasant obsessions.

Toby: You have to understand that the Ravens are actually the original Cleveland Browns. Though the rivalry isn't as balley-hooed (sp.?) as the Yankees-Sox, there is probably as much animosity between Pittsburghers and Clevelanders.

When I visited Pittsburgh (along with Levi's sister) a couple of years ago, we left the same day as the first-round playoff game in which the Steelers came back from a huge deficit to beat the "new" Browns.

It was quite evident all across town how Pittsburgh felt about the Browns.

thatbob: "Ballyhooed," according to Google and m-w.com.

Um, thanks Levi, I had never before seen the sausage race as a metaphor for becoming distracted from our Christian faith by the smaller details of Christian community. That's because I'm not a batshit crazy Christian looking for a homily metaphor in every moment of modern life! Did you look at John2117.org? It's jaw-droppingly amazing!

Labels: barry bonds, brpa, Cardinals, King Kaufman, pittsburgh, road trip

PNC Park seen from across the Allegheny River...



The Roberto Clemente (6th Street) bridge, conveniently enough leading straight to the stadium...



A beautiful sight, the tarp being taken off the field...



The Pittsburgh skyline...



A building with an interesting-looking courtyard space...



The Pirate Parrot...



Craig Wilson, in Warhol style...



The eyes of Jason Kendall are upon you...



The final line (washed out by the sun)...

Labels: brpa, Cardinals, photos, pirates, pittsburgh, pnc park, road trip

The day began inauspiciously, with the Waffle House that had been used as bait to get Maura out of bed at 6:15 turning out to be a boarded-up derelict. But after that, everything looked up. We reset our breakfast sights on an Eat 'n Park, a Pennsylvania favorite, then hit the road for Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh is a beautiful city these days, at the confluence of three rivers and surrounded by high hills. We rolled into the swank Hilton--with wireless Internet in all rooms!--and within minutes, rain was pouring down. But our luck held out, the rain cleared off, and we had another beautiful, sunny day for a ballgame. We met up with Maura’s friend Alison from work, who besides being a Cardinals fan is good company. She had flown out for the series and was staying at our hotel, which seemed to be about half full of Cardinals fans. Being with two MLB employees meant that we got great seats without the hassle of pulling out or opening our wallets.

PNC Park is located just down the street from the old Three Rivers Stadium, but that’s about as close to the old ballpark as this one gets in any way. The old ballpark was the worst of the cookie-cutter dual-use 1960s stadiums, big and impersonal and mostly empty. PNC, like all the new parks we’ve been to on this trip, is very open, with lots of views from the outside of the inside and vice-versa. We were on the third-base side, just past the bag, about thirty-five rows up in the lower deck, and from there we had a view of the Roberto Clemente bridge and a bit of the Pittsburgh skyline. The out-of-town scoreboard is similar to the one in Philly, but in this case, I didn’t much care what was going on out of town, because the Cardinals were busy delivering yet another defeat to the Pirates. Albert Pujols sat out, which led to this conversation one row behind me. As I listened in, I couldn’t decide whether it was an ad for MLB, an ad for, say, “Spend time with your kids. A message from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints,” or, “Kids are counting on you. Don’t let them down. A message from the [see above].” You make the call:

Dad: Is that Albert Pujols?
Son: No, dad. That’s Scott Rolen.
Dad: I don’t think Pujols is even playing today.
Son: Yeah, I don’t think he is.
Dad: And he’s the main reason you wanted to come today.
Son: Yeah.
Dad: He was all you could talk about in the car on the way here.
Son: Yeah. . . . . But Scott Rolen’s pretty good, too.
Dad: Yeah. He sure is.

The Pirates scoreboard opened the game with a lengthy animation in which the Pirates' ship sank the ships of the other NL Central teams. Later, it featured the animated beginning to what turned into an on-field Pierogi race. In this race, the Pittsburgh Parrot mascot, taking his cue from Randall Simon, decked three of the pierogi in order to assist the female pierogi, Hannah Jalapeno, who had fallen at the finish line. The Parrot carried her over, to much applause.

Pierogi without legs or gender were available at the concession stands, and they came in a close second to the Comerica Park veggie pita in the vegetarian ballpark food rankings. The reason they didn't rank more highly was that, as I think Bob can vouch, you can either eat not enough pierogi--the problem with a serving at PNC--or way too many pierogi--the problem if you eat them at home. There's no middle ground, and PNC, perhaps sensibly, chose to go with too few rather than have groaning patrons unable to leave their seats at game's end.

The Cardinals got a three-run homer in the second from Reggie Sanders and a solo homer the next inning from Jim Edmonds, his third of the weekend, to give them a 5-0 lead. In the third inning, Larry Walker threw out Jose Castillo at the plate as he tried to score on a single to right. Yadier Molina took the throw and just had time to turn towards Castillo when Castillo, traveling about 75 mph, knocked him into about the twelfth row. But Yadier held on, got his brain put back in the right direction, and stayed in the game. That was a good thing, because the next inning also ended, following a patented Matt Morris semi-meltdown, with the tying run thrown out at the plate trying to score on a single to Jim Edmonds. Edmonds makes that play several times a year, running in hard to field a single and coming up throwing a strike to the plate. A few times a year, he overruns the ball and looks extremely silly, but the outs at the plate more than make up for that.

The Cardinals held on, matching their win total from all of last year and running us to 8-0 on the trip. Tomorrow, we’re on to Cleveland, where we meet up with Dan (and, presumably, get in for free again) and, I think, root for the Indians. As far as the trip goes, despite the threat of thunderstorms today, we’re into the home stretch; it feels kind of like it’s the 9th, we’re Eric Gagne, and we’re about to face Rey Ordonez, Neifi Perez, and Tom Goodwin. Our perfect record, however, is in more danger than ever: none of the remaining three games presents us with a clear favorite team to root for, and any one seems as likely to win as any other one. I have faith. 11-0, here we come.

Oh, and there are two newspaper notes. First,a demonstration of my political commitment: Despite the lead story--accompanied by a photo--being about how bunnies are thriving in Pittsburgh this year because of the wet weather, I did not buy the right-wing rag the Tribune-Review. And the Post-Gazette, which Jim did buy, included today the phrase "a throbbing mass of roaches."

Original comments...

Nancy Boland: Glad you saw a great game and advanced to an 8-0 record! Enjoyed having you for your short stay in Philly!

Toby: It was actually Ty Wigginton on the collision.

Did you guys go over the bridge where the opening scene in "Flashdance" was shot? I visited Pittsburgh with Levi's sister and some other friends in January 2003 and we went over it. How nostalgic...

thatbob: What a feeling!

Hey, I don't understand why Jim was rooting for the Cardinals over Pittsburgh this game. I'm going to consider his record to be at 7-1 until he explains himself.

thatbob: I imagine it would be very easy, but really, really mean, for a pirate ship to sink a ship full of bear cubs. And it would seem against a pirate's own interests to sink a ship full of brewers. That doesn't even make sense.

Toby: Neither do most of the personnel moves the Pirates have made the past 12 years.

Labels: brpa, Cardinals, eat 'n park, game report, maura johnston, pirates, pittsburgh, pnc park, rabbit, road trip

Two notes on 1980s baseball:

1) In thanks for my participation in his wedding, my brother got me a copy of the October 25, 1982 Sports Illustrated, which featured the Cardinals/Brewers World Series on its cover. The issue went to press after the Brewers took a 3 games to 2 Series lead. Whitey Herzog come across as pretty grouchy, even petty, making excuse for his team’s sloppy play and attempting to lower expectations. Herzog was without a doubt a good manager for that team, but I think I prefer LaRussa’s straightforwardness, combativeness, and arrogance, at least when it comes to talking about losses.

There’s a photo from the end of game 5 in Milwaukee showing County Stadium’s scoreboard reminding fans, “Last week, Ben Oglivie was injured because fans were on the field. Pleast stay off the field.” The bottom half of the photo is of the field covered with happy fans.

In the article, Gorman Thomas, talking of the Brewers being down two games to one, is quoted, “We were in the same boat in Baltimore at the end of the regular season, the same boat when we went to California in the playoffs, the same boat when we went to St. Louis to play on their rug. We’re still riding the same boat whether it’s PT-109 or the Love Boat or whatever. When the ship is in the harbor, they try to bomb it. And the submarines are always out there waiting for us.” After the Brewers tied up the series at 2, Thomas said, “The submarines have drawn back, submerged. They’ve been struck by our depth charges.”

And one last thing about the article. Sports Illustrated style in 1982, apparently, called for fielding positions to be capitalized. So you get Shortstop Robin Yount and Center Fielder Willie McGee. Might as well hyphenate “base-ball” while you’re at it.

2) At Fenway Park, the scoreboard showed a baseball blooper reel . . . from the late 80s. I assume they've been showing the same reel for nearly twenty years. Surprisingly enough, Bill Buckner does not make the blooper reel. I guess the traagedy+time=comedy equation is still a little short on the time side.

Labels: bill buckner, brewers, Cardinals, gorman thomas, sports illustrated, whitey herzog

A view of the Gateway Arch you hardly ever get to see: the back...



Levi and Stacey in front of a fountain in downtown St. Louis...



Busch Stadium, supposedly with only two years left to live (the construction site for the new stadium is on the other side of the stadium from this view)...



The Stan Musial statue ("Here stands baseball's perfect warrior; here stand's baseball's perfect knight")...



The view from our upper-deck seats...



Fredbird...



Cardinals up to bat...



Just some of the hangers-on who joined us for the game; from left, Tony, Jim, Stacey, Levi, Luke...



Jim and Jay, another hanger-on...



The final line...

Labels: brpa, busch stadium, Cardinals, photos, pirates, road trip, st. louis

First of all, yes, the trip is going as scheduled so far. Even though it's going to say this was posted by Jim, this is actually a collaborative post, more or less, because for the first time both of us are sitting next to the same computer. This may be how we do things for the rest of the trip, or maybe not -- we'll have to see. We're at Levi's parents' house in Carmi, Illinois, right now, using their computer, and we have to get up early to get on the road, but we wanted to get a little something down.

The car we ended up with from Hertz is a 2005 Chevrolet Impala. It has a CD player but no tape deck, so we're using Vince's iTrip, which is working okay so far. Everyone in the car seemed to enjoy Jim's baseball song playlist and Luke's baseball song-and-Red-Barber-recollection playlist. Now we're working our way through Jim's "Number Ones" playlist, which is every song he owns that hit #1 on the Billboard playlist. (Playing it was Levi's request; Jim probably would have chosen something with more radio station jingles.)

On to the games. Saturday's game at John O'Donnell Stadium in Davenport is the only minor-league game on the trip. That meant it was the only game at which we could walk up and get box seats and still get change from a $20 after buying two. We bought four, so we got change from a $40. We sat 10 rows up, right behind home, in front of a row of screaming children. (You know how you hear sometimes how great the laughter of children sounds? In reality, it's shrill.)

Levi tried both vegetarian food options at the ballpark. Neither the nachos nor the fries were particularly distinguished.

The mascots, on the other hand, were almost the Famous Chicken level. The Swing's actual mascot is a man in a monkey suit who, when he's wearing the monkey suit, is known as Clyde. Clyde has a sidekick, a 4'10" man in a green-and-yellow superhero costume, complete with cape, named, of course, Banana Man. He runs around, occasionally stopping to stand heroically with arms akimbo, and occasionally stopping to throw bananas into the crowd. No explanation is offered.

The game itself was a brisk affair. The Swing center and right fielders should possibly have been players of the game due to the following incident late in the game with the Swing up by 1: with the tying run at first, a ball was hit to the wall in center. We couldn't quite see if the Swing center fielder bobbled it or not, but whatever was going on out there, it eventually ended with the outfielders' arms upraised in the universal symbol of "where the hell is the ball," most commonly seen in the major leagues at Wrigley Field when a ball gets lost in the ivy. We, being cynical city folk, doubted their story, but the umpire bought it hook, line, and sinker, the hook being the tying run being sent back to third. You can guess what the line is -- the go-ahead run being stuck at second. The sinker: a 1-0 Swing win.

Distracting everyone late in the game was a rabbit that had somehow wandered onto the field. First he was out in left field minding his own business, but somehow in all the commotion, he ended up in foul territory near home. He would sit around for a few minutes, then scamper off about 30 feet. At one point, perhaps thinking he had been called in to pitch, he sat between home and the pitcher's mound between innings. The umpire appeared to be consulting his mental rule book, but surprisingly, the Midwest League doesn't seem to have an official policy on rabbits taking up residence in the infield, so he decided it was somebody else's problem and ignored the little guy. No, not Banana Man, the rabbit. Banana Man was clearly the umpire's problem.

Eventually, the rabbit took off for parts unknown. Meanwhile, it seems that whenever a rabbit gets loose on the field, Section 5 gets handed free Blue Bunny bomb pops, or whatever they're called now that you can't say "bomb." Perhaps Tom Ridge pops. Anyway, we got to enjoy our tri-color quiescently frozen confections for the last couple of innings, with no real explanation as to how we got them.

After some interesting wandering on two-lane roads in Illinois, through Saturday night rodeo traffic, we spent a too-short night at the Country Inn and Suites in Galesburg. Bright and early Sunday, we got up and Levi spilled tea on his feet, which meant it was time to leave for St. Louis. We met up with hanger-on Tony for lunch before the game, and then met up with the various other hangers-on at the Stan Musial statue outside Busch Stadium. Inside, Jim met the final hanger-on of this busy hanger-on day, Jay, of "Jeopardy!" message board fame, who managed to get a seat right behind the main group.

Levi nearly used up a whole pencil filling in the boxes on the Cardinals' side of the scorecard today, after he finally figured out which side was supposed to be the Cardinals' side of the scorecard. He had to fill in box after box after box as the Cards scored run after run after run, as usual this season. Luke, in his Cubs shirt and cap, looked awestruck. Behind him, the fans wearing Cardinal red looked on with pity. Particularly noteworthy plays were Edgar Renteria's 13-pitch first-inning at-bat that ended in a 3-run homer; Larry Walker's grand slam; and, best of all (only best because the Cardinals were already leading by nearly a touchdown at this point), Reggie Sanders leaping high against the wall, coming down with his glove closed to cheers from the audience, and the scoreboard operator immediately putting up "HR RBI." The scoreboard operator was the only one in the stadium not fooled by Reggie's act -- well, we guess the umpires weren't fooled either; there was no joy in Gloveville, the ball had gone right out.

Immediately after the game, we found the ramp to I-64 East that hadn't been torn down for new Cardinals ballpark construction and hightailed it to Levi's hometown, Carmi, Illinois. At Levi's parents' house, we were visited by frequent baseballrelated.com commentator Toby, as well as Levi's grandparents (non-commentators).

The title quote for this post was said to Jim by the desk clerk at the Country Inn and Suites in Galesburg, explaining how he could qualify for the rate he was quoted on the AAA web site. No one asked.

All right, now we're going to bed, probably two hours later than we should have. See you in Detroit, assuming we can find an abandoned building that still has an Internet connection up and running.

Original comments...

sandor: When those buildings were abandoned, it was still callled DARPAnet, which means you're going to have to enter in your post using punchcards. I think they still sell blank ones down at the A&P.

Where are the links? I assumed Levi would gladly trade in sleep for the chance to hyperlink all possible words in this post. I was particularly looking forward to the interpretation of the words "Banana Man" as well as "Levi's grandparents."

You are playing the license plate game, right? Who's winning?

Congrats on keeping up your schedule. Keep the posts coming!

stacey: i think the lack of links was due to the late hour, combined with the fact that the internet connection at the stahl chalet is VERY slow. this is more than made up for by their amazing hospitality, though. i'm still full of delicious pasta, fresh fruit, and great company. the commute from carmi to chicago is a drag, though.

Luke, hanger-on: To flesh out the image of how this post came to be, I should note that Jim and Levi wrote together at the family computer in Levi's brother's room. Jim did the typing, employing his closed-captioning skills to take dictation from Levi, who reclined on a bean bag with a cigar and glass of port, pausing now and then to re-read that Sunday's Post-Dispatch story about the Cardinals and the clubhouse iPod.

I, meanwhile, dosed a few doors down in Levi's old bedroom, which I found impressively well-preserved. The Smithsonian should scoop it up for its exhibit on "Halcyon Childhoods of America: 1980-1989." Not surprisingly, the room betrays fascinations with Star Wars, classic rock and mullets. I could have stayed forever.

Jim: Yes, we will go back after the trip and add links, additional stuff we may have forgotten to write about, and especially photos. Or at least I will. Levi may choose to wash his hands of the whole thing, for all I know.

Labels: brpa, Cardinals, carmi, game report, jay temple, luke seemann, pirates, rabbit, road trip, stacey shintani, stahls, swing of the quad cities, tony becker, wisconsin timber rattlers

There'll be one final pre-trip post later today, if all goes well, but here's a quick one for y'all of some Mike Shannon saying I've come across lately.

It all started with Shannon's reaction to Scott Rolen being hit by a pitch with two on the other night. Instantly, Shannon said, "Oh, that's all right, that's all right," glad to have another Cardinals baserunner, regardless of Rolen's bruises.

Then, online the past two days, I've read a couple of perfect Mike Shannon statements. The key to a Shannonism is that, while what he actually says might not make sense directly, its meaning is somehow very clear, despite.

#1: "Scott Rolen's got hands like sewer lids down there at third."
#2: "Scott Rolen's got a 3-0 count. He just needs to make sure not to step on the dog on the porch now."

Labels: Cardinals, Mike Shannon, scott rolen

The time of the Cardinals-Pirates game on Saturday, August 28, being changed from 7:05 to 1:20? What force could possibly make that happen?

Thanks to Maura's co-worker Allison for giving us the heads-up, via Maura passing the information along to us. Levi and I consulted via phone, and we'll still be able to make all the games on the schedule, but now we won't be able to spend the night with my aunt and uncle in beautiful Yardley, Pennsylvania (actually, they live in Lower Makefield Township but have a Yardley mailing address). We'll still see them at the Phillies game, though, of course. Instead, we'll be spending the night in Harrisburg, and Maura has promised us breakfast at Waffle House.

P.S. to Levi: Yes, I'll be arriving on Thursday.

Labels: bolands, brpa, Cardinals, maura johnston, pirates, planning, road trip

The Cardinals announced today that their new stadium will not be called Monsanto Field or Post-Dispatch Park or Casino Queen Stadium or [Help me out here, Tony. I need some more St. Louis companies to put here.].

For at least the next twenty years, the ballpark being built next door to Busch Stadium will be called . . . . Busch Stadium.

I don't think anyone's all that surprised. And while there's no getting around the fact that it's yet another corporate name, Busch Stadium has a couple of things going for it. It's not just a corporate name, for one thing. It's also the name of a prominenet family that's been part of St. Louis for decades, and it honors August Anheuser Busch Jr. who more or less single-handedly saved the Cardinals for St. Louis in the 1950s. And it's the same name we've been using for forty years. Consistency has some value. And finally, Busch Beer isn't even Anheuser-Busch's most popular product. We could have had something hideous like Tequiza Park.

This does, however, leave an opening. Tony, you need to start putting the pennies away so that in twenty years you can outbid Anheuser-Busch, giving us Custom Insurance Field. By then, maybe we'll get to meet before games at the Pujols, Rolen, or Edmonds statues.

Original comments...

Jim: Steak 'n' Shake has always seemed like it should be a St. Louis company, although I think it's headquartered in Indianapolis.

But I'm going to assume the new park narrowly missed becoming Schnucks Stadium.

Dan: I'll meet you before the game at the Tommy Herr chapel and reading room.

Jason: I think in front of the new stadium there should be a beautiful fountain from which Natural Light should spew forth.

maura: dude, david lee roth totally tried that during the 'a little ain't enough tour,' except his fountains were flowing with jack daniels (and iced tea in sheds located in dry counties).

my seats were too crappy to get near them. plus i was 16 and probably would have spit the jack out.

Labels: busch stadium, Cardinals

Warning: Those of you tired of reading about the Cardinals might want to skip this post. It's long. I can't imagine anyone could be tired of reading about the team with baseball's best record, but then again, I can't imagine anyone not finding Dick Cheney repulsive, and he's married. And Vice President.

Last night's Cards-Giants game was everything a nationally televised game should be: Two good pitchers with differing styles (Jason Schmidt and Woody Williams), two of the game's best sluggers (Barry Bonds and Albert Pujols), and two of the game's best teams in one of baseball's prettiest ballparks. And it lived up to it, with the Cardinals winning 6-1, their margin of victory fattened in the late innings on a Giants bullpen that's been as reliable lately as the Bridge of San Luis Rey. Most of the game was spent with the score 2-1 Cardinals, making every pitch--especially those to a certain lefty--fraught with peril.

The great moments in the game were primarily one-on-one moments, batter versus pitcher. There were no particularly great defensive plays or baserunning heroics; the fun was in watching the power of Jason Schmidt and the guile of Woody Williams matched up against the batting eyes and hitting smarts of the likes of Bonds and Pujols.

Some highlights from that:

1) In the first inning, with Edgar Renteria on base, Pujols faced Schmidt. What followed was as pure a power vs. power battle as you'll ever see. Schmidt brought the 95-mph heat just above the belt, Pujols swung as hard as humanly possible, and he swung right through it. Stacey and I actually gasped. The next pitch was a little higher, around the shoulders, and Pujols couldn't lay off. But you can't hit that pitch, even if you're Albert Pujols*. Then, in a textbook demonstration of how to pitch, Schmidt struck Pujols out on an off-speed pitch that started thigh-high, then dropped to the dirt. It was Pujols's 29th strikeout of the year, to keep pace with his 29 home runs.
The next pitch Schmidt threw, to Rolen, was deposited far beyond the wall in dead center. That's the second time in a couple of weeks that Rolen has followed a Pujols strikeout with a long first-pitch homer. Maybe catchers need to make going to the mound a regular step following a Pujols strikeout., if only to remind the pitcher not to throw a first-pitch fastball.

2) For a couple of years, statheads online have been arguing whether teams might be walking Barry Bonds too often, in a way that's counterproductive. After all, the argument goes, if you walk him every time, he makes no outs. If you pitch to him, he makes four or five outs out of ten atbats. Maybe it's worth the home runs that he hits to get those outs. The Cardinals seem to be the only people testing this theory. This post at Redbird Nation covers the last two years of the strategy. His take: Cards come out ahead, but just barely.
I don't mind the intentional walk, but last night's four Bonds at-bats did remind me of what automatically walking Barry takes away from the game. Four times Bonds batted, and four times, the Cardinals came right at him:
a) In the first, Bonds--knowing the Cardinals were going to challenge him, just barely got under the first pitch, an outside fastball, and drove it to the warning track, and John Mabry's glove.
b) In his second at-bat, Bonds swung at the first pitch again, a fastball that made his eyes light up--then cut in a bit at the last second to jam him, a beatiful pitch that became an infield popup.
c) In his third trip, Bonds fouled off two, took two, then fouled off four straight, a variety of pitches, from a couple of inside fastballs to an outside slider to a hanging curveball that he just missed crushing. Finally, on the eleventh pitch of the at-bat, he flied out to the weird angle 420 feet away in right where home runs go to die.
d) In his last at-bat, the only time in the night when Bonds didn't represent the tying or go-ahead run, round, effective lefty (and Chicago native) Ray King faced him. Bonds took a strike on a tough slider, fouled one off, took a ball low, then drove a pitch into McCovey Cove that, like a slalom skier missing a gate, went for naught because it was on the wrong side of the foul pole. Then King jammed him inside and got a grounder to Pujols.
They were four of the most fun at-bats I've seen all year. Bonds didn't swing and miss even once, and he took very few pitches, for him. It really was baseball at its best, and the Cardinals came out on top--this time.

3) And speaking of good at-bats: I love good-hitting pitchers. Woody Williams, hitting better than .260 on the year, last night had a single in the second inning, but that wasn't his best at-bat of the night. In the 7th, he worked Schmidt for ten pitches, including four fouls with two strikes, before finally being blown away by a fastball. Those ten pitches, pushing Schmidt to 118 for the night, were instrumental in getting Schmidt out of the game before the 8th inning and bringing on the Giants bullpen.

All in all, a great game. And we're less than three weeks away from our trip now!

*I'm often surprised that hitters swing at the high fastball. It must just look too good to resist, even though you know it's not good for you, like a deep-fried Twinkie. In little league, I was so short that my coach, Eugene Lindsey, instructed me to take pitches until I got a strike. I dutifully did so, and occasionally I would draw a walk. Most of the time, though, the first strike would be called and I, freed from all shackles, would blindly hack at whatever came my way. So I don't have a lot of experience trying to lay off shoulder-high fastballs. Maybe some of the more accomplished ballplayers in the audience can weigh in on the seductiveness of the high heat.

Original comments...

Timmy: You're blog is great...it's good to see dedicated baseball fans, willing to travel the country...I recently flew out to Chicago to visit Wrigley (Pujols had 3 HRs) and Boston to visit Fenway (3rd visit to Wrigley, 1st to Fenway), and it's an experience I'll never forget...good luck on your trip (too bad you can't see a Ranger's game...the Ballpark is one of the nicer ones) http://getslaughtered.blogspot.com

Jim: Thanks, Timmy! If we do another trip in 2005 (or beyond), I definitely want to try to get to the parks in Texas. The Ballpark does look nice in the pictures I've seen of it, and since I'm a railfan, I know I'll enjoy the orange-powered steam locomotive in Houston.

Jason: I've learned you can deep-fry a Twinkie, but you can't deep-fry a Hostess cupcake.

Levi: Thanks for the kind words, Timmy.

One thing I forgot to mention: last night was only the fourth time this season that Bonds hasn't reached base in a game he played.

stacey: levi pointed out the row of rubber chickens that fans have strung up at the giants' ballpark to represent the number of times barry has been walked (intentionally, i think) this season. wow, that is a lot of chickens.

stacey: here we go: http://sanfrancisco.giants.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/sf/news/sf_news.jsp?ymd=20040620&content_id=776287&vkey=news_sf&fext=.jsp

Jason: You can deep-fry a chicken. But I dunno about deep-frying a rubber chicken.

Labels: Albert Pujols, barry bonds, Cardinals, edgar renteria, giants, jason schmidt, john mabry, ray king, scott rolen, woody williams

The last two Cardinals games have provided an example of one of the reasons I like baseball. Day to day, you never know what kind of game you'll get. One day, you hit five home runs and win 11-8. The next, you get three hits--two by your pitcher--and win 1-0.

You never know what you're going to get, that is, unless you're Barry Bonds, in which case you at least know you'll get walked about 1300 times per game.

Labels: barry bonds, Cardinals

I'm only here at the office half a day today, so all I've got today is a few quick notes from last night's game:

1) Wendell Kim has failed to master any of the three elements of a third-base coach's job. As I see it, those elements are knowing the speed of the runners on your team, knowing the quality of the throwing arm of the opposing outfielders, and knowing, at the very least, how many outs have been made already in an inning. Breaking down last night's Wavin' Wendell moment, we see that Kim sent a slightly hobbled runner, Aramis Ramirez (Element 1), against the great arm of Reggie Sanders (Element 2) when there were no outs in the inning (Element 3). Hilarity ensued.

Kim was apologetic after the game.

2) In the 4th inning, after Jim Edmonds deposited a ball onto Sheffield, he admired his shot too long for Carlos Zambrano's taste. Now, my seatmate, Michelle, and I didn't notice anything, and even as we watched the slow-motion replay on the TV hanging above our heads, we didn't think Edmonds had been out of line. Zambrano thought differently, so he yelled at him, almost precipitated a brawl, and then in the 8th, after giving up another home run, this one to Rolen, he hit Edmonds. I agree with Phil Rogers today (Wow. That's the first time that's happened that I know of. And I thought it was weird when I found myself agreeing with something Pat Buchanan said recently. These are strange days indeed.) in the Tribune: if you're pitching for a team whose superstar does a wiggly little hop every time he homers, you should probably keep quiet about demonstrations by your opponents.

3) Zambrano was ejected immediately after hitting Edmonds--who, to his credit took his base in manly, "I'm above this shit--and we're about to have a 9-game lead" fashion, singlehandedly preventing a brawl--which led Michelle and me to consider the rules. Zambrano knew he would be ejected for hitting Edmonds, as both benches had been warned earlier. Because there was no one getting ready in the bullpen, Mike Remlinger, when called upon, was given all the time he needed to get warmed up.

Michelle and I agreed that that's an understandable policy. After all, it's not in anyone's interest to have pitchers getting injured because they only got eight warm-up tosses. But we also agreed that such a policy could lead to abuse by managers: in this case, Zambrano had just given up the lead. He wasn't going to be lifted from the game, but it's easy to imagine a circumstance in which the manager, his pitcher suddenly falling apart on the mound, has him get ejected from the game in order to avoid having to keep him out there for another batter or two while the reliever gets ready.

But I came up with a solution to this problem. The reliever who enters following an ejection gets all the time he needs to warm up . . . but the opposing manager gets to pick who that reliever is. Jeff Fassero, are you hiding down there behind the tarp? Come on down! Mel Rojas, are you in the clubhouse wrapped in a towel? Tony LaRussa would like to see you!

Next time I harangue the Commish in a dream, I'll suggest that change in the rules.

4) And a quick note on selectivity and patience at the plate. I was tracking pitches while keeping score last night. Cubs leadoff man Mark Grudzielanek saw only eight pitches while making four outs. Meanwhile, Cardinals leadoff man Tony Womack, in the course of going 0-3 with two walks, used up 21 pitches. That lack of patience has dogged nearly all the Cubs all year long, and it goes a long way towards explaining how Chris Carpenter was able to get through eight innings last night on only 97 pitches and four earned runs despite giving up 12 hits. Well, that and point #1 above.

Labels: aramis ramirez, Cardinals, carlos zambrano, chris carpenter, cubs, jim edmonds, mark grudzielanek, mike remlinger, reggie sanders, scott rolen, tony womack, wendell kim

Baseballrelated.com was represented today at the 2004 induction into the Baseball Reliquary's Shrine of the Eternals, a.k.a. the parallel universe version of the Hall of Fame. The best part is that I didn't have to go all the way to Cooperstown for the inductions; instead, I took public transportation to Pasadena.

Where else are you going to hear Lester Rodney, the 93-year-old former sports editor of the Daily Worker, tell Jackie Robinson stories? Probably nowhere. The story about Pee Wee Reese putting his arm around Jackie never fails to move me.

Later, Dick Allen waxed eloquent about having to play Roberto Clemente and the rest of the "Lumber Yard": "They'd keep us on defense for 35, 40 minutes, and then we'd only be in the dugout for 7 minutes."

After I got home, I watched my TiVo recording of (what turned out to be) a 10-4 Cardinals victory over the Reds. DirecTV has had another free preview of the MLB Extra Innings package for the few days following the All-Star break, hoping to sell a few people on ordering it for the second half of the season (for only one-third less than what it cost at the beginning of the year). I figured I should watch the Cardinals so Levi and I will have something to talk about all those days in the car. That Scott Rolen certainly is a good player! Also, the Reds held my interest by bringing in a member of my All-Name team, Todd Van Poppel. (Among the other members of my All-Name team: Quinton McCracken and Delino DeShields.)

Since it was a home game for the Reds, it was the feed from Fox Sports Net Ohio, and something strange was going on every time announcer George Grande would do a "Reds baseball on Fox Sports Net is brought to you by..." announcement; he'd read the plugs, and then would shut up for 15 or 20 seconds until the music bed ended. (And 15 to 20 seconds of a baseball announcer being silent seems like an eternity!) My semi-educated guess is that local cable systems put in their own sponsorship announcements there, but if anyone knows differently, please use the comments below. Actually, since I don't watch much baseball on TV, for all I know, all the Fox Sports Net affiliates are doing that now.

Original comments...

Jim: Two things I forgot to mention...the induction ceremony was being interpreted for the benefit of the "Dummy" Hoy contingent, and because I was seeing it over and over, I now know the sign language for "baseball": bring your fists together in front of your chest, elbows out, as if you're in a batting stance.

Also, the first person to leap to his feet to give Lester Rodney a standing ovation was a man wearing a Dennis Kucinich T-shirt.

Levi: No, the pause is the new system where you, the viewer, supply the ad copy. Then you send Fox money.

Toby: What a Smart Alec Levi is. Yes, Jim, that slot might be for local inserts or it could be for a local station identification.

And I certainly hope Montreal's Terrmel Sledge makes your All-Name list.

Was Buck O'Neal at this gathering you attended?

Labels: baseball reliquary, Cardinals, dick allen, directv, jackie robinson, lester rodney, reds, todd van poppel

Well, we're more than halfway there. When I was a kid, the pedant in me (which was, like 75% of me) was regularly annoyed by the demarcation of the All-Star break as the halfway point. Now that I know what it's like to be an adult and once in a while need some days off, I understand better why three days off in the midst of a long season should be viewed as the halfway point, regardless of its mathematical accuracy.

So at the halfway point, it's time for a quick list of the best things about the first half for me:

1) The Cardinals, and their position in the standings relative to the Cubs, the Astros, and the rest of the Senior Circuit.

2) Johnny Damon's first at-bat of the season. Even more than the rest of his season, the spit-out-your-beer surprise of seeing him stand in that first night has made me smile for three months.

3) Scott Rolen

4) The Unit's perfect game.

5) The Tigers' win total, one less than at the end of last season. Do you think they'll just take the rest of the year off?

I'm sure I've missed some. For example, there's no way that the Tigers' season has been one of the five best things about baseball this year, even for Tigers fans. But I am impressed with their season, and I'm working, and listing Johnny Damon twice would be wrong.

So you should add your own top five in the comments. 'Cause yours will probably be better than mine.

Original comments...

Steve: 1) The Cubs are being the Cubs
2) The White Sox are making baseball fun (at least for me)
3) Baseball Related Program Activities
4) The NL East Race
5) Ivan Rodriguez (his stats are crazy when you consider he's a catcher. He hit .500 for the month of June)

Levi: .500?

That's insane.

Oh, and if I expanded my list, I might include:
6) The AL looking like it might, just might have a different order of finish for the first time since the birth of the Devil Rays. The teams have all finished in the same spots every season since then.

Dan: 1) Mets finally giving me a reason to enjoy the day-to-day pennant races again.
2) Traditionally shitty teams doing really well, in nearly every division: Tigers, Rays, Brewers, Padres, (erm, Mets), Rangers
3) Jason Marquis establishing himself as the best Jewish pitcher since Steve Stone
4) Mets sweeping the Yankees and winning the season series, both for the first time ever
5) The Astros imploding.
**6) Johnny Damon -- indeed, that first game was magic, and I was sitting here watching alone

2nd half wish list:
1) Mets sneak into the playoffs, I don't care if it's with an 82-80 record like it was in '73
2) Someone hits Clemens in the head (or hand)
3) Someone hits Jeter in the groin
4) Rickey Henderson returns
5) Andy Baggarly breaks open the BALCO case

Toby: 1. A Hoosier from Levi's sister's town leads the All-Star voting
2. Blue Jays' new logo/uniforms
3. Astros virtually out of the race
4. The Braves NOT in first place at the break
5. D-Rays' and PIrates' long winning streaks

Jason: 1. Finally getting to a Visalia Oaks game.
2. Finding a A&W Restaurant before the Oaks game.
3. Visiting PETCO park for a Padres-Cubs game.
4. Taking a pleasant weekday drive through the San Gabriel mountains before a Rancho Cucamonga Quakes game.
5. Watching Cal State Fullerton win the College World Series, giving me incentive to try to attend a game there next season.

Levi: How could I have forgotten the Braves' struggles? That really is a top-five event. Go, Mets!

Labels: Cardinals, johnny damon, randy johnson, scott rolen, tigers

While the Cardinals were busy losing, again and again and again, to the Pittsburgh Pirates this week, I was thinking about Pirates first baseman Randall Simon.

Who doesn't love Randall Simon? Well, a certain sausage in Milwaukee might not. And those of us who prefer our hitters to be patient and hit for power, especially if they're manning first base, well, we might have our quibbles with him once in a while, too.

But is there any baseball fan who doesn't love watching him hit? There are hundreds of impatient hitters. Rey Ordonez approaches his at-bats as if he's Cinderella at thirty seconds to midnight. Corey Patterson, until recent weeks, swung at bad pitches as if he were the pitcher's therapist and wanted him to feel good about himself. But no one I've ever seen combines a burning desire to hit every single pitch with an incomprehensible ability to hit just about every single pitch.

Sure, a lot of the balls he hits get fouled off. Or popped up. And he's never hit for real power. But that takes nothing away from my marveling at his sheer ability to introduce bat to ball. Shoetops, helmet-high, inside, outside, in the dirt. It's never mattered much to Simon. He's a superhero of hacking.

And he's chubby. Even rotund.

Though Simon's career on-base percentage of .328 is abysmal, his .297 batting average has enabled him to keep a major league job for seven years. But I worry that the end is near: It's only 100 at-bats, but Simon's line this year is .210/.292/.280 is bad. He's not striking out much more than usual, with 10, but he's also not hitting for any power at all, with only 4 doubles and 1 home run. If he doesn't come back strong in the second half, even the lowly Pirates (see the first sentence of this post) might let him go.

Who knows what the problem is? Maybe his bat speed is slowing just enough, though you would expect that to be reflected in increased strikeouts. Maybe he's been unlucky.

But I have a new pet theory. Remember in the spring of 1998, when New Sammy burst on the scene, no longer flailing at curveballs in the dirt? Maybe Simon's the Bizarro Sammy: he's more than doubled his walk rate, from a career rate of one walk per 23.5 at-bats to this year's rate of one every 11 at-bats. Maybe that's the problem: he's being too selective. That goes counter to everything I understand about hitting, but we're talking about Randall Simon. Anything's possible.

So my advice is to hack away, Randall. I think you shouldn't take another pitch this season. Not a one.

If my advice works, Pirates fans can thank me later by beating the Cardinals' rivals down the stretch.

Original comments...

Steve: You're a regular Charlie Lau or whatever the hell that guy's name is.

Toby: Ahh yes, thank you, Levi, for highlighting another in a long string of Pirate first baseman who really suck. I can trace it all the way back to the early 80s and Jason Thompson, who replaced "Pops" Stargell. Yes, I know Willie wasn't really a first baseman--he played there late in his career, but still, he was the last good first baseman they had.

I liked Sid Bream when he played there, but then he went to Atlanta and then in that game 7 in 1992, he slid home with the winning run... So, now I pretty much hate him.

Man, I've been on vacation all week and must have built up some real anger. Sorry about that.

Labels: Cardinals, corey patterson, pirates, randall simon, rey ordonez, sammy sosa

The Washington Post just wrapped up a series on how DC or Northern Virginia is about to be the newest area to be screwed over by Major League Baseball. After the All-Star Game, Bud Selig is going to announce where he's going to plunk down the team he stole from Montreal.

The series is in three parts. The first looks at the remarkably shady dealings that brought us Miller Park. I knew the dealings for that stadium reeked of corruption, but the Post's writers get all the details in order, and it's even worse than I thought.

The second looks at the remarkably shady dealings that brought MLB ownership of the Expos.

And the third looks at the shady dealings still to come, as Selig and his cronies arrive to loot the local treasuries of the DC area to the tune of around $350-400 million.

These articles are some of the first mainstream articles I've seen to argue strenously against Selig and his stadium-building boom. They're well-researched and well-written, and if they don't make you mad about the tax money being funneled into the pockets of billionaires, then maybe you should go here. The other thing this article does is make me more impressed with Peter Magowan of the Giants and the Cardinals ownership group. Magowan built the first privately funded stadium since Dodger Stadium (Which, it's important to remember, was built on land that was basically given to the O'Malleys after the low-income people living there were booted.); the Cardinals ownership is trying to do the same, getting some assistance, but not much.

The Post requires you to register, but I bet you all can figure out what to do.

Original comments...

Levi: This doesn't belong here, but I liked it so much that I had to put it somewhere. From E.J. Dionne, "The plural of anecdote is not data."

He's using the statement as a clause to introduce a bunch of anecdotes that he's using kind of like data, but it's still a succinct, sharp way to pinpoint what's wrong with reasoning from anecdotes.

Steve: Thanks alot, Levi. Just when I've really been enjoying this baseball season and the tight divisional races you go and dig this up. Grrrrr.

Well back at ya! How about that little league blooper that lost the game for the Cardinals last night? And my grandma can throw harder than Matt Morris.

Levi: Fortunately for my soul, I wasn't able to see the game last night, and by the time the radio broadcast came in, all I heard was Mike Shannon saying, "Totals and highlights in a moment."

I think that probably should have been "highlight," since Suppan's pitching seems to have been the only one.

But we're back at 'em tonight. And how many times--apologies to Toby--can the Pirates beat you, really?

Jason: If any other business were run like Major League Baseball, it would be bankrupt and OUT of business.

Levi: Like will soon be the case with the NHL, which seems to be run kind of like MLB, but with worse hair.

Steve: "And how many times--apologies to Toby--can the Pirates beat you, really?"

Apparently at least three times.....

Levi: Thank god tomorrow's an off day. This team sounds like it badly needs a day off.

And John Mabry might have had the worst day ever. He hit into two double plays, left ten men on, and managed to make six outs if you include the DP outs. Poor guy.

Labels: bud selig, Cardinals, giants, miller park, nationals

The Cardinals and Cubs played a wild game in St. Louis last night, a game which the Cardinals won 10-9, scoring the winning run on a passed ball by catcher Paul Bako, who entered the game in the 9th after starting catcher Michael Barrett and relief pitcher Kent Mercker were thrown out for arguing about the poorly-called strike zone. Midway through that inning, when Mercker didn't get the call on what should clearly have been an inning-ending third strike to Reggie Sanders, I had thought to myself, "Mercker's going to get thrown out at the end of this inning." Lo and behold, Mercker got thumbed after he shouted "Fuck you!" while striding off the mound, followed immediately by Barrett's shouting, "That's bullshit!" as he threw down his mask, then repeating it for emphasis as he threw down his glove. The second thumb flew.

They were right. Umpire Sam Holbrook's strike zone was bullshit. More than any game I can remember since the days of Eric Gregg, the umpire made this game what it was. His strike zone managed to be both tiny and inconsistent. Fortunately, the Cardinals got the best of it.

But there was much, much more to the game than that:

1) The Cubs made three errors. I like to think that is karmic payback for Chip Carey's constant harping on the Cubs low error totals, which leads him to say "The Cubs' defense is far and away the best in the league." And a fantastic play by Scott Rolen to open the ninth was further payback for Chip's statement Monday that "Sure, Rolen may be slightly outhitting Aramis Ramirez, but Ramirez is having the better year defensively, with X errors to Rolen's Y errors." Ramirez has played surprisingly strong defense this year, but the difference between him and Rolen is still like the difference between a speech by Bush and a speech by Clinton.

2) The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has a story today about something I didn't catch, though apparently it was shown on the broadcast. Steve Kline warmed up in the 6th, but when he wasn't summoned to pitch, he flipped the bird at Tony LaRussa. According to the story, when informed of this post-game, LaRussa got steamed and broke off the press conference, saying "Give me two minutes and I'll be standing on top of his chest kicking the (bleep) out of him."

We all have a pretty good idea what LaRussa said that is being bleeped. But what about what Kline said later: "If he doesn't want me to get mad, then don't (lead me on)."

I don't know (Toby, Scott, Baggarly, Dan: care to weigh in?) exactly what the policies at most papers are on when and how to elide or replace swear words in quotes, but I've always enjoyed reading the results. The one rule I've always wished would be followed in those situations, though, is this: the person reading, if a mentally competent adult, ought to be able to read the sentence and,without missing a beat, replace the replacement with the original swear word. Kline's statement doesn't allow for that. "(lead me on)"? What, I wondered, could everyone's favorite nasty-hatted nutcase have said?

Fortunately for readers of BRPA2004, the folks at Redbird Nation--though they don't give a source for their information--have the answer. And it's a good one. According to them, Steve Kline said: "If he doesn't want me to get mad, then don't dry hump me."

But who cares about a little clubhouse strife after a win like that?

Oh, and while we're on the subject of newspapers printing swear words, you all might enjoy this article from the Guardian. Not only is it full of swear words, abuse (personal and general), and absurdity, it also includes accusations of Nazism!

Original comments...

Luke: Everything I know about this game I learned from the ESPN running game update, so I didn't catch all the machinations, but I hope dusty sits Barrett and Bako down and reminds them how important it is for them to stay in the game when there are only two catchers on the roster. In this case, maybe Barrett catches that pass ball, and maybe Hollandsworth is available to bring his .600 pinch-hitting average to the catcher's spot with two out in the ninth.

2. Similar words -- "If you don't want me to get mad, then don't dry hump me." -- came up in my last performance review, too.

Sports departments I think do the most -- and the most creative -- ellisions, because of the foul-mouthed nature of their sources and because sports enjoys the least oversight from the style and policy czars at a given paper. You'll often see things like "He (upset me)" instead of "He pissed me off," "that (jerk)" instead of "that asshole" or "(Selig)" instead of "lying motherfucker."

Levi: I'm sorry, Luke. I should have included you in my list of journalists who might answer my question. I am astonished at how many journalists we have as readers. What are we, Romanesko?

Jim: Why can't the St. Louis Post-Dispatch be more like the Guardian? "Mr Kline's mention of dry humping last night is not the first time he has shown an interest in simulated sexual activity."

But I bet the Guardian doesn't have Weatherbird!

Steve: Where to start deconstructing these outbursts.... Sounds like someone is wearing his stirrups a little too tight. The implication of Kline's remarks is that if Tony LaRussa had indeed humped him, he wouldn't have been angry. Apparently, getting into the game involves a full on "wet" hump. And who has the blue-balls Kline or LaRussa? These men are bringing new resonance to the term "fantasy baseball." Apologies to those would rather see something along the lines of [sexual-frustration] instead of the more colorful term. This also reminds me of an incident last year over in the NFL where Lions GM Matt Millen called former Lion receiver Johnnie Morton a "faggot." The only difference is that I saw the derogatory remark printed in more than a few places.

Levi: The last bit of the Post-Dispatch article is also great. Kline, asked about the confrontation--which, remember, took place in the shower, so you have to picture LaRussa in uniform, Kline nude save for his nasty hat--said, "He yelled at me like he usually does. Hopefully, he'll get over it in about three weeks and we can move on."

Levi: Last thought on this topic. I think.

Is this not easily the best naked man/not naked man confrontation we've heard about since Dale "The Demon" Torborg chased Antonio "El Pulpo" Alfonseca down a hallway and into a broom closet?

Toby: Levi, Sorry, I've been out of the loop for a couple of days.

I was watching the Midwest Sports Report live after that game Thursday night and heard LaRussa's comments live on the air. Fox Sports Midwest suddenly cut back to the anchors after he said "shit" and the anchorwoman--with a giant grin on her face--apologized to the viewers.

As far as our little town paper, I don't know if we have a policy for disguising curse words - I would say it would probably be right along the line of what the Post-Dispatch did, though,

That article from the Guardian reminded me of a recent column on espn.com that got Hunter S. Thompson in some trouble. He wrote something to the effect that the prison abuse by American captors in Iraq was worse than anything the Nazis did. As you might expect, that didn't go over very well with many people.

The reason I bring that story up is that I have been desperately searching for a DVD copy of "Where the Buffalo Roam," the movie where Bill Murray portrays HST. I have been watching it on my 20-year-old VHS copy, but would like to get it on DVD. The problem is it is out of print and goes for around $40 or $50 on ebay. I don't remember you ever mentioning it, but I would peg you as being a Hunter S. Thompson fan, Levi, so I thought you might have some insight on where I can get a DVD copy without having to pay $40 or $50.

Levi: Toby-- I don't know where you can get that DVD, but I'll do some looking around and see if I can figure out. I do remember once seeing part of Where the Buffalo Roam on TV, not knowing it as about HST, and being really confused until I figured it out. Bill Murray really was born to play that role.

Oh, and one last note on dry humping: as some of you know, someone some of us know (That part of the sentence was a lot of fun to write!) introduced us to a term her set in high school used to use for dry humping. They called it "Doing simulation." After a date, a girl would ask another, "Did you do simulation?"

The Post-Dispatch could have gone with, "If he doesn't want me to get mad, then don't [do simulation]."

Luke: Puts Kerry Wood's [simulated] games in a whole new light.

Labels: Cardinals, chip caray, cubs, kent mercker, Michael Barrett, paul bako, reggie sanders, scott rolen, st. louis post-dispatch, steve kline

Following a mostly baseball-free trip to Lake Tahoe, I'm back in the world of the Internet (and, that means, the office). But because I have a fair amount of work to do this morning, I've got just some disjointed thoughts to offer.

1) Here are some things that people I overheard on the trip (at restaurants, airports, in the gondola at Squaw Valley) are more concerned about than I tend to be: Property values, cars, gas prices, commercials, and traffic. Oh, and there was the woman at the airport who was detailing to everyone in earshot the degree to which she always gets sick on airplanes. The short version: not quite sick enough to barf, but very close.

Things they are less concerned about than me: public transportation, bicycles, and baseball.

I'll take my set any day.

2) We did get to see one game while we were on vacation. The last night of our trip we spent at Stacey's aunt's house in Sacramento, where I got to watch the Cardinals beat the Athletics on the Bay Area Fox Sports Network. And I got to feed Aunt Sherry's pair of pet bunnies. It was a great day.

3) The flag at Wrigley Field at Saturday's very chilly game was still at half staff. The Most-Loved Terrible President Ever has been dead more than three weeks! Isn't it time to reflect his American optimism and pull that flag back up?

4) Speaking of honoring the dead, if I had been Commissioner of Baseball, "The Star-Spangled Banner" on the day Ray Charles died would have been played by solo organ or trumpet in every ballpark. It's not like anyone is ever going to sing it better than he did at Game 2 of the 2001 World Series. Watching that performance, I was astonished that any such carefully staged moment as the pre-game National Anthem at the World Series could be so moving. On a song and in a situation where most renditions don't even reach the level of craft, Ray Charles on that night produced art.

5) Jim's posts recently have now doubled the amount of non-Maura-created Devil Rays content on the Internet. The infinity symbol no longer quite expresses the porn/Devil Rays ratio on the Web. Congratulations, Jim. The D-Rays will have your season tickets in the mail this week. Hope there's room on that fast-rolling bandwagon.

6) Ron Santo and Pat Hughes on Friday had this exchange:
Ron: "Patrick, have you ever thought of writing poetry?"
Pat: "No, not really, Ron."
Ron: "I think you should."
Pat: "Well, I think I might just stick to broadcasting."
Ron: "I really think you should write poetry."
Pat: "Thanks for the vote of confidence."

It's good to be back.

Original comments...

sandor: Re: #3. I (regrettably) didn't take any pictures, but in our short jaunt through southern Wisconsin this weekend, we saw an inordinate number of flags at half-mast. Probably more at half- than at full-. In fact, the larger the flag was, the greater chance it was halfway down the pole. It was astonishing.

Jim: They're supposed to be at half-mast (or half-staff) for 30 days after a President dies. I seem to recall that 10 years ago, flag proprietors were pretty good about keeping them halfway down (or up) for a month after Nixon died, so if he can get that kind of flag cooperation, it's no wonder Reagan is doing even better.

Levi: Wow. 30 days?

Stand me corrected!

But it still seems like an odd relic of, say, Victorian-style mourning, when you went through several specific stages of mourning with their accompanying public displays.

Toby: Levi, At Sunday's Cardinals vs. Reds game (in which Junior hit his 500th homer), a kid from your hometown named Landon Bayley threw out the first pitch. Just an FYI.

Levi: How'd he manage to get to do that? And was it faster than Matt Morris's fastball these days?

Toby: His grandfather is the Bayley in Martin & Bayley - the small Carmi company that built Huck's into a major chain in the Midwest. It was Huck's day at the ballpark. He got to meet Lou Brock, who, I believe, also threw out a ceremonial first pitch.

I've never clocked Landon so I don't know if he's faster than Morris, but I know he's a good kid.

Labels: athletics, Cardinals, national anthem, pat hughes, ray charles, ron santo, Wrigley Field

People in the Tampa Bay area are so shocked by the Devil Rays' winning streak, they're hitting the wrong pedal even more often than usual!

Oh, yeah, Levi wanted me to write about the Cardinals, didn't he? Well, they're only 8-2 in their last 10 games. And they may have only four losses in the month of June, but the Rays only have three losses this month. I repeat, they're making people want to pick up their baggage at the Tampa airport really fast so they can get home to watch the games on PAX 66!

Labels: Cardinals, devil rays

So far, I've only found one other baseball trip similar to ours going on this year, and Andrew and Ben's trip starts tonight in L.A. They're doing 9 games in 6 cities in 11 days, including -- and here's where Levi starts drooling -- all three Cardinals-Royals games in Kansas City from June 25-27. Also, their web site looks nicer than this one, and they even have an actual logo. So, Levi, if you'd rather go on their trip than the one we have planned, I guess I'll understand.

Original comments...

Jason: They seem like a couple of Normal guys.

But on their web site, it looks like fog is rolling into Bank One Ballpark. Or maybe it's smoke from all the peyote Arizona folks do.

thatbob: There site *looks* good, but is lacking in content. And, more importantly, places for me to comment. So far they are no threat to you for my readership/commentship.

Labels: Cardinals, road trip, royals

Stacey and I are off on vacation with her family for a week, starting tomorrow. So I will be away from the Internet (Unless one of Stacey's sisters has one of those magic internet phone-watch-missile-defense-system-thingies, which would probably terrify me so much that I couldn't use it even if I wanted to do so.) and not posting to BRPA2004.

In my absence, I hope Jim will at least impersonate me for a post or two. It's not like it's that hard. You mention Johnny Damon, lament a Cardinals loss or cheer a Cardinals victory.

Or you could post something about Raul Mondesi--whose nickname is "The Buffalo"-- and Operation Shutdown: The Sequel, which he pulled in Pittsburgh, the home of the original, unmatchable Operation Shutdown.

And you could link to this silly picture, from the game where Mondesi, now an Angel, tore his quadriceps.

There. Now Jim will be able to impersonate me with ease. See you all when we return.

Original comments...

thatbob: I have no idea what you're talking about.

Labels: Cardinals, johnny damon, operation shutdown, raul mondesi

I'm surprised Levi didn't mention this in the previous entry: that Cardinals-Pirates game that was rained out on Tuesday is most likely going to be made up as part of a doubleheader when the Pirates next visit St. Louis...which happens to be August 19th through 22nd, coinciding with our planned visit on the 22nd. So what are the odds they'll choose to do a Sunday doubleheader, and we'll get to see two games?

Original comments...

Levi: Have you worked up a doubleheader itinerary, in case every game we see ends up being a doubleheader? Can we make all the games if that happens?

And, on a side note, you do have a passport, right? Because I don't think they let you into Canadia without one these days.

Jim: If every game ends up being a doubleheader? I don't think that's going to happen unless we get some "Day After Tomorrow"-style weather within the next couple of months but things clear up by mid-August. For now, the doubleheader plan involves getting up earlier and/or driving faster.

Yes, I have a passport. Don't you have every post on this blog memorized?

Levi: I know it's unlikely that every game would end up a doubleheader, but do you want to be caught short if that happens? What's the only thing more impressive than ten games in ten cities in ten days? Why, it's 20 games in 20 cities in ten days!

Jim: I think you mean 20 games in 10 cities in 10 days, unless you're thinking the doubleheaders are going to be long enough that the home team is going to relocate between the two games. Which is a possibility for the Expos, I guess.

Labels: brpa, Cardinals, pirates, planning, rain, road trip

Well, as you might have suspected, it was a sad weekend at the old ballpark for me, though not for 120,000 Cubs fans, puffed up with the arrogance that two playoff appearances in five years can bring.

Somehow, the Cardinals and Cubs managed to play three games in three days with no rain delays, despite strong thunderstorms and heavy rain all weekend. And somehow, the Cardinals managed to turn Glendon Rusch into the pitcher who pitched pretty well for the Mets in 2000, rather than the pitcher who was cut from the Brewers earlier this year. And the Cardinals managed three runs on only three hits against the remarkably good Matt Clement. Impressive, but it wasn't enough. So despair reigns, at least for a few days.

But there was one fully redeeming moment for me--a moment that was a huge highlight even for my Clement-fan wife and for Cubs-fan Luke--in Sunday night's game. The Cardinals were down 4-1, and with Albert Pujols at the plate, a chant arose. It began oddly--almost as if it had been planned in advance--with what seemed a whole section above and behind us shouting "Pujols sucks!" without any of the slow build that such chants usually require.

So as the first pitch comes in as a ball, the chant grows until most of the stadium is into it. "Pujols sucks! Pujols sucks! Pujols sucks!" The next pitch came in, and then it went out. And it kept going out, onto Waveland, or maybe Irving Park Road. The crowd fell silent, except for those of us who were giggling.

Wendell Berry, in a story I read Saturday, described a driver showing "the extended middle finger that contradicts all contradiction." It's hard to imagine a way in which Pujols could have more clearly demonstrated that he manifestly does not suck. Maybe if he had hit that home run, then taken the mound the next inning and set down the Cubs in order with three strikeouts on nine pitches. But that's asking a lot even of Pujols.

Original comments...

Luke: Who you calling arrogant? I should point out, Levi, that I cheered Pujols' home run almost as much as you did. It was more than worth giving up the run to see him shut the fans up.

Every time I get to Wrigley I'm more dismayed by the boorishness of the fans. I don't know whether I'm getting older and crankier or they're getting more boorish, or both. My money is on "both."

Levi: No, no, Luke. I'm not calling you out on that--in fact, I mentioned that you seemed to enjoy the moment. I know your fandom doesn't allow for absurd slander.

And I'm not saying Cardinals fans are perfect. I'm sure plenty of them are complete tools. But I haven't ever heard a chant like that one at Busch Stadium, and I'm not used to hearing the regular booing that the opposing team's best player has frequently been getting at Wrigley Field lately.

Jim: Glendon Rusch was already turned into a good pitcher by the Padres a week ago Sunday. Opposing pitcher David Wells was so distraught about the situation that he went home, threw a bottle against the wall, and ended up cutting himself on the broken glass (or at least that's what I assume happened).

Does Barry Bonds get booed at Busch?

Levi: I haven't seen Bonds play at Busch, so I don't know. I don't think he does, but I could be wrong.

And the Wells story was great because the story in the San Diego paper about his injury actually included, in the subhead, "Padres GM believes Wells's account." Imagine being viewed as so untrustworthy that your believablity merits mention in a headline.

Luke, hanger-on: Sorry, Levi, I scanned past that. Didn't mean to slanderously accuse you of slanderously accusing me of absurdly slandering Pujols, the second-best player in baseball. (Though, admittedly, I have in the past slandered his funny name, stonethrowing-in-a-glass-house notwithstanding.)

sandor: I tuned in for a little of the game (it was one of those rare times when my cable company decided to give me free ESPN), though I missed the impressive first inning rally. But how about that weather system? That must have been impressive to see from the stadium. When they came back from a commercial break early on, the cameraman was pulling pack to show the bizarrely shaped cloud formations out in the distance. It was so striking that Sarah and I felt compelled to take a walk around the neighborhood and witness it ourselves. I figured I'd the be the only person intrigued enough in clouds to notice, but no, everyone we passed was looking up in amazement.

thatbob: Re: strange clouds and weather systems. I haven't even told you all about the ghost boat.

Levi: According to people who watched the game at home, Pujols made a shushing motion sometime after the home run. I'm unclear on whether it was during the trot or after crossing the plate. It's the sort of thing that would ordinarily get you knocked on your ass the next time up, but in this case, I think even the opposing pitcher would understand.

Labels: Albert Pujols, Cardinals, cubs, glendon rusch

Steven Goldman, writer of The Pinstriped Bible, a Yankees site worth reading--despite not being a Yankee-hating site--today calls the Designated Hitter "the Free Parking of baseball."

Aside from the fact that the DH sucks all the time, whereas Free Parking only sucks when your opponent lands on it, I think he's right on. Finding a good DH should be the easiest thing in the world for a team. That's why, when the Cardinals (in interleague play) batted Miguel Cairo there a few times, or when the Yankees, this season, have batted Ruben Sierra there against lefties, it has brought sorrow and joy, respectively.

Labels: Cardinals, designated hitter, miguel cairo, ruben sierra, yankees

Redbird Nation, the best Cardinals site on the web, describes Jim Edmonds's approach at the plate perfectly today:

That's the way Jim Edmonds plays baseball. It's like someone took a film strip of Will Clark swinging a bat, crumpled it up, cut out a few frames, reassembled them out of order, ran it back through a film projector, then used it to teach Jedmonds how to swing a bat. But the results -- those high, majestic home runs -- would be as if Thrill had hit them himself.


Side note: I miss Will Clark. Back in the late 80s, I would never have thought that possible, but watching him as a Cardinal the last two months of 2000 secured him a place on my team of all-time favorites.

Labels: Cardinals, jim edmonds, will clark

A coworker who is also a Cardinals fan has a twelve-year-old son with whom he watches most Cardinals games with the MLB Extra Innings package.

Recently, the feed was down for a few days, but my coworker and his son still wanted to see the game. So they did the next-to-next-best thing (The next-best thing being, of course, radio): they watched the pitch-by-pitch ticker online, and they announced the game as if they were broadcasting it.

All that was really just a long preamble so I can tell you this: my coworker's six-year-old daughter said, "You guys need announcer names. Dad, your name is Bob. Ethan, your name is Aladdin."

Which gave my coworker plenty of chances to say things like, "Matt Morris sure is pitching well tonight, isn't he, Aladdin."

Labels: aladdin, Cardinals, directv

Well, no wonder, considering the fact that the Cardinals have a gargantuan number of radio affiliates. I'm thinking you wouldn't have had the same luck if you were driving through Florida trying to listen to the Devil Rays game, although I can't imagine a situation where that would come up.

Next time your iPod freezes up, Levi, try resetting it, by flipping the hold switch back and forth, and then hold down the "play/pause" and "menu" buttons simultaneously for about 10 seconds, until the Apple logo displays on the screen.

(P.S.: I see there's a show on WXRU that has a city in the title, but in reality has nothing whatsoever to do with that city. Where would they have ever gotten that idea? I'm not sure if I should be flattered, or join with WXLO-FM in their lawsuit. They ripped off those call letters from the former WOR-FM in New York anyway. Go to the link and scroll down for some info on that.)

Original comments...

Levi: I've been able to reset my iPod before by toggling the hold switch, then holding down the middle button, but I've not tried the menu/play button thing. Thanks.

Labels: Cardinals, devil rays, radio

First radio note from the weekend:

On the way to my parents' house, on Friday night, we listened to the Cardinals game. We first picked it up just north of Champaign-Urbana on a previously unknown AM station. When that signal faded, Stacey hit the scan button, and the next AM station the radio found had the Cardinals game on. When that signal began to fade, she did it again, and again the next station the radio found was carrying the Cardinals. The fourth time, we got a station carrying some other programming, but the fifth time, we got the Cardinals again. We eventually switched to KMOX, once night had fallen, but later, when we had problems with KMOX, we were able to find an FM station carrying the game. We ended our night with a Cardinals win heard on AM 1460 WROY, Carmi, which only seemed right.

Now that's broadcasting in the public interest! I don't understand why the FCC's so worried about the state of radio.

Second radio note from the weekend:

Stacey and I drove back from a visit to my parents on Sunday. We listened to the end of the Cardinals game on KMOX. My iPod had frozen up strangely earlier in the day, so after the Cardinals lost, we were stuck trolling central Illinois radio, which is a desert that would even the Old Testament God wouldn't be willing to force on the ancient Israelites. A lot of bad religious programming, even more Nashville crap, and not much else.

Then, as we were sitting in a ten-mile bumper-to-bumper, stop-and-go mess of a merge, we hit upon WHOW AM 1520, Clinton, Illinois. And there we stayed, because their programming was like a gauntlet thrown down, a chip being knocked off our shoulders, a triple-dog dare: could we bring ourselves to keep listening until they went out of range?

What, you ask, was their programming? They were playing "The Superbowl Shuffle". Over and over. Every couple of times through, a recording played of a guy imitating Harry Caray, saying that starting Monday, WHOW would be sports programming. "But now, let's get back to 'The Superbowl Shuffle!'"

So we listened to "The Superbowl Shuffle" at least fifteen times. We couldn't turn the dial. Eventually, we got through the traffic and the signal faded. But Monday as I was bicycling to work, I kept thinking of Walter Payton informing us that "We aren't doing this because we're greedy./The Bears are doing it to feed the needy."

Third radio note from the weekend:

This will be of interest only to those of you who lived in the Communications Residential College at Northwestern University. I saw a bumper sticker for WCRC FM 95.7, Fairfield, Illinois. That reminded me that the dorm's station changed its name to WXRU a few years ago after getting a complaint from 104.5 FM WXLO, Worcester, Massachusetts.

Original comments...

Steve: How awesome that Bob is the face of CRC even today!

Levi: Yeah, I decided not to point that out just to see who was interested enough to click on the link.

Toby Brown: What Levi didn't tell you is he used to engineer Cardinal games at WROY as a teen-ager.

Labels: Cardinals, radio, super bowl shuffle

I was able to see a couple of Cody McKay's pitches on ESPN last night. The knuckler was a thing of beauty, floating up there all wobbly, whispering seductively to the hitter, "C'mon. Take a hack. Pound me into the ground." And the hitter did.

The "fastball" on the other hand, was lacking not just most of what is best known as the "gitty," but it was also a little short on the "up" and the "go."

Still, two scoreless innings, right now, are enough to put McKay in the running for our fifth starter job.

Oh, and Hector Luna deserves some attention for hitting a long home run in his first major-league at-bat. The last Cardinal to do that? Gene Stechschulte, a relief pitcher, whose baseball-reference web page is sponsored by www.firequipmentpics.com, with the tag line, "Large fire truck picture website that recognizes Gene for the great pitcher he is."

Labels: Cardinals, cody mckay, gene stechschulte, hector luna

Well, the Cardinals lost to the Brewers today, dropping their third game of their first four. In doing so, they managed to give up ten home runs and thirty runs.

But I can take a few shreds of hope from the good things about this series.

1) It's not so bad to lose three of four to the first-place Milwaukee Brewers, right?

2) Albert Pujols, Scott Rolen, and Jim Edmonds all hit very long home runs. More to come.

3) Mike Matheny, who every year, it seems, comes to Spring Training with a new batting stance, a new determination, and a story about how he worked all winter on his hitting, then hits very well in Spring Training and in April, only to fall off the face of the earth in the summer heat, has done all of those things so far. That's one of the things I love most about baseball: it's a reliable tie to the seasons. The same things happen every year at around the same time. (I probably won't feel so good about the seasonal appropriateness of his slump in August.)

4) Down by seven runs, the Cardinals sent Cody McKay to the mound. If you follow the link, you'll see that Cody McKay is a catcher. He's also been known to stand in the vicinity of third base with a glove. Until today, I had not heard of him being a pitcher. But he went out there and threw two innings, no hits, one walk, and no runs. He committed a balk, but you kind of expect one or two of those from a non-pitcher. He threw eighteen pitches (ten for strikes), using a "fastball" and--this is the best part of the whole day--a knuckleball. Who doesn't love a knuckler?
Cody McKay is the son of Cardinals first-base coach Dave McKay, and there has been some talk among Cardinals fans that McKay got the backup catcher job because of that relationship rather than because of his skills. But if he's also a knuckleballer, I'll take him. He may not be Brooks Kieschnick, but he's already established that he's a better pitcher than Jose Oquendo, Gary Gaetti, or Mark Grace, just to pick three. Two scoreless innings--especially given how few of those the Cardinals have had so far this season--is nothing to scoff at.* When he batted with two outs in the ninth, he got a standing ovation. Then he struck out.

5) No Cardinal seriously injured himself during any of the games.

*I suppose it's possible that nepotism got Cody McKay not just on the team, but on the mound today, too. But I don't think first-base coaches--even those working for Tony Larussa--have that kind of pull.

Original comments...

thatbob: Also makes him a better pitcher than Billy Sunday, to name one more.

thatbob: http://www.baseball-reference.com/s/sundabi01.shtml

Labels: Cardinals, cody mckay