Redbird Nation

Posted 1:00 PM by Brian
HARDWARE Six of our resident eggheads -- me, Alec, Flynn, Judge, Mark, and Matt -- weighed in with our picks for the awards in each league. I used to get pretty excercised over MVPs, Cy Youngs, and the like, but I've learned to take them with a grain of salt. I mean, does it really matter that the Baseball Writers picked Juan Gone over A-Rod for MVP back in '96? Of course not. As I get older I tend to think along the same lines as Keith Woolner, who wrote in a recent Baseball Prospectus chat session:

I don't really get worked up about the awards as much these days since I started considering the MVP to be the player most "valuable" to the game of baseball as a whole, rather than to a specific team, or based on personal performance. The game of baseball is enriched by "intangible" factors beyond the outcomes of the game: narrative, dramatics, character, heroes, villains, surprises, stories, etc. And there's nothing wrong with recognizing the combination of these along with excellence in performance in giving an MVP.

So with that in mind, here are our picks. We each ranked our choices for the major awards, and then weighted our votes accordingly -- 5 points for #1 pick in MVP, 4 points for #2, etc. (total points are in parantheses):

National League MVP
1. Barry Bonds (27)
2. Albert Pujols (25)
3. Gary Sheffield (15)
4. Jim Thome (7)
5. Eric Gagne (6)
6. Javy Lopez (5)
7. Edgar Renteria (2)

American League MVP
1. Alex Rodriguez (28)
2. Carlos Delgado (20)
3. Manny Ramirez (15)
4. Carlos Beltran (8)
5. Jorge Posada (6)
6. Nomar Garciaparra (5)
7. Bret Boone (4)
8. Vernon Wells (2)
9. Jose Guillen (1)
....Magglio Ordonez (1)

National League Cy Young
1. Mark Prior (13)
2. Eric Gagne (12)
3. Jason Schmidt (10)
4. Carlos Zambrano (1)

American League Cy Young
1. Roy Halladay (17)
2. Pedro Martinez (9)
3. Esteban Loaiza (8)
4. Tim Hudson (1)
....Jamie Moyer (1)

National League Rookie of the Year
1. Brandon Webb (15)
2. Dontrelle Willis (10)
3. Scott Posednik (8)
4. Oscar Villarreal (2)

American League Rookie of the Year
1. Angel Berroa (15)
2. Hideki Matsui (10)
3. Rocco Baldelli (5)
4. Francisco Rodriguez (3)
5. Jody Gerut (2)
6. Mark Teixeira (1)

National League Manager of the Year
1. Jack McKeon (16)
2. Bobby Cox (10)
3. Dusty Baker (4)
4. Felipe Alou (3)
5. Frank Robinson (2)
6. Jim Tracy (1)

American League Manager of the Year
1. Tony Pena (15)
2. Ron Gardenhire (8)
3. Joe Torre (7)
4. Ken Macha (5)
5. Carlos Tosca (1)

Posted 10:20 AM by Alec
POSTSEASON PICKS Here are Redbird Nation's picks for the postseason:

       NLCS           ALCS       WS           Champs

ALEC   Braves/Giants  Sox/Yanks  Sox/Braves   Braves

BRIAN  Braves/Giants  Sox/Yanks  Sox/Giants   Sox

FLYNN  Cubs/Giants    A's/Yanks  Cubs/A's     A's

MARK   Braves/Giants  Sox/Yanks  Giants/Yanks Yanks

MATT   Braves/Giants  Sox/Yanks  Sox/Giants   Sox

JUDGE  Braves/Giants  Sox/Twins  Giants/Twins Giants

Posted 10:03 AM by Alec
THIS JUST IN Sylvester Stallone has agreed to play Mike Matheny in "Redbirds: The Movie."

Posted 9:00 AM by Brian
THE BLACK TABLE SPEAKS Will Leitch has a lively, knockdown, no-holds-barred preview of the playoffs. Don't miss his venomous take on the Cubs.

WISHCASTING Baseball Prospectus crunches some numbers and comes up with these odds for each team's postseason chances:

Yankess 2.7:1
Red Sox 3.4:1
Braves 4.5:1
A's 7.9:1
Giants 13:1
Cubs 16:1
Marlins 22:1
Twins 22:1

I'm surprised the Giants are given such slim chances, as they're a pretty popular pick by the Big Media types. Wonder what the Angels' odds were heading into last October.

Posted 11:13 PM by Brian
OUR YEAR-END LISTS, PART ONE We've got a lot of accounting to do as we close the books on this topsy-turvy 2003 season. We'll be checking in throughout the week with our postseason picks, the best and worst moments of the year, and our evaluation of the Cardinals management, but for now we'll start with a few lists to kick off the Hot Stove League:

Top 5 Most Pleasant Surprises

1. Edgar Renteria We all knew he was good, but this good? He had a better season than Nomar, Tejada, or Jeter.

2. Eduardo Perez Last season he had a .290 OBP. This year he reached base at a .366 clip and hit like a beast against lefties.

3. Albert Pujols He was already the Cards' best hitter, but his 2003 looks sorta like Jimmie Foxx in his prime. He turns 24 in January.

4. Danny Haren He wasn’t supposed to be ready for AAA. Instead he acquitted himself quite nicely in the majors (he was let down by our bullpen more than any pitcher on our staff; otherwise his numbers would have looked better).

5. So Taguchi Sure, he had only 56 plate appearances, but did you know he was capable of slugging .462?

Honorable Mention: Kiko Calero, Cal Eldred, Woody Williams

Top 5 Biggest Disappointments

1. Brett Tomko He was 13-9, but he received the second highest run support in the league. He led the league in hits allowed, earned runs, and finished second in home runs allowed.

2. Eli Marrero I know, he was hurt. But even when he was in there he was a mess, finishing with a .270 OBP and no power. Unacceptable for a catcher, much less a corner outfielder.

3. Esteban Yan At the time of his signing, he looked like a serviceable pick-up – better than Fassero anyway. At the end of the day, however, he out-Fassero’d Fassero with a 6.02 ERA.

4. Matt Morris His final ERA (3.76) wasn’t bad, and he finished 6th in the league in fewest baserunners per 9 innings, but his months-long struggle to find his mechanics strained our bullpen to the point of collapse.

5. Fernando Vina At least in previous years he managed to stay healthy. He was also a cancer in the clubhouse.

Honorable Mention: Jason Simontacchi

Some categories in which Pujols was among the league leaders
1st in runs, hits, doubles, batting average, runs created, total bases, and extra-base hits
2nd in slugging, offensive winning percentage, and OPS
3rd in home runs per out and on-base percentage
4th in home runs and RBIs

Some categories in which Miguel Cairo was among the league leaders
7th in sacrifice flies

3 Best Baseball Fan Sites
1. Fernandotatis.com Don't miss the Fernando Tatis logo or the Fernando Tatis song, sung to the tune of ABBA's "Fernando."
2. Kline-Time A tribute to old Stinkhat himself, Steve Kline. Includes a box of Count Klineula cereal and Steve Kline with the belles of "Saved By the Bell."
3. The Gary Gaetti Cult of 514 Cottonwood, Grand Forks, North Dakota Begins with the sentence, "Gary Gaetti is is a special human being/mammal."

8 Totally Annoying Argument Starters These are my guilty little secrets. But beware: could cause bar fights among lifelong Cardinals fans.

1. Whitey Herzog was not made of marble. Herzog may have been a Hall of Fame manager, but he made some major blunders too. He encouraged the Cardinals’ meltdown in Game 7 of the ’85 World Series, he never did like Andy Van Slyke for some reason, and his long-term track record with young arms (John Stuper, Joe Magrane, Greg Mathews) is not all it’s cracked up to be.

2. Renteria is not a Gold Glove shortstop. He’s damn fine with the leather, sure, but he’s not the best in the league. It’s fair to say that Cesar Izturis, Jimmy Rollins, and Alex Gonzalez (either one) are probably better.

3. There wasn’t anything revolutionary about the 1964 Cardinals. Thanks to David Halberstam’s October 1964, that year’s World Series is seen as a classic struggle between the forces of integration and the forces of resistance. The Cardinals (who featured three blacks in their starting lineup, along with their ace starter) beat the Yankees (who balked at meaningful integration) and, so the story goes, integration won. The problem is, the Cardinals weren’t that unique. As Rob Neyer points out in his Big Book of Baseball Lineups, most of the National League teams in 1964 featured three or more blacks in their starting lineup. Says Neyer:

If you want to see a World Series that symbolized the changing of the guard, from lily-white American League to integrated National League, doesn’t the 1963 World Series make a lot more sense? In October 1963, the Dodgers featured five blacks in the starting lineup and swept the Yankees. Made them look bad. Outscored ‘em twelve to four. So why didn’t Halberstam write October 1963? Because 1964 was a landmark year in the struggle for civil rights. It was in 1964 that three civil-rights workers were murdered in Mississippi. And it was no long before the World Series that Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. So 1964 is a convenient backdrop for a story about the contrast between the baseball teams that understood the importance of integration and those that didn’t.

4. The Cardinal fans are not the most enthusiastic in baseball. The most loyal, perhaps. Even, as we've argued, baseball's best. But if you watch a game in June between the Red Sox and Yankees, which looks for all the world like Manchester United vs. Real Madrid, I think it’s safe to say that the most vocal and enthusiastic fans in baseball aren’t in the Midwest.

5. Joe Buck is no Jack Buck. Joe’s usually great, but don’t you find something a little snarky about the guy? He’s got that Letterman Lite routine that Bobby Costas often pulls, and it gets a little annoying now and again.

6. Jack Buck was no Jack Buck. Buck was the best broadcaster any of us have ever heard, but he had one moment that sticks in my craw, and it was right after McGwire hit #61. Buck’s call: “Look at there, look at there! McGwire Flight Number 61 to Planet Maris!” Flight #61 to Planet Maris? Buck said he worked on the line for weeks. He was better off-the-cuff.

7. Lou Brock was not a great leadoff hitter. A great hitter, sure. A greater baserunner. But a great table-setter? Not so sure. He’d usually walk about 40-45 times a year, and his career on-base percentage (.343) is about the same as Denis Menke's.

8. Don Denkinger did not blow the 1985 World Series. He fucked up. Bad. But it took me years to realize that the Cardinals lost to the Royals that year, not Denkinger. Consider what had to happen after the miscall for the Cardinals to lose the Series: Jack Clark completely misplayed a foul pop-up, Worrell gave up a single to Steve Balboni on an 0-2 pitch, Darrell Porter committed a passed ball to put runners in scoring position, and the Cardinals lost Game 7 with their ace taking the hill. Don Denkinger was not involved in any of those plays (well, okay, he was behind the plate in the Series finale, but we lost 11-0).

A good friend of mine used to coach high school basketball, and during practice he’d ref the scrimmage games and purposely make bad, phantom calls. Why? To teach his kids that bad calls are part of the game. You work around ‘em. At least that’s what champions do, anyway.

So those 8 arguments-starters should keep you good and busy during this long winter. But those are the only 8 areas for dispute. Otherwise no Cardinals has ever done any wrong, the Cardinals are the greatest team in NL history, and Stan Musial is the finest leftfielder to ever wear spikes (except for maybe Bonds and Williams, but that's a whole other argument).

Posted 9:55 PM by Brian
PRIOR'S PRIORS ESPN.com has an article ranking the top ten pitchers of all time after their sophomore seasons. They rank Mark Prior's run at #8, just ahead of Oswalt and just behind Fernandomania. Their all-time pitcher after two seasons in the bigs? Guy named Dwight Gooden.

BULLETIN BOARD MATERIAL Javy Lopez threw a few tablespoons of cayenne pepper into the simmering Cubs/Braves series. He claims that the Braves will win on the strength of their cohesiveness. Says Lopez,

[The Cubs] have a pretty good team, but you got to think about the fact that they are a team that recruited players from different teams during the season. It's not like this team that has been together since Day 1. There's no way they can beat us as united as we are. Our chemistry is totally different than theirs.

Somehow I think the fact that Javy and Chipper go out for beers after the game isn't going to help against Kerry Wood's fastball. But hey, whatever works...

ROGERS VS. ROGERS A guy named Brian Disco Snell posted a thread over at the Cub Reporter that showed up professional ignoramus Phil Rogers for his two-faced bullcrud. Here's what Brian had to say:

Phil Rogers is at it again, proving there's nothing like a front-runner. Let's compare and contrast, shall we? (all quotes from Phil's column in the Chicago Tribune)

9/28/03: "While the hiring of Dusty Baker as manager remains the centerpiece of Jim Hendry's short reign as general manager, it was a no-brainer."

compared with

10/24/02: Phil writes one of a dozen columns calling on the Cubs to sign Bobby Valentine, saying it's a "no-brainer" (and deriding the decision to wait for Baker as "risky.")

***

9/28/03: "In his first full season as the GM, Hendry bypassed high-dollar free agents Jim Thome and Ivan Rodriguez to maintain the flexibility to plug holes all over the diamond."

compared with:

10/20/02: "Thome and Rodriguez would be terrific fits for Baker's team."

2/19/03: "It's a crime against winning baseball that the Cubs didn't find a way to sign (Thome)."

We've detailed Rogers' raving idiocy before, but it never hurts to reiterate the point.

JOE SHEEHAN, consistently one of my favorite baseball writers (sort of the anti-Rogers), explains why he won't be rooting for Dusty Baker as Manager of the Year:

Dusty Baker is getting an awful lot of credit for being the guy who happened to take the job when Mark Prior and Carlos Zambrano were ready for the majors. As far as I can tell, Baker inherited a 90-win team and managed it all the way to 88 wins, making an awful lot of questionable personnel decisions along the way.

AND FINALLY this from our friend Will Leitch:

I had a long debate with my father last night about rooting for the Cubs in the playoffs. He said you should root with all of your soul and heart for them to lose every game 14-0, and I thought 11-0 would be fine.

Posted 5:25 PM by Brian
REDBIRDS: THE MOVIE The 2003 St. Louis Cardinals were not a feel-good summer blockbuster. But they'd still make for a decent movie: lots of action (our bullpen made nearly every game an edge-of-your-seat thrill ride), some head-spinning plot twists (that September series in Chicago had more pretzel logic than a Shyamalan movie), and even some good old-fashioned violence (Pujols vs. Gary Bennett; Tino vs. Miguel Batista).

So I asked my Redbird Nation colleagues to help me cast this movie, which I plan to shop around to the studios in the next couple weeks. Here's the talent that we've lined up so far:

Fernando Vina John Leguizamo

J.D. Drew Harry Connick Jr.

Jim Edmonds John Ritter

Albert Pujols Franky G

Scott Rolen Julia Stiles

Tino Martinez Andy Garcia

Edgar Renteria Sean Nelson

Mike Matheny as Himself

Bo Hart Jonathan Lipnicki

Orlando Palmeiro John Valentin

Kerry Robinson Mekhi Phifer

So Taguchi Ming-Na

Matt Morris David Schwimmer

Woody Williams Danny Bonaduce

Brett Tomko Stan Marsh

Sterling Hitchcock Fred MacMurray

Danny Haren Adam Baldwin

Jason Simontacchi Chris Elliott

Jeff Fassero Jason Robards

Garrett Stephenson Max Kellerman

Steve Kline Mark Ruffalo

Jason Isringhausen Jimmy Cagney

Jose Oquendo Luis Guzman

Dave Duncan Peter Graves

Tony La Russa Neil Diamond

I think that would make a very, very mediocre movie.

Stay tuned tomorrow and into this week -- we'll hand out our year-end awards, present to you our Redbird Nation All-List Issue, as well as a few other goodies...

Posted 5:23 PM by Brian
TODAY'S GAME was actually pretty fun, despite the fact that half our team is setting October tee times (or, in the case of Scott Rolen and J.D. Drew, building duck blinds). The D'backs put runners on first and third with nobody out in the ninth, down by a run, and Izzy got the next three guys strikeout, pop-out, groundout. Maybe it's a good thing this game didn't matter or else I'd have to be carted off to the vomitorium.

• Sterling Hitchcock finished his season for the Cardinals with a 5-1 record and a 3.79 ERA. Woulda been a decent pick-up, had we actually needed him more.

• Edgar Renteria: 100 RBIs. Has a nice ring to it.

• Are the Astros the biggest choke artists of our generation? They had to win one of two games against Wayne Franklin and Wes Obermueller to stay alive 'til tomorrow. They didn't even come close. What's more, the Biggio-Bagwell regime has won only 2 of their last 14 postseason games. And they're eight games worse than their runs scored/runs allowed totals indicate (and 10 games better than the Cubs), meaning they've lost a huge number of tight ballgames. It's really astonishing how they morph into a different team when it matters most.

• The Cubs will be very tough opponents in the playoffs, especially with their big three of Bob Feller, Early Wynn, and Bob Lemon... er, Prior, Wood, and Zambrano. The key, I think, is Zambrano -- he's gotten hammered his last two starts (11 runs in 9 2/3rds innings vs. the Bucs and Reds), after two months of sheer brilliance, and you wonder if he's tired. If so, I don't think the Cubs have the hitting or the #4 starter to pick up the slack. But if his arm is lively, and if Prior/Wood pull a Unit/Schilling routine, then the Cubs are more than capable of making it to the Series for the first time in 58 years.

• Pujols is in real danger of losing his grip on the batting crown. After going 6 for his last 31 and 1 for his last 14, his average is down to .359, the lowest it's been since May 31st. Todd Helton is right behind him at .357 with two games left to play.

• Hadley on Sports has some smack-talk for Tino Martinez. Money quote:

Every person in [the Cardinals] organization knows that Martinez has pouted like a child since the day he donned the uniform. Like a scorned woman, Martinez never let go of his true love... the New York Yankees. His performance on the field has ranged from mediocre to pathetic. His mood swings have been problematic for this cast on and off the field, as well as for the media.

Remember when Martinez spoke of how Yankee fans kept players honest by their collective actions at the park? He made references to how their fans booed players that didn't produce, how Yankee fans kept players accountable.

After a healthy serving of crappy play, Cardinals fans decided to make Martinez accountable. The booing and bad press didn't serve to motivate Martinez, it simply amplified his bad performance and bad attitude. When Cardinals fans booed... Martinez spat back.

Posted 12:34 PM by Matt
WOMAN IN RED Anybody who watched the Fox broadcast last night knows that great looking women must have flocked in droves to Arizona since the banishment of Beau Duran. As usual, the Fox cameramen provided us with more than adequate supporting documentation. The greatest of the greats was a woman in a red bandana and red shirt who was sitting several rows back between home plate and third base. After cameras lingered on her for the 2nd or 3rd time, I realized that it was 1998 Playboy Playmate of the Year Karen McDougal. No kidding.

As anybody who's read Flynn's private diaries knows, there's a reasonably good chance that a great looking woman – and probably even greater chance that a Playboy Playmate – sitting that close to the field is a girlfriend or mistress to one of the players. My first thought was that old Gracie had done it again. But then I focused on the obvious – she was wearing a red bandana and red shirt: she's got to be with one of the Cards.

Which one? My money's on Taguchi or Miklasz, but we're open to any suggestions from Redbird Nation readers. If you have any guesses along with reasons why, please send them in.

Posted 8:44 AM by Brian
THE ANTI-CLICHE In Bull Durham, Crash Davis advises young Nuke LaLoosh to "Learn your cliches... They're your friends." He then offers some examples: "We gotta play 'em one day at a time." "I'm just happy to be here and hope I can help the ballclub." "I just want to give it my best shot and, Good Lord willing, things'll work out."

If there's one guy who never lived by these bromides, it's Mark Grace, who bucked convention by speaking his mind, smoking Winstons in the clubhouse, and living by a code of unapologetic exuberance. He's the last of the no-bullshit interviews, which is why he's one of my favorite visiting players of all time. So in honor of his retirement, we present to you a handful of Gracie's greatest hits:

After the Cubs ended a six-game losing streak: "The music sounds better, the wine tastes sweeter, and the girls look better when we win."

On giving up a homerun to rookie David Moss in his relief pitching appearance on September 2, 2002: "I didn't have a scouting report on him. Obviously he can hit 65 mph fastballs."

On how a big-league clubhouse might respond to a gay player: "I think the perception in the clubhouse would be one of, for lack of a better word — fear... Fear that they'd be stared at or [that a gay player might fall] in love with them. But I think if you're intelligent at all, you'd understand that homosexuals are just like us. They don't think everybody's attractive. Just because this guy's homosexual doesn't mean he's attracted to me."

On his rally-starting single in the 9th inning of World Series Game 7: "I knew I had to get on base for anything to happen. I thought to myself, a concussion heals in 30 days, right?"

On winning the World Series, October 2001: "It was better than anything I could've imagined. It's better than sex. But then again, I'm kind of lousy at that."

On Kerry Wood's 20-strikeout game, May 5, 1998: "He's too young and stupid to understand what he just did."

In March 2000: "The most important thing about playing baseball is to have fun. I'm about to start my thirteenth year, but I can remember my rookie season like it was yesterday. It goes fast, folks."

Posted 10:31 PM by Brian
ST. LOUIS CARDINALS 2003-2003 Requiescant in Pace.

Posted 1:34 PM by Brian
REAL DEALS Of course it was unusual for Carlos Delgado to hit his 300th career homer and four home runs in a game at the same time. But Chris Hartjes, who writes a blog called @TheBallPark, observes that it's not unusual for a four-homer player to have such a long, productive career. In fact, virtually all the guys to have four homers in a game were legitimate power hitters -- they didn't just happen to catch lightning in a bottle.

In this way, 4HR/1G is sorta like 19 strikeouts in a game -- it doesn't constitute greatness per se, but only great players pull off the feat. The complete list of guys who've struck out 19 in nine innings: Kerry Wood, Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, David Cone, Tom Seaver, Steve Carlton. The worst of those is Wood, and he figures to have a long, standout career.

Same deal with the four homers. Here's the four-homer club ranked by career homers (post-1900 only, no extra innings):

Willie Mays 660
Lou Gehrig 493
Rocky Colavito 374
Gil Hodges 370
Joe Adcock 336
Carlos Delgado 303
Shawn Green 253
Bob Horner 218
Mike Cameron 130
Mark Whiten 105

Cameron, Delgado, and Green are all active, and they each figure to pad their totals considerably. Which means there's only one truly flukey player to ever hit four homers in a game: St. Louis' own Hard Hittin' Mark Whiten.

Whiten wasn't bad necessarily, but he never drove in 100 runs, never hit 30 homers in a season, and over his career was most comparable to such luminaries as Mike Davis, Rick Reichardt, and George Altman. But on one glorious night, he caught lightning in a bottle.

Posted 6:27 AM by Brian
SAMMY VS. THE MICK After Sosa tied (and later passed) Mantle on the all-time home run list, ESPN.com's "Daily Quickie" column boldly proclaimed that "in 10 years, Sammy Sosa will be more highly regarded than Mickey Mantle." They go on to explain, "not saying Mickey isn't an all-time great, but his myth is propped up by his good luck to be on a Yankees dynasty (kind of like Derek Jeter); take away the titles, and he's 'merely' Ernie Banks."

Ludicrous.

Don't get me wrong -- Sammy Sosa is a truly great player, a first-ballot HOFer, and one of the few contemporary players (along with Barry, Big Mac, Pedro, and Maddux) whose achievements make my jaw drop. But he's no Mantle, and in my opinion the race isn't even very close. I would argue that Mickey Mantle, for all his renown, for all his acclaim living in New York during a dynasty, is in fact underrated as a ballplayer. Forget Ernie Banks; Mantle was better than DiMaggio, maybe better than Aaron, and possibly even better than Williams.

So let's see how he stacks up against Sosa:

1) Offense Let's take a quick and dirty stat like OPS (on-base plus slugging percentage). Sosa's is phenomenal -- .894, good for 26th among active players. Mantle's was .977, more than 80 points higher.

But there's more -- in Mantle's day, runs were much harder to come by, so each base was worth more than it is today. So let's compare Mantle's OPS vs. the league average. Turns out his OPS was 72% better than the league as a whole. Sosa, on the other hand, is only 33% better. Mantle's adjusted OPS is the 6th highest figure of all time. Sosa doesn't crack the top 100.

Advantage: Mantle.

2) Defense Bill James and Jim Henzler's Win Shares method gives Sosa a career grade of C as a right fielder. Mantle, on the other hand, was a very good centerfielder. He had lights-out speed, was surehanded with the glove, and had a fine arm (at least until an injury weakened him in the late '50s). Plus I've seen Sosa field.

Advantage: Mantle.

3) Baserunning Remember, at one time Sosa could really book, peaking with 36 steals in the early '90s. But Mantle was by all accounts one of the fastest players of his generation. My father said that when he was younger, he and his buddies would bring stopwatches to the ballpark and time Mantle down the line to first. Mantle also has a considerable edge over Sosa in stolen-base percentage (80%-68%), and this includes Mantle's inevitable decline period with his ragged knees (in his prime, from ages 23 to 30, Mantle stole 108 bases, caught only 15 times).

Advantage: Mantle.

4) Intangibles Contemporaries seemed more impressed with Mantle than Sosa -- he finished in the top 5 of the MVP voting nine times; Sosa, twice. Mantle also played in 12 World Series, won 7 rings, and still holds the record for most Series home runs, with 18. Sosa played in one three-game divisional series, hitting .182. The "Daily Quickie" dismisses such talk by saying that Mantle merely had the "good luck to be on a Yankees dynasty." Um... Isn't it possible that Mantle had a little something to do with that dynasty? Especially when you consider that, aside from Yogi Berra and Whitey Ford (who were, admittedly, Hall of Famers), those Yankees teams featured a revolving door of Stengelian spare parts.

Advantage: Mantle.

I remember back in the early '80s Bobby Costas was doing sports open-line on KMOX one night. And some caller tried to make the case that Roberto Clemente was a better player than Mantle, and Costas more or less gave the guy an extra porthole to shit out of. Now, I don't know how Sosa stacks up against Clemente, but I'm fairly certain it's a better comparison. Because in my opinion, Sammy Sosa, for all his greatness, isn't fit to hold Mantle's martini.

Posted 6:25 AM by Brian
THE CUBS-REDS GAME last night was exciting as hell. It featured two homers by Sammy (the first to pass Mantle on the career list), a furious comeback by the Reds, and a tightwire act as the Redlegs bullpen held on for the win. (Favorite moment: Two outs, top of the ninth, Sosa up, Reds leading 9-7, when Sosa hits a foul pop about four rows deep along the first base line. Sean Casey dives into the stands, kamikaze-style, and just misses the pop up. You think the Reds aren't still playing baseball? One of the many reasons the Mayor is one of my favorite players.)

Anyway, I was thinking during the game -- and I don't mean to sound too flip or mean-spirited about this -- but I was thinking how easy it is to understand Cubs' fans hatred for the Cardinals. See, even though the Cardinals are out of it, there's still a team to root against (the Cubs) and a team to root for (whoever the Cubs are playing). And you figure that, over the years, the Cubs must have played this September game a zillion times -- root against the Cards, root for Team X. Considering we've been in more pennant races recently, I would guess that the anti-Cardinals sentiment is heavier on their side than ours, but you never know...

CARLOS DELGADO hit his four home runs last night before a crowd of 13,408. Ten years from now 40,000 fans will have been at that game. What's wild is that three of Delgado's homers either tied the game or broke a tie game, so he wasn't just padding his stats.

THE FERRUM FIREBALLER The other night Billy Wagner supposedly dialed up the radar gun to 100 during his showdown with Barry Bonds. And this wasn't on one of those turbo-boosted guns that adds about 5 mph to every fastball (which is the case with most of the readings you see on TV) -- this was triple digits, legit. From a guy who's 5'10" in socks.

Posted 6:24 AM by Brian
FISH MARKET Rob Neyer has a brief write-up about the Marlins, and he mentions a controversy that flared up last May, when Bud Selig investigated the Marlins for failing to interview minorities to replace departing manager Jeff Torborg.

According to the commissioner's office, all clubs are required to provide Selig with a list of minority candidates before filling high-level jobs such as manager or general manager, and apparently the Marlins didn't do that. Neyer finds MLB's policy a useless charade. He writes:

[F]orcing teams to interview people they have absolutely no intention of hiring is absurd. The rationale is that even if the "candidates" don't have a chance, they're getting valuable experience that might help them get hired next time.

As much as it pains me to write this, I agree with Selig here, not Neyer. If you concede that increasing minority representation in management is a good thing (and let's concede it for now, as it's a tricky argument to make on either side), then the mandatory interview process is exactly the kind of thing MLB should be doing.

Why? Because there's a tremendous benefit in pushing employers to think outside the box when it comes to candidates. Economists have a term for the group of items that a consumer remembers at the time of decision making -- they call this an "evoked set." When you're buying, say, toothpaste, there may be dozens of brands available at the drugstore, but you may zero in on only Crest and Colgate. Your evoked set of toothpaste options, then, is reduced to a mere two.

But sellers can influence this evoked set in many ways, partly by the way they display brands. Virginia Postrel has a great article that explains this process, in everything from Supreme Court appointments to award nominees to hiring decisions. How you arrange candidates matters.

Does it matter with sports management? Oftentimes, yes. J.P. Ricciardi, for example, was not among the Toronto Blue Jays' top choices for their GM position a couple years ago, but he went in to the interview, wowed the Blue Jays brass, and landed the job. Same thing with the Jacksonville Jaguars and Jack Del Rio -- Del Rio was an afterthought, a courtesy interview, but, like Ricciardi, he bowled over his bosses, got the job. In both these cases, the employer went in looking for Crest or Colgate, and ended up choosing Mentadent -- all because the outlying "brand" got his foot in the door.

So the commissioner's office should be encouraging teams to cast a wider net. This isn't a quotas vs. free market issue -- everyone wants free markets, but Selig has the power to introduce more choices, freer markets. From there it's up to the teams to do whatever they feel is best. I mean, you can't lead a horse to water and make him drink, but you can lead him to water and show him how refreshing it is.

Posted 9:01 AM by Brian
DREWWWWWW Last night's game was the second-to-last game available on my MLB baseball package, so I watched it with a little sadness, knowing that a bird-less winter is around the corner. But it was nice to see Drew cleat up and play well for once -- he was all over the place, hitting, running, scoring, fielding, cranking. His laser-beam home run off Kinney in the 5th, deep into right center, was, like most Drew homers, a thing of beauty.

If the Edmonds trade rumors hold any water, then we may have to prepare ourselves for J.D. Drew as our everyday centerfielder in 2004. Can he keep his head (and his ligaments) in the ballgame enough to become the cornerstone player we've been waiting for lo these many years? Remains to be seen. But one stat that might bode well is this -- here are the NL leaders in OPS for September (min. 50 plate appearances):

1. Richard Hidalgo, 1.257
2. Todd Helton, 1.239
3. Javy Lopez, 1.130
4. Barry Bonds, 1.127
5. J.D. DREW, 1.117
6. AL PUJOLS, 1.084
7. Derrick Lee, 1.076
8. Danny Bautista, 1.071
9. Chipper Jones, 1.036
10. Jim Thome, 1.028

Widger has only 28 at bats, but his OPS in September is 1.025. Seriously.

ROTTEN As we mentioned yesterday, Matheny, La Russa, and Duncan were disciplined for their run-in with Jerry Crawford a couple weeks ago down in Houston. So let me get this straight -- Crawford interferes with Matheny while the ball is in play, refuses to alter his behavior, then baits La Russa, Duncan, and Morris all game long... and yet the only ones who walk away with suspensions are Cardinals? No Crawford? I honestly have no problem with 98% of the umpires working today; in fact I think they generally do a better job than people give them credit for. But Crawford is a dirty, corrrupt ump, and he should lose his job this offseason.

CARDS TRAGIC NUMBER: 1

MOONMAN REDUX A number of readers had some nice things to say in response to our piece on KMOX broadcaster Mike Shannon, and shared their favorite Shannon moments. Here's a sampling:

From Travis S.: When the Cards were putting up the smaller statues all around the outside of the stadium, they were set to reveal the Lou Brock statue and the week before Shannon said,"So come on down and see Lou Brock's erection..."

From another reader: I remember one take about Mike that is likely apocryphal. A black player hit a towering homerun early on in Mike's broadcasting career. He is rumored to have blurted out "Those big N________ can sure hit them." And supposedly later clarified by saying "Those big LEAGUERS can sure hit them". Ever hear that story? Ranks up there with the Newlywed game's "That be in the butt, Bob."

I agree -- sounds apocryphal (I doubt Shannon would have kept his job by the time the next pitch was thrown). In fact, the first one sounds like an urban legend to me too, but it's possible. And the fact that fans circulate these stories shows you the extent of Shannon's reputation as a major clown.

Here's one last email from Mark E.: My favorite [Shannon call] is "prettiest play in baseball," which has the virtue of mathematical predictability. As soon as the count goes full with the bases loaded you can say it, and Mike will echo you, which is a pretty neat parlor trick if you're listening with someone who doesn't know Shannon.

That's the great thing about Shannon -- he's like an exasperating relative: never predictable, always reassuring.

JOSH SCHULZ, our favorite fellow Cardinal rooter, weighs in with thoughts about our recent scrap with the Cubs Pundit. I won't rehash what Josh has to say, but you should check him out -- it's a fun read.

I couldn't help but notice, however, that the "Matt Morris let the Astros win" thesis (which is mighty popular amid the ivy walls of Cubsland) took a hit yesterday, when Morris admitted that he was still haunted by losing to the Astros. Said Matty, "It would have been a lot better without those two losses I had to Houston. Those are make-or-break-the-season type games. The one out there was a tough loss, 2-0. And then with still a chance, the one last week at home hurt us, especially since we came back and won the next two games." I'd like to see those Cubs conspiracy theorists (and believe me, they're still filling up our emailbox) square that circle.

OUR MAN FLYNN, while diagnosing the Cardinals failures, reminds us that all hope was not lost after dropping 4 of 5 in Chicago, or even after the sweep in Houston. It was the ticky-tack losses to Cincinnati and Colorado that stung just as badly, if not more. Says Flynn:

What if they close out the Reds in that first game back? What if Izzy doesn't allow that homer to Kieschnick? What if they can find a way to push a run or two across on Darren Oliver? That's three games, but hey, that would put us a half out going into today. Everybody seemed to throw in the towel after the Texas sweep but all the Birds needed were three more wins than they got (and they sure had their chances) and they're right in it going into the last weekend. Let's not forget, though, that the Cardinals have to go to Arizona while the Astros and Cubs play at home against the Brewers and Pirates...

What's most frustrating is that the entire season is made up of "what ifs" like this -- what if Calero hadn't thrown that hanging curveball to Barry Larkin? What if that potential game-ended grounder (the one before Kent's walk-off shot off Morris) hadn't hit that divot, bounced over Tino's head, and kept the Astros rally alive?

I guess the "what if" game works the other way too -- I mean, the Cardinals certainly came up lucky when, say, K-Rob hit that walk-off job off of Remlinger at the end of August. But those aren't the "what ifs" that keep you up at night...

BACKSTORY Dave Pinto over at Baseball Musings is looking forward to the storylines heading down the stretch and into the postseason:

You have the Yankees, who stride across the baseball world, confident, imposing, daring others to knock them off, never doubting that they can win any game at any time. You have the Braves, the team that despite it's greatness for 12 consecutive years only has 1 World Series title. You have the cursed teams potential in the Cubs and the Red Sox. You have the never won the series potential in the Astros and Mariners. You have the little teams that could in the Marlins and Twins. You have Alou and Bonds, trying to cement their greatness with a sereis win. And finally, you have the Oakland A's and the press just waiting to show that Beane isn't the genius that he professes to be. It's going to be a great October.

Even better, there will be storylines we never dreamed of (who can forget Jeffrey Maier in '96, or the travails of Byung-Hyun in '01?). Every year the folks over at Fox concoct some pre-fab storylines -- last year the big one was Bonds' quest for postseason salvation -- and exhaust them ad nauseum, so much so that they sometimes miss the best stories of all, the ones that emerge on the fly.

YANQUI OPPRESSION Thanks to Alex Belth, who passed along this article by Allen Barra in the Village Voice. Barra's a hell of a sportswriter, and he has some strong views about anti-Steinbrenner sentiment:

From September 11 to the end of the World Series, the Yankees were, for a brief shining period, "America's team," a symbol of New York's indomitable will and resilience. As negotiations with the Players Association heated, the Yankees were gradually transformed by the Boston Red Sox management—a group, by the way, that could buy and sell George Steinbrenner several times over—into the "Evil Empire." The New York area press, for some curious reason, has chosen to see things the Red Sox way...

The shrillest reaction, predictably, was from Mike Lupica in the Daily News. The Yankees, he wrote, "were simply out to win at any cost. It is the real business of the Yankees, and it sucks the joy out of the season." Out of whose season, exactly? And why, we're entitled to ask, shouldn't Steinbrenner and Cashman be out to "win at any cost"? If the fans are willing to pay the price for the tickets and beer, what exactly is Steinbrenner supposed to do with that money? Pocket it as pure profit, as so many of those teams getting that fat luxury tax from the Yankees do? Or try to improve his team the best way he and his front office see fit?

Posted 3:32 PM by Alec
IN CASE ANYONE CARES Matheny, LaRussa and Dave Duncan will miss the end of the season after receiving suspensions for the September 13th incident with home plate umpire Jerry Crawford. Redbird Nation plans to make a formal request that LaRussa travel back in time to begin serving his suspension on September 3rd.

Posted 10:08 AM by Brian
GOOD NEWS/BAD NEWS KINDA THING The Good: the Cardinals clinched a winning season for the 4th consecutive year.

The Bad: the Cardinals will be mathematically eliminated from the postseason if they lose to the Brewers and the Cubs beat the Reds.

Posted 9:38 AM by Brian
TINO THE JERK That's the heading of an email sent to us by Matt Rollo. Matt includes a few bombshells from a series of postings by Bernie Miklasz over at Bernie's Pressbox, in which Miklasz sheds light on his recent observation that "Tino Martinez isn't a happy camper, and his dissent in the clubhouse has influenced other players." Read, weep:

I wrote it [says Miklasz] because it was true. Otherwise I wouldn't write it. I talked to quite a few players and other Cardinals personnel and was absolutely certain of what's going on in that clubhouse.

La Russa knows it, too, which is why he criticized Tino last week, saying he "wasn't very good" as an RBI producer. He also wouldn't answer the question yesterday on KMOX when asked who would play 1B for the Cardinals next season. He's clearly distanced himself from Tino.

This is what I can't stand about this market... trust me, if anything I held back and played this conservatively. But any honest reporting about an unpleasant aspect of a team results in headaches for me. It isn't worth it. I don't know why I do it. Maybe because I believe in this old-fashioned concept that the readers who buy the paper deserve to know what's going on.

When asked about Tino's motives, Bernie replied --

This shouldn't be too hard to figure out for ya. He has a lot of pride. Skills have declined; I guess it's easier for him to blame others. Earlier this season he complained (in a Strauss story) about how La Russa moved him around in the lineup, and about how in NY he knew Torre would bat him in the same spot every day. He can't stand batting 6th or 7th. He hates it when he's double-switched out of games, and has made his feelings known after it happens.

He's been known to squawk about official scorer's calls (that deprive him of a hit) even after the Cardinals win, and no one wants to hear it. He recently asked a coach to call the press box to complain about a ruling, and when the coach refused, Tino had a fit.

He's openly critical of La Russa to other players. His lukewarm (at best) feelings for the STL market is quite established; no need to rehash this one. La Russa was damned good to this guy, campaigning to sign him at a ridiculous price when only one other team (Orioles) were offering a multi-year deal. They overpaid him, and La Russa spent all of last season defending him, and for hooking Tino up La Russa is rewarded by having the guy turn on him. Tino's "rep" was a myth largely created by the NY media. Unfortunately, the Cardinals bought into it.

He did give this team good leadership after Kile's death; he was a positive and stabilzing force. Other than that, he's been pretty unhappy his whole time here.

I'm susprised that any of this is so surprising to some of you.

About what the organization should do with Tino, Bernie wrote --

Privately, they are saying they realize that the best they can hope for is to move him at a great cost... they'll have to eat just about all of his 2004 salary [$7 million], but if they can get off the hook for a million or two, it will at least give them some $$$ for a low-level FA.

And lastly, in answer to the question, Why is Tino unhappy, Bernie had this to say --

It's a combination.

He's influenced other players who are tight with him, especially Edmonds. Which is another reason why I believe the Cardinals will shop Jimmy this offseason. He's also aging and could break down at any time; look at Jimmy's second-half splits.

But many of his teammates are just sick of Tino bringing the morale down with his carping about things.

The best response to all this comes from Matt Rollo himself:

Tino was on the dugout show last night. He basically said that Miklasz doesn't know what's going on in the clubhouse, so he shouldn't pretend to know. He said he can't deny that he's had a couple bad seasons in STL, but that Bernie shouldn't make accusations about situations he knows nothing about.

I don't really care about the he said/she said game. Whether or not Tino is a leader or a detractor in the clubhouse, he's a detractor in the lineup.

Here here.

Posted 9:19 AM by Brian
THREE THINGS I learned from last night's Cardinals/Brewers contest:

1. Albert Pujols could wake from a twenty-year coma and hit line drives

2. Scott Rolen may have let us down in the first couple weeks of September, but he's still the most valuable third baseman in baseball, and he justified the first year of his 8-year contract

3. Woody Williams' strong performance raised his record to 17-9 and lowered his ERA to 3.90. Those are good-looking year-end numbers, which not only makes me think well of Woody this season, it also makes me think well of him as trade bait. It might sound crazy to deal Woody when we should be hording decent pitchers, but Woody is 38 years old, he's due $8 mil next year, and he seems to me to hitting some kind of wall (he really labored to get five wins in the second half). My cousin Mark has been urging the Cardinals to flip Woody while his value is still high, and I agree. Don't get me wrong, I love Woody; but I love what he could fetch us even more. And ballclubs are like sharks -- they must constantly move forward or they die.

SUPPOSEDLY Dodgers' manager Jim Tracy is on the hot seat, most recently for friction with Paul Lo Duca over a chest injury. If La Russa goes after this year, I'd love to land Tracy, whose teams, I feel, consistently perform better than they do on paper. Then again, according to reports, there is "little doubt" that Tony will be donning the Birds on the Bat next year. At the end of the day the Cards ownership seems to have that typical small-town mentality -- they're so flattered to have a "legend" like Tony La Russa in their dugout that they'll follow him from here to eternity.

THE KNUCKLAH Charming little article about Tim Wakefield and his (sometimes stormy) love affair with the knuckleball. It includes this contemplation by Sox pitcher John Burkett: "I wonder sometimes, maybe the first woman to make it to the major leagues will throw the knuckler."

I've always thought that if I had a kid and I wanted to make him/her a professional athlete, I'd teach her one of two things: how to be a football place-kicker (seriously, how hard can it be if you practice all day every day from age six?), or how to throw a knuckleball. But Will Carroll, himself a knuckleballer back in college, once told me that a knuckler is so hard to throw because it requires picture-perfect mechanics. You need the precision of a safecracker and the balance of these guys.

CONSOLATION PRIZE Jayson Stark reports:

Albert Pujols might not win the classic triple crown (batting, homers, RBI), but he could win that other triple crown (batting, homers, runs scored). Think that one is easier to win? Nope. Carl Yastrzemski, in 1967, is also the last player to win the other triple crown. And there actually have been fewer winners of that triple crown (11) than the official triple crown (16).

Albert is current first in batting (.365 - .356 over Helton), second in home runs (one behind Bonds, Thome), and second in runs (one behind Helton).

MOST VOLUBLE Also from Jayson Stark, this article arguing against Alex Rodriguez for AL MVP. He makes the same argument as we've heard for years; it goes something like this: (1) A-Rod plays for a last-place team; (2) an MVP is one who makes the most valuable contributions to his team; (3) if you took A-Rod away from the Rangers where would they finish? In last place, meaning A-Rod's contributions are negligible.

I've never cared much for this argument (for many reasons), but there are two assumptions behind it that I find especially annoying. First of all, who says the Rangers wins don't matter? They certainly matter to fans down in Arlington. Secondly, players on great teams -- I'm talking about other MVP contenders like Manny Ramirez, Jason Giambi, and Jorge Posada -- already have an honor of their own: it's called the postseason, a possible championship ring. The MVP is for the most valuable player, period, and the most valuable player in the AL this season is Alex Rodriguez, hand's down.

HILARIOUS ARTICLE here about Democratic presidential hopefuls John Kerry and Howard Dean trading barbs about the depths of their Red Sox fandom. You think Wesley Clark is a Cardinals fan? He was raised in Arkansas, after all. Then again, he was born in Chicago, so publicly he may flip flop like Clinton (who grew up a Cards fan but switched to Cub Nation for his wife).

LAST WEEK we referred to a website, At Home Plate, but forgot to link to them. You should check them out -- they've got loads of new content and they're a fun read, especially if you're into fantasy sports.

ALBERTICUS REVISITED Some enjoyable quotes on Albert Pujols by baseball's class clown, Brewers third-base coach Rich Donnelly:

"[Pujols] hits every pitch that you throw and he'll punish you with it. And it may be the same pitch he swung at and missed three innings before that. He's a great adjuster. He would make a great insurance man."

"[Brewers coach] Rich Dauer does the charts and the hits are in red. We can't even find the blue because there's so much red on the chart. And Rich puts an arrow by the ones that are hit. It looks like the Indians against Custer. There's arrows all over the place."

"Now, you place your people where the chart says. But we're not allowed to put them on the grass out there in center field or where Bernie the Brewer sits in Miller Park. That would be good - to get Bernie a glove."

"[Former Pirates pitching coach] Ray Miller said that the way you pitch a great hitter - and it's probably the way you pitch Albert - is to roll the ball up there and hope it doesn't bounce up."

QUITE POSSIBLY THE BEST EMAIL we got all year comes from a guy named Jiri Krahulec, a huge Cardinals fan who lives in, of all places, the Czech Republic. I asked Jiri what attracted him to baseball and he replied:

What attracted me?

Well, you know there is not much baseball on tv in my country, but occasionally I have opportunity to watch some games and few Cardinals games too.

What jumps on me right now, is the game from 2001 playoffs Cards against Diamondbacks. Woody ag Randy Johnson, where I fell in love with Woody, it gives me goosebumps when I think about it, how he confident was on the mound.

And you know, that rich history means something to me, I read alot, so Deans, Musials, Gibsons, Herzog years etc I know alot about them.

Funny, what Jiri writes about is why I became a baseball fan too.

Posted 8:23 AM by Brian
A TRIBUTE TO THE MOONMAN, MIKE SHANNON There are some public moments that are so indelible, so searing, that you may feel as if you are waking up to the world for the first time. For many of us it was the Challenger explosion. Or the day Reagan got shot. Others of us may recall exactly where we were and what we were doing when JFK was killed, or during the moon landing, or on V-J Day. Me, I remember, more vividly than any of these, the exact moment when Glenn Brummer stole home.

It happened on a Sunday afternoon, August 22, 1982 at Busch Stadium. The Cardinals, clinging to a 1½ -game lead over the Phillies heading down the stretch, found themselves deadlocked 4-4 in the 12th inning against the San Francisco Giants. Glenn Brummer singled with one out in the 12th and made it to third with two away. Gary Lavelle on the mound; David Green at the plate; 2-2 count. And that’s when Brummer – dumpy third-string catcher, destined for the dustbin of the Baseball Encyclopedia – took off. The moment still comes easily to my mind. Not the moment after, when Brummer slid under Milt May’s tag for a steal of home and a 5-4 Cardinal win, but just before that, when Brummer rumbled down the basepaths and Cardinals broadcaster Mike Shannon shrieked through the radio: “Brummer’s stealing home!” It’s enough to give me goose bumps, even now.

* * * *

When Jack Buck passed away last summer, my brother Patrick estimated that, growing up, he heard Buck’s voice as often as he heard our own father’s. The same probably goes for Mike Shannon. He was Buck’s booth partner for 30 years, a time period that spans virtually my entire life. Indeed, the names Buck and Shannon seem about as intertwined with my childhood as Mom and Dad.

But even though Buck and Shannon are linked in my memory, you’d never confuse the two men. Jack Buck is a certified local icon – to my reckoning, the finest baseball broadcaster who ever lived, and as gallant a person as you’d ever meet. Even his irreverence seemed classy and urbane. Eulogies to Buck tended to use words like ambassador and legend and poet. He’s the subject of a bronze statue outside Busch Stadium, a Hall of Famer, and a St. Louis fixture as stately and prominent as the Gateway Arch.

Next to Buck, Mike Shannon seems, well, a clown. Start with his looks. Whereas Buck had a shock of dignified white hair and a peacockish demeanor, Shannon comes across as something of a slickster. With his dyed-black pompadour, goofy sportcoats, and lopsided Robert Mitchum grin, you might easily peg him as some cheapo insurance salesman. Or, come to think of it, you might peg him to be exactly what he is – an ex-ballplayer who still hangs around the clubhouses and hotel bars of his old team.

But it goes beyond looks. Shannon’s on-air antics offer St. Louisans a nightly shtick that’s part vaudeville routine, part drunken soliloquy. The performance is pretty familiar to anyone who’s heard it (indeed, everyone I knew growing up did a Mike Shannon impression, just as every kid did a Howard Cosell). Shannon starts the game genially enough, mellow and low-key. Then, as he gets slightly more lubricated (it’s rumored that he’s allowed one beer per inning), he’ll relish one of the many corporate spots he sprinkles throughout the broadcast, urging us to kick back with “a nice cold frosty Budweiser.” And then, especially if the game is nip-and-tuck, Shannon will get loopier, more animated. You might hear one of his famous country squawks – “Ooooo-wee! We got a barn burner goin’ on down here!” And then, with the game on the line, he’ll haul out his famous exultation, “Old Abner has done it again!,” followed by his equally famous hillbilly cackle. At that moment, deep into the night, listening to Shannon after two or three hours, you might get the faint impression that you’re riding in a car with no steering wheel.

But that’s not all. You don’t need to listen to Shannon even that long to hear the trippiest, most surreal utterances this side of a CB radio. Here’s Shannon this past August, after Scott Rolen ran the count to 3-0, urging him not to tempt fate and simply take the walk:

You don't kick that dog as he's sleeping on the porch, you don't step on his tail, you just walk on by. If you step on his tail, he might jump up and bite you on the ankle or the kneecap.

Later in the game, after Jason Isringhausen lost command of the strike zone, Shannon blurted out --

Izzy's like a wild hare in March, running all over the lot!

In St. Louis we call these “Shannonisms,” and over the years he’s given us some doozies:

Well, folks, this game began as a tiny worm and is blossoming into a large cobra.

Hideo Nomo is the biggest thing to hit Japan since they dropped that bomb on Nagashima!

He's madder than a pig caught under a barnyard gate.

I just want to tell everyone Happy Easter and Happy Hanukkah.

Things are not always as they appear to be as.

Well, he did everything right to get ready for the throw, but if ya ain't got the hose, the water just won't come out.

Gilkey was originally born in University City.

Like Spring makes the rains come, so does the edge of the plate grow.

The Dodgers are ahead by 5 runs or 3 runs or in between there somewhere.

He ran to second faster than a cat in Chinatown.

We'd like to say hello to all those folks listening in Monkey's Eyebrow, Kentucky.

And my favorite all-time Shannonism, in regard to an official scorer’s questionable ruling:

Well, no one’s perfect. Only one guy was ever perfect, Jack, and they nailed him to a tree!

For my money that line beats Yogi’s “it aint’ over ‘til it’s over” as the ultimate in cock-eyed wisdom.

This isn’t to suggest that Shannon is an idiot. Sure, he may be a rube, but he’s no mere rube. In fact, he has one of the keener minds of anyone I’ve ever heard talk baseball. Not baseball in the macro sense (Shannon has never been too adept with statistics, and he can be a clod when it comes to editorial opinions). But he’s a wizard when it comes to what the old-timers called “fundamentals,” that is, the type of nuanced stuff that coaches work to death in spring training: the precise footwork on the pivot at second base, the proper way to execute a 9-3-1 relay, and the means by which a pitcher gets a batter to swing northwest while his slider goes southeast. Shannon picks up these mechanics on the fly, and describes them to fans at home as lucidly as can be.

But still, at the end of the day, it’s Shannon’s enthusiasm, and not his mind, that wins the day. Sports broadcasting can be a dreary business these days. With cable packages beamed nationwide, you’re less likely to hear voices with any regional flavor and more likely to hear announcers who sound as if they were churned out of the same communications grad school. But Shannon remains one of those fiercely partisan talkers who describes every game as an unfolding drama, a parade. What Cardinal fan doesn’t get a shiver of pleasure recalling Shannon follow a runner around the bases: "Here comes Pujols… Here comes the throw... And he is... SAAAAFE at the plate!" Of course, sometimes this “homer” attitude can be infuriating, especially when Shannon comes up with one of his famous miscalls. (I distinctly remember him calling a long drive: “GRAAAND SLAAAAAM—Nope nope nope, it’s gonna be caught at the warning track,” like some guy trying to put springy snakes back into a can of peanuts.)

But for each of Shannon’s annoying miscalls, there are countless other calls that come out all wrong, but somehow capture the moment just right. Consider Jack Buck’s line in the thunderous aftermath of Mark McGwire 61st home run: “Pardon me a moment while I stand and applaud.” It was Buck’s last great moment on the air, terse, humble, even elegant. Now compare it to Shannon’s call when McGwire corked #70 some weeks later: “Swing and... Get up, baby! Git up git up git up! Home run! He's done it again! Seventy home runs! Take a ride on that for history!” It was a classic Shannon moment: clipped and twangy, with joy and energy and busted syntax spilling all over the place.

* * * *

Baseball is called the National Pastime, but in reality there are two National Pastimes, two sides to the heart and soul of baseball. On one hand you have the Official History of Baseball. In a nutshell, it’s the side of baseball that MasterCard and the Commissioner’s Office want you to see. It includes Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak, Field of Dreams, Cal Ripken worship, Nolan Ryan’s 7 no-hitters, Gehrig’s “luckiest man” speech, Rick Reilly, Roy Hobbs, Bart Giamatti, HOK Sports, hitting the cut-off man, Ted Williams throwing out the first pitch of the ’99 All-Star Game, the use of the phrase diamond cathedral, and Mark McGwire hugging his son Matt at home plate.

Just as the culture at large has its Politically Correct, you might call this side of baseball the Athletically Correct. Its followers tend to fetishize the pastoral aspects of baseball; they’ll tell you that baseball’s Golden Age has past, and they long for a time (that never existed, by the way) when the Church of Baseball was free of labor strife, brawls, salary disputes, slugfests, and me-first ballplayers. It is, in some ways, baseball love as necrophilia.

And then there’s the flipside of all this piety, the underground history, the side of baseball that’s been 99% untold, exaggerated, or forgotten. And it’s this side of baseball that I’ve always enjoyed most of all. It includes Lee Smith grabbing a bee off his nose as he goes into his windup (it really happened!), Dock Ellis pitching a no-hitter on LSD, minor-leaguer Rodney McCray running through that outfield wall, Disco Demolition Night, Mark Fidrych, the home run off Canseco’s head, Bill Lee duking it out with Graig Nettles, the Gas House Gang, and the 1993 Phillies. It’s the kind of baseball hated by the purists – in fact, it says that baseball without the impurities isn’t really baseball.

As far as heroes go, you can keep Cal Ripken for all I care (a friend of mine once said “beware of anyone with no sideburns and anyone who wears a class ring;” I’d add to that list, beware of anyone who gets choked up over Cal Ripken). For me the soul of baseball is kept alive by the oddballs and the outlaws: Rickey Henderson, Casey Stengel, Satchel Paige, Ty Cobb, Leo Durocher, Jim Bouton, Billy Martin, Billy the Marlin, Kirby Higbe, Lenny Dykstra, Steve Dalkowski, Albert Belle, Lenny Randle, Hoyt Wilhelm, Bob Gibson, Earl Weaver, and, yes, Mike Shannon and Glenn Brummer.

Which is really the reason I’ve gone off on this little digression. Because the moment that Brummer stole home – or really, the moment that Shannon called it – epitomizes what the soul of baseball is all about. More than any other sport, baseball is the history of small men. Think of over-the-hill Howard Ehmke striking out 13 Cubs to win the first game of the 1929 World Series; Francisco Cabrera driving home Justice and Bream back in ‘92; or Tom Lawless yanking that homer in ’87. Brummer stealing home worked the same way. It was ungainly, impossible, a back-up announcer describing a back-up catcher – and yet it became, for me, my greatest baseball memory. Old Abner, as they say, had done it again.

Posted 6:31 PM by Brian
WHO KILLED THE CARDINALS? Bernie Miklasz writes up another eulogy for the 2003 Cardinals. His epitaph for the team is that the players quit, that they went flat and stopped playing hard for La Russa.

And while I think there's a lot of merit to that viewpoint, I think it obscures a larger truth. By blaming the players and the manager, Miklasz is essentially saying that this team, as constructed, was good enough to win. I'd say that's half-true -- we were certainly good enough to win the division, but not once this season did I think we had the ponies to go all the way. And that should be the standard, right? I mean, we made the NLCS last season; if we aren't going forward then we're going backwards. And to me it was Jocketty, not La Russa or Jeff Fassero or Miguel Cairo, who put the kibosh on our aspirations.

Here's an analogy: after the 1979 Who concert in Cincinnati, in which 11 people were crushed to death while waiting for the coliseum doors to open, people asked themselves how such a tragedy could happen. The popular answer to that question is that people simply panicked -- they pushed against fellow concertgoers, literally walked all over them, to get to the front of the line. But that's actually not what happened. The frontline fans did not panic, and they even tried to create a human cordon around those who fell, whereas it was the people in back, unaware of any danger, who kept up the fatal pressure. But blaming supposed human weakness for the tragedy deflected attention from the organizational problems that were more directly liable: a building unable to accomodate 8,000 anxious concertgoers, a lack of emergency procedures, and management that failed to forecast such a crowd.

The way I see it, it's too easy to blame the Cardinals players and coaches who are down in the trenches. Even though some of our stars slacked off down the stretch, by any reasonable standards our good players performed tremendously this year -- think of the seasons turned in by Pujols, Rolen, Renteria, Edmonds, even Woody Williams. Izzy was hurt longer than we thought, and Matt Morris has been a bit less than we hoped for, but by and large we got great work from our frontline players. We didn't win this year because our supporting cast has been awful. And worse yet, they've been predictably awful. Like the Who concert in '79, we shouldn't let the tragedy down in the trenches obscure us from the organizational mistakes that were made months in advance of the fatal blow.

Posted 6:30 PM by Brian
RANGE FACTORING One of the head-scratchers to ponder this offseason is how we managed to lose so many games despite so much lumber in our lineup. But in addition to the league's second best offense (only Atlanta has scored more often), we also have one of the league's best defenses. How good?

Well, we do have the NL's best fielding percentage, and according to Jeff Bagwell, we have the best fielders in the league. But neither of those are very scientific. Fortunately, Dave Pinto over at Baseball Musings recently published some good wonkish stuff about team defense. I encourage you to read the whole article, but basically what Pinto does is measure each team's ability to turn batted balls into outs.

According to Pinto's calculations, the Cards glovemen are the third most efficient in baseball. The top five:

1. Mariners
2. Phillies
3. Cardinals
4. Dodgers
5. Expos

The worst? The Yankees, followed by the Red Sox and Pirates.

MORE STATHEAD JUNK Jesse Frey has come up with a cool way to estimate a player's career home run totals, sort of a tricked-out ultra-version of Bill James' Favorite Toy. Here are some of his projections which I thought were worth passing along:

Barry Bonds, 684 expected homers
A-Rod, 639
Sammy Sosa, 636
Albert Pujols, 459
Mike Piazza, 433
Tino Martinez, 337
Scott Rolen, 326
Jim Edmonds, 305

THE OLD UNIT According to SABR's David Vincent, Randy Johnson's homer on Friday, at the age of 40 years and 9 days, made him the oldest player to hit his first career home run.

MMMMM, TWINKIES The Twins have no sense of drama. A week and a half ago they were in the midst of a climactic two- or three-team pennant race in the AL Central, but in the span of a few days they effectively shut the door on their competition.

How'd they do it? Well, one way was that they developed some newfound patience at the plate. Before the White Sox and Twins met for six games down the stretch, the Sox made no secret of their plan to get the notoriously free-swinging Twins to go fishing. But when the Twinkies tangled with Esteban Loaiza last week, they took pitch after pitch, forcing Loaiza to come at them. It took Loaiza seventy-four pitches to get only seven outs, at which point his night, and essentially the Sox season, was over.

Said manager Ron Gardenhire afterwards, "They [the White Sox] say that we swing the bats aggressively. And they don't have to throw us strikes. Unfortunately, one thing we can do is read the papers."

Posted 6:32 PM by Brian
CUBS NATION RESPONDS! I think we can all agree that the blistering off-field rivalry between the Cardinals and Cubs is far more exciting than anything on the field itself these days (So Taguchi yard jobs notwithstanding). So let's put aside game analysis for a moment and get back to throwing knives at each other --

We got a lot of email regarding our accusation that Mark Prior is an asshole loser (big surprise, huh?). Some of it intelligent, some of it -- what's the euphemism here? -- a bit erratic. We'll re-print only the reasonable stuff. From Adam Buckley, an oxymoronic Cubs fan/good guy, we have this:

As far as Prior being a "loser"... first of all, who Prior roots for has no bearing on the outcome of the game. If Prior would have thrown his support behind Houston, would it have allowed St. Louis to overcome a 7-run deficit? Of course not. By saying that he hopes Houston wins, Prior is simply showing how much confidence he has in his team. The Cubs were only 1 game back when he said that... if the Cubs can win every game the rest of the way (which Prior obviously thinks they can), they don't need the Cardinals to beat Houston. If anything, Prior's comments shows how highly he thinks of his team... hardly the talk of a "loser." Call Prior what you want, but calling him a "loser" is laughable. You've even admitted how great of a future he has (and how great he already is)... and now he's basically saying that he's confident his team can win out. So, call him a fool, an overly optimistic meathead, whatever. But loser he is not.

Good points. Christian Ruzich, the Cub Reporter himself, echoes these thoughts:

I don't necessarily think Prior believes [his comments]. I'm sure he's smart enough to realize that Cardinal victories over Houston are to the Cubs' benefit. What his comment shows, though, is how completely he's bought into the Cubs-Cardinals rivalry. He's only been a Cub for two years, and he didn't grow up a Cub fan, but he already understands the depths of the rivalry, and he knows the right things to say to pump up the fans and his teammates.

Again, point well taken. I'm sure Mark Prior, like Dusty Baker, like the rest of the Cubs, was thrilled when Pujols hit that walk-off jack on Saturday and when the Cards pen shut down the Astronians this afternoon. His comments about hoping the Cards lose were probably intended to stir the pot, nothing more. What's more, recall that Prior is only 22 years old, so we can afford to cut him more slack than we would, say, Dusty Baker.

For a different viewpoint, check out this guest posting over at the Cub Reporter:

Am I the only Cub fan that thinks this is incredibly stupid? [W]hat Prior is saying is that he values his personal vendetta against the Cards more than he values winning the division. Of course, I don't believe that he truly would rank his priorities in that order. But I don't see anything ballsy or macho in claiming that you're willing to root against your own best interests in order to settle a grudge. Color Me Unimpressed.

And then this email from Brian of Sox Nation:

I am loving the new angst and hatred that seems to be evolving in the Cubs-Cardinals rivalry. I keep checking in at Redbird Nation two or three times per day to get the latest Cardinals news as well as the latest thoughts from you on the greatest sport ever invented, and every time I do I read more and more about the St. Louis/Chicago pissing contest. Ironically, the Sox/Yankees rivalry is getting comfier and cozier as time goes by. The Sox and Yankees have been staring each other down like country gentleman in an old-fashioned pistol duel for a number of seasons now. The Yankees manager always has kind things to say about the Red Sox, usually to be sure that the Red Sox don't have any locker room postings for inspiration. Having said that, there has developed a mutual respect between these teams that has drained some of the vinegar out of the Sox-Yankees series. The Cubs-Cardinals rivalry seems to be evolving in the opposite direction. It is becoming more and more of a bar fight -- no, check that, a bar fight is more polite than the Cubs/Cardinals rivalry is right now. The Cubs/Cardinals rivalry right now has descended into a Jerry Springer episode. I'm loving it. It is as nasty as a Patriots/Jets standoff. Or maybe Bruins/Canadiens from the old rock-'em-sock-'em days of the early '70s. Even the managers in the council/Cardinals rivalry looked like they were going to trade blows a week or two ago. It's too bad they didn't. Would've been great on SportsCenter.

I agree -- it's been fun. I especially get a kick out of the Cubs approach to winning -- as Prior's comments indicate, they still measure themselves vis-a-vis the Cardinals. The Cubs should win an assload of games over the next few years, if not a couple pennants, so they'll learn something that the Cardinals, Yankees, Braves, etc. already know: when we finish off our competition, we don't care what the hell happens to 'em. When the Cubs were out of it in September these last few years, we didn't concern ourselves whether they were in third, fourth, or fifth. Our attitude was, "oh, you finished three games ahead of the Pirates? Congratulations, fellas."

The Cubs may have felled the Cardinals this year, but they won't get us off their backs until they stop looking at the teams they left behind and start looking toward the teams ahead of them.

Posted 3:28 PM by Brian
SAY IT AIN'T SO, MATTY MO So it seems Redbird Nation is in the middle of a war of words with a blogger called the Cubs Pundit. Now, I know we should take the high road here and not get drawn into one of those endless back-and-forths, especially when your online sparring partner turns out to be some really enthusiastic Cubs fan who just got a computer as a high school graduation present (and judging by Cubs Pundit's grammatical errors, typos, and logical flaws, I'd say that's a sad possibility).

But unfortunately, the Cubs Pundit is right about one thing -- we are idiots (hell, we broke that story ourselves a couple days ago, when we admitted that REDBIRD NATION = MORONS). And as idiots, we'll respond to this useless debate.

The Cubs Pundit thinks it's funny that we call Mark Prior a loser (even though he was rooting for an outcome that would, in fact, increase the Cubs' chances of losing the division), because, according to Pundit, the Cardinals are the sorriest bunch of losers and quitters since the last days of Edmund Muskie.

And you gotta hand it to the kid -- this point makes a certain amount of sense. Did the Cardinals choke this year? You bet. We had first place in our grasp at the beginning of the month, but since then we've failed every big test that came our way, dropping 4 of 5 head-to-head meetings with the Cubs and four straight to the division-leading Astros. On the year we're 1-9 against the Cubs and Astros in one-run games. 1-9! So the loser shoe fits, and we're wearing it.

What about the other charge, that the Cardinals are quitters? Cubs Pundit isn't the first guy to make that charge -- in fact, go to the Cards Talk Forum and you'll see the same kind of opinion from Cards fans themselves. And let's face it: the team's sluggish play against the Reds and Rockies, their lack of fight against the Astros, and their utter loss of faith in their own bullpen makes it clear that this team isn't exactly running on all cylinders. If someone wants to make that argument, I'm not going to fight it.

But the Cubs Pundit takes things one step further. He writes:

i am just gonna come out and say it. Matt Morris threw the game.

That would be last night's game, when Matty Mo got a little homer-happy with the team he professed to root for over the Cubs, the Houston Astros. Now, this is a pretty serious charge -- in fact, if there was any way you could prove it, it would likely get Morris banned from baseball for life. And indeed Cubs Pundit does furnish us with some proof:

Matt Morris threw the game. After his comments and pitching line. Its pretty damning evidence he intentionally threw the game out of complete spite.

So the evidence is this: (1) Matt Morris said he hopes the Astros beat the Cubs this year; and (2) he pitched lousy last night. Put two and two together and you've got the man on the grassy knoll.

But it's not that simple. First of all, a bad game does't prove much of anything. I mean, Morris pitched just as poorly several times this year, but I didn't hear anyone claim that he threw games against Baltimore, New York, Kansas City, Cincinnati, or L.A. And if Morris wanted the Astros to win so badly, why did he pitch so magnificently against them last Saturday, after the Cardinals were essentially out of the race? And why did he get into an altercation with home plate ump Jerry Crawford that night if his masterplan was to lose? The fact is, Matt Morris has never pitched especially well against the Astros (4.70 ERA against them the past three years), and last night he had a bad outing. It happens.

But (I imagine the Cubs Pundit retorting), it's not just the bad game alone. It's also Matt Morris' comments, where he said he wanted the Astros to beat the Cardinals. But is that what he said? If you read the news story, you'll find something different. Morris said he expected the Cards and Stros to battle it out, possibly even knocking each other out of contention. He also said that the Cardinals are the Astros' "intense" competitors, and that he wished the Astros would win the division, but only if the Cardinals did not. Does this sound like a guy who wants his team to lay down for the Astros? Of course not. The Cubs Pundit doesn't have any evidence to back up what he says, just a theory. Like alchemy or creationism.

But it's that theory that makes this whole thing sorta funny. On one hand, Cubs fans are praising Mark Prior for hoping the Cardinals lose (much like that strain of defeatist Red Sox fan that prefers to see the Yankees lose than the Sox win). On the other hand, when the Cardinals conform to Prior's wishes -- when they do lose -- the Cubs fans invent conspiracy theories, whining about how the Cardinals didn't help them out. You can't have it both ways, can you?

Oh well. If you're still not convinced, just check out today's game. Do teams that have rolled over go toe-to-toe with the division front-runners for 13 innings? Do they throw 7 shutout relief innings to one of the best lineups in the league? Do they bring their ace closer into a tie game? Do they hit walk-off homers and mob the hero at home plate afterwards? You already know the answer. Our team may have lost this year, but they haven't quit.

Posted 10:56 PM by Brian
WELCOME TO THE CLUB Strange how Dusty Baker's teams always seem to set some kind of record for assholery. Last year's Giants had more jerks, malcontents, and morons than any team in modern history, what with Benito Santiago, Jeff Kent, Kenny Lofton, Barry Bonds, Reggie Sanders, Livan Hernandez, and, of course, Dusty himself.

But the 2003 Cubs are giving them a serious run for the money. Moises Alou and Kenny Lofton? There's no more contemptible guys in all of baseball. Sosa? A liar and a boor. Kerry Wood? Hoosier, sadistic.

And now add Mark Prior to the list. The Cubs pitcher told Sporting News Radio on Friday that he couldn't root for the Cardinals this weekend, even though St. Louis wins would help the Cubs. "I hope actually that Houston beats their brains in and just sends them all the way back to whoever is in fourth place now," Prior said.

In other words, his vindictiveness is more important than the Cubs actually winning a pennant. Smart guy, that Prior. Well, he's getting his wish so far -- the Astros beat the Cardinals brains in tonight (although we're still 6 1/2 ahead of Pittsburgh in the race for third place) and the Cubs are a half game further back in the wild card.

It's a rich irony if you think about it. The Cubs finally get a truly competitive team after all these years, but they're still, at heart, a bunch of losers.

Posted 6:33 PM by Brian
THE CURSE OF THE CURSE OF THE BAMBINO Bill Simmons has a fantastic, ghostbusting critique of HBO's "Curse of the Bambino" on today's ESPN.com. He does something that I've almost never heard from a Red Sox fan -- he pokes holes in the idea of Beantown exceptionalism. In response to the anxiety of the average Sox fan, he writes,

But plenty of sports fans battle similar demons, don't they? What about Cubs fans closing in on the 100-year mark? What about Bills fans losing those four straight Super Bowls, including the horror of the Norwood Game? What about Browns fans losing their team, for God's sake? Who's more tortured than Maple Leaf fans? You think Astros fans have had tons of fun over the past four decades? You think the Bengals and Cavs have been laughing it up?

Simmons is right. Just about every team has its share of pains, curses, and heartbreaks. I mean, consider the Angels. For 40 years they were about as star-crossed as any franchise in baseball. They suffered countless freak accidents and tragedies, including one All-Star pitcher (Ken McBride) who destroyed his back in a car accident, a future superstar (Rick Reichardt) who had to have his kidney removed and never played as well again, an established superstar (Lyman Bostock) who was murdered at age 27, a devastating collapse in the '86 playoffs (Donnie Moore blew the ALCS and subsequently killed himself), and another bellyflop down the stretch in '95 (they were 13 games up on Seattle in August). And that was all before they signed Mo Vaughn. Yet during their run last year, no one said anything about the Angels' quest to break the Curse of Lyman Bostock. But I bet if John Updike and David Halberstam grew up in Orange County, they'd use a tanker-truckful of ink on hosannas to their beloved Angels.

See, every team can claim its curses. The Cubs haven't won jack (not one postseason series) since 1908. The White Sox won it all in 1917, but two years later they morphed into the most disgraced franchise in the history of athletics. The Astros, who have put together some teams fully capable of winning the World Series over the years, are oh-for-seven in postseason series, including two of the most agonizing NLCS losses (in '80 and '86) you could possibly imagine. Hell, having one ace pitcher (Darryl Kile) drop dead in a Chicago hotel room, not long after another ace pitcher (Rick Ankiel) lost his mind on national TV, was no walk in the park. How'd you like to be a fan of the Milwaukee Brewers? Or the Expos? Or the Indians? In 1997 an 88-year-old Cleveland truck driver named John Moskal, who had been an Indian loyalist since boyhood, was home in bed when the final out of the championship arrived, once again with his team on the wrong end of things (they were, in fact, two outs from victory when the game slipped away). Moskal clicked off his TV set, muttered "Oh, dear, the poor old Indians," lay back, and died. True story.

But you see, this comparing-of-scars swings the other way too. Every team, in any sport, is both cursed and blessed. And that's the most surprising part of Simmons' article. He's gracious too, not because he's proud of his team's losses (as were fans of the '62 Mets and '80s Cubs), but because he's proud of their successes:

For the most part, Sox fans have been pretty fortunate. Including me. Over the past three decades, I watched an inordinate amount of winning teams (more than any other franchise in baseball), as well as stars like Lynn, Fisk, Tiant, Rice, Yaz, Eckersley, Evans, Mo, Nomar and Manny. I was blessed with the chance to see Clemens and Pedro in their primes -- two of the best pitchers of the past 50 years. Dave Henderson's homer against the Angels remains one of the great sports moments of my life. Same with Pedro coming out of the bullpen and blanking Cleveland in the '99 playoffs (conspicuously missing from the documentary, of course). And for all its faults, Fenway (in the right seats) is still the best place in the country to watch baseball.

That's a nice little antidote to the war we started with Beantowners last June. Although it's still not enough to convert me to the Nation of Red Sox. I'm rooting for the Twins this year. They've been blessed as hell the last couple postseasons, but I wouldn't wish the Curse of Contraction on anybody.

Posted 10:52 PM by Brian
STAT PADDING We said the other night that the rest of the season still has plenty of small pleasures to offer, namely a lot of number-watching. Tonight was a perfect game to tool around on your calculator (don't tell me I'm the only one) -- Rolen went over the 100-RBI mark, Edgar crept up on the same mark himself (he's up to 96), and Woody got his ERA back below four (at 3.99).

And oddly it wasn't Pujols joining in the fun. The first four guys in our lineup went only 3-16, but the next four guys went a little bonkers: 12-18 (that's a .667 batting average), 3 doubles, 2 homers. Nice going.

Although there was one stat downer -- E-Rent went 4-for-4 to raise his season average to .333. My brother (the Judge) has always maintained that .333 is just about the worst "good" batting average you can have, because it makes you look like you had only three, maybe six, at bats. (Last year, for example, Dave Veres hit .333.) I have to agree with the Judge here; there's just something about that .333. Seems lower than .332, .331, or even .328.

BLOWOUTS Woody Williams neatly encapsulated the entire Cardinals season in his postgame comments tonight: "It seems like in games we didn't need to score a lot of runs, we scored a lot of runs. And in games where we needed to score some runs, it seems like we didn't score enough." True, true...

The stats bear him out. The Cardinals have played in 28 blowouts this year (arbitrarily defined as a game with a difference of 6 or more runs), and we've won 20 of them. But we're only 12-24 in one-run games. And it's those middling games that have killed us. When our team scores four of five runs, we're only 8-26.

Posted 10:46 AM by Brian
YOU GOTTA BELIEVE! The Cardinals' odds of making the postseason have officially dwindled to 0.1%. That means if you played 1,000 seasons of baseball, and the Cardinals found themselves in the situation they're in now every year, then they'd make it to the Divisional Series about one time. Don't lose hope now -- this could be the year!

Posted 9:25 AM by Brian
TWIN KILLINGS A few weeks back, we estimated how many double plays a team grounded into as a percentage of men on first. Baseball Prospectus has done essentially the same thing for individual batters.

Their method works like this: take a player like, say, the A's Ramon Hernandez. He has 100 plate appearances with a runner on first and fewer than two outs. In those situations, he grounds into 15 double plays. A league-average hitter in those circumstances grounds into double plays 12.95% of the time, or 12.95 GIDPs for every 100 PAs. Ramon's total of 15 twin killings, then, is 2.05 more than you'd expect, so he has a +2.05 net double play rate. Positive numbers here are bad; negative numbers are good.

So what Cardinals are the best at avoiding the double play? Here are our top 3:

1. Orlando Palmeiro -6.83
2. Bert Pujols -4.52
3. Bo Hart -3.05

O-Pal's numbers are amazing -- 61 times he's come to the plate with a runner on first and less than two outs, and he only grounded into 1 double play (actually, line-out double plays are also counted under this method, so it's possible his one DP wasn't even a grounder). That's the third best total in the league, behind Thome (who hits everything in the air) and Furcal (who's fast as hell). Clearly Palmeiro is your pinch hitter in the 9th with runners on first and third and one out. The #2 guy on our team really surprised me -- my recollection is that Pujols has grounded into a fair amount of double plays. And he has; 13 all told. But as a percentage of DP opportunities, his numbers are extremely good, up there with the likes of speedsters like Jimmy Rollins and Luis Castillo.

How about the Cardinals' worst double-play offenders? Here's our bottom 3:

1. Ed Renteria +5.55
2. Scott Rolen +3.84
3. Chris "Widge" Widger +3.78

No surprises here. GIDPs are really the only hole in Renteria's offensive game, and he's down near the bottom of the league. For the record, the worst DP guy in the league is Jason Phillips of the Mets -- 24 double plays in 90 opportunities. Next worst is Vlad Guerrero.

LET'S MOVE ON to pitchers. Here the numbers are the flip side of the above -- a negative DP rate is bad, and a positive rate is good. The Cardinals top 3:

1. Brett Tomko +6.91
2. Danny Haren +4.54
3. Matty Mo +3.60

As for bullpenners, DeJean and then Simontacchi are the best guys to bring in to induce the pitcher's best friend. And our bottom 3:

1. Woody Williams -14.01
2. Kiko Calero -2.60
3. Jeff Fassero -2.49

I'm surprised Stephenson isn't on that list, as he cajoles so many fly balls. But what really surprises me is Woody Williams' total -- only 4 opposition GIDPs in 140 opportunities, easily the worst figure in the major leagues.

MORE PROSPECTUSING Nate Silver has some interesting thoughts on the Wild Card and its impact on fan interest down the stretch. What he discovered is that the Wild Card format initially increased September attendance figures throughout the league. More teams in contention = more fans showing up to cheer on their team. But over the last couple years those numbers have flattened out, so that the... hell, I'll let Nate speak for himself:

In the years immediately following the introduction of the Wild Card, a pennant race was taken to be as significant as it ever was, and drew plenty of fans to the ballyard. Over time, however, fans have realized that a ticket to the playoffs isn't as special as it used to be. With three rounds required to win the title instead of two, one-and-outs are aplenty, and merely reaching the playoffs isn't the goal. Fans of Contenders remain more interested in the balance of the season than do fans of Pretenders, but they don't remain as interested as they were before the playoffs were expanded, and the impact of the regular season is diminished. And fans of Clinchers appear to lose interest during the season's final month, preferring to save their energy for the games that really count... The fans are catching on to the Wild Card: it doesn't increase attendance so much as redistribute it.

I'm not one of those self-styled defenders of tradition; the Wild Card is fine by me, and it improves my interest as a fan and an analyst. But there's a precarious balance at hand between engaging fans in more cities in the season's final month, and including so many teams that the regular season becomes trivialized entirely. Expanding the playoffs further to include another set of teams would surely be a mistake, not just from an aesthetic perspective, but also, potentially, from a financial one.

I'm of two minds about the Wild Card. I don't think it helps as much as most people say, but I also recognize that, as you expand, you need to introduce more postseason slots into the equation. The key is proportionality. Back in the old days (1901 - 1960), one out of every 8 teams in each league made the postseason. Now we have 30 major league teams, but 8 playoff slots. That's 26.6% of all teams in the postseason, or double the rate of inflation from 1960.

My gut feeling is that the current set-up is a little too lenient, that fewer than 1/4th of all teams should be allowed to play into October. On the other hand, 1/8th seems a little too strict. I guess you could lower the ratio just a bit and have 1/5th of all teams make the postseason. That means 3 teams in each league, so that you return to two divisions and have only one Wild Card. But that entails a bye in the first round of the playoffs and I don't think anyone wants that (even if it were feasible, given the lost revenue). On second thought, the system may be just fine how it is. But don't put it past Bud to expand the playoff ratio to 1/3. That's what would happen if he got two more Wild Cards, which he's considered. That would make baseball's regular season about as meaningful as the NHL, i.e., meaningless.

Posted 10:41 PM by Mark
NOTHINGNESS Tonight I was out during much of the Cardnals game walking my kid, but when I left we were winning 5 to 1. When I got back, I checked in on the game via cbs.sportsline.com and saw the score: 6 to 5 Brewers. I thought the game was over, then saw that it was still the bottom of the 9th, 2 outs, Rolen up. Just as I realized that was the situation, all the graphic players on the cbs.sportsline diamond disappeared into nothing. Game over. Season over. It was like the end of The Unbearable Lightness of Being, when we already know that Daniel Day-Lewis and Juliette Binoche have died in a car accident, then we flash back to see them happily driving in the rain, knowing full well that they're driving straight toward oblivion, and the picture slowly dissolves to white. Tonight was that white for the 2003 Cardinals. Rest in peace.

Posted 9:47 AM by Alec
ANONYMOUS This morning on ESPN radio, one of the commentators said (without a trace of irony) something to the effect of: "You have to hand it to the Houston Astros. Everyone knows the Cardinals and everyone knows the Cubs, but no one knows who's on the Astros, and they're quietly getting the job done." Clearly he must have been speaking of the following nobodies:

Jeff Bagwell: 1991 NL RoY; 1994 NL MVP; 4-time All Star; career .300 avg, 2121 hits, 415 HRs, 195 SB; $13M salary; ranked by Bill James as the 45th greatest player of all time and 4th greatest first baseman of all time (one slot below Mark McGwire and one ahead of Eddie Murray).

Craig Biggio: 7-time All Star; $9.75M salary; ranked by Bill James as the 35th greatest player of all time and 5th greatest second baseman of all time (one slot below Jackie Robinson and one ahead of Nap Lajoie); described by James as "the best player in major league baseball today" (2001).

Jeff Kent: 2000 NL MVP; 3-time All Star; $7M salary.

Lance Berkman: 2-time All Star; among the top 5 MVP vote-getters for the past 2 seasons.

Billy Wagner: 3-time All Star; $8M salary; 30+ saves in 5 separate seasons.

Roy Oswalt: Among the top 5 Cy Young vote-getters for the past 2 seasons.

Posted 9:46 AM by Brian
GAME UPDATES on Redbird Nation will be sparser than usual, simply because there's not much to dissect now that our season is effectively over. But I still listened to Shannon and Hagin last night anyway. (What do you guys think of Hagin? For me he's sorta like Orlando Palmeiro -- a handy guy to have on your ballclub, but no one to get too excited about.) I've noticed that Cardinal games are more fun when you don't have to live in fear of our Amazing Collapsible Bullpen mucking things up. I mean, if they blow a late-September game against the Brewers, who cares? It just gives Pujols more at bats.

At this time of the year there are really only two reasons to follow a team. One is to check out youngsters who might be playing for us in the years to come. Outside of Danny Haren (who's logged a ton of innings these past two years and should have a pitch count of about 50), that doesn't apply to anyone on our team. The other reason to follow the Cardinals is statistics. Here are some subplots to follow:

Can Pujols win the batting crown? (He's 11 points ahead of Helton.) Can he win the home run race? (He fell one behind Bonds last night, who poked this third homer in four days.) Can he get 100 extra-base hits? (He's at 92 now; the only active players to do this already: Bonds, Helton, Sosa, Gonzo.) Can Jedmonds hit 40 homers (he's at 37 now)? Can Rolen hit 30 homers (he's 3 away)? Can Brett Tomko win 15 games? (Wouldn't that be something?) Can Matt Morris have a better ERA than last year? (Believe it or not it's quite possible -- he finished 3.42 last year; he's at 3.54 now.)

TOM VERDUCCI has a nice autopsy of the Cardinals season over on SI.com. Here's a capsule of what he has to say:

There's no mystery as to when the Cardinals' season fell apart. They were in first place on Sept. 1 when they went to Wrigley Field for a five-game series. St. Louis lost four of those games while La Russa blew his cool, erupting at Chicago manager Dusty Baker, bringing a fatigued Woody Williams out of the bullpen between starts -- how can a team be short of pitching with expanded rosters? -- and making moves that raised eyebrows in the clubhouse, such as taking Tino Martinez out of a tie game in the seventh inning with two outs so a pitcher could pinch run for him. The Cubs sent the Cards into a 4-10 spiral. From first place to out of contention in two weeks.

I know -- that isn't news to people who follow the Cardinals everyday. But this was news to me:

There are rumblings about dealing Edmonds for pitching, especially to the Dodgers...

Naturally I wouldn't want to trade Edmonds (even if it was possible; he can annually designate up to 23 teams to which he would not accept a trade, although you'd think he would go to the Dodgers, as he lives in Orange County). On the other hand, Jedmonds has a big contract, he's on the bad side of 30, he's prone to injury, and I'm open to anything. My gut says we should make Pujols, Edmonds, Rolen, Renteria, and Morris untouchables, but it's tough to defend that notion because we didn't win with those guys this year and we have no new talent in the pipeline. We might need to trade a superstar for a handful of lesser stars. Hurts, I know...

CURSE OF THE RED SOX Alex Belth over at Bronx Banter has a review of the new HBO documentary "Curse of the Bambino," about those long-suffereing Red Sox fans. Here's a tidbit that illustrates just how agonizing it is for Red Sox Nation: I know not one, not two, but three -- three! -- people who have written screenplays about the Curse of the Bambino. And I have a feeling they're not the only ones...

AND A HUMAN INTEREST STORY Lary Sorensen, who began the season 4-0 for the 1981 Cardinals, was sentenced to 30 days in jail and 3 years of probation after he was convicted of drunk driving for the fifth time.

Posted 5:44 PM by Brian
FB/GB Here are a few observations courtesy of Baseball Prospectus:

While Matt Morris has been effective since his return from the DL, logging four consecutive Quality Starts, there are signs that his game has changed. In particular, his groundball-to-flyball ratio has eroded:

..........................................GB.......FB......Ratio
Through July 21................198.....121.....1.64
After August 23...................42......41......1.02

Though his strikeout rates remain healthy, Morris has been more of a finesse pitcher since his return. His fastball is registering at around 91 and 92, rather than in the mid-nineties, and doesn't have the same sinking action that was generating so many groundball outs to the Cardinals' excellent infield defense.

On the other hand, Morris has been remarkably economical with his pitches. He needed an even 100 to complete his Sept. 7 start against the Reds, then used just 83 in nine innings in his Saturday loss to the Astros. Morris is a smart enough pitcher to transform himself into a finesse guy when he's not at 100%--but it's not clear that he isn't still suffering from some of the effects of his fractured finger.

WE VS. THEY Reader Mark Stewart passes along this tidbit:

There was a blurb in today's LA Times' Morning Briefing that, while on the topic of Red Sox fans, is equally applicable to Cardinal fans this year. I paraphrase:

There comes a time in every season when reference to the team turns from 'we' to 'they'. "How did we do today?" becomes "Did they blow it again?".

I submit that the words turned for the Cardinals in the Windy City at the precise moment when TLR pulled Haren.

Posted 9:46 AM by Brian
HEADHUNTING Reader David Salvia passes along this news story, about a war of words between Matt Morris and Dusty Baker. The gist of it: Morris said he respects the Astros more than the Cubs, and is rooting for them to win the Central. Baker fired back by saying he doesn't respect Morris for drilling Lofton in the 2002 NLCS and that Morris should keep his mouth shut. A few thoughts:

* Baker is right when he says that the Cubs' schedule is just as difficult as the Astros' (Morris' wording is clumsy, but he suggests that the Cubs could back into the playoffs on the strength of a cozier schedule). Although to be somewhat fair to Morris here, the Cubs September schedule is far easier than the Astros, which is important to some people (i.e., the Cubs are more likely to play teams that are depleted or looking at call-ups).

* Baker's an asshole. Morris made some fairly innocuous statements and Baker should have done what any classy manager would do, that is, refrain from being baited by opposing players. Instead, Baker teed off on Morris and added ominously that Morris "might have a whole decade of it now."

* Baker says he lost all respect for Morris when he hit Lofton in the playoffs. And yes, Morris did hit Lofton in last year's NLCS, but I doubt it was intentional. The pitch location didn't seem like a beanball, plus it came with Lofton leading off an inning, plus it was a 0-0 playoff game, plus Bonds was due up. (On the other hand, Morris did hit a guy during a spring training game a couple years back, and said afterwards it was intentional.)

* Baker also claims that the Cardinals were trying to "ambush" Lofton during last year's playoffs. Here's the pitch that Baker called an ambush and Lofton claimed was at his head. Decide for yourself. I think it's safe to say that this pitch wasn't anywhere near Lofton, and certainly not as close as the three fastballs Kerry Wood threw at Morris' face two weeks ago. Although evidently Baker still respects Wood tremendously.

ANDROIDS Remember that hubbub a few years back when a bottle of androstenedione was found in McGwire's locker and sports call-in shows were inundated with gripes about McGwire's homers being tainted? (One writer has even said that he won't vote for Big Mac on the first ballot for Cooperstown because of the andro flap.) Well, a recent study by the University of Texas concludes that androstenedione has no impact on testosterone, and that one month of andro supplementation will not build muscle mass. Think McGwire will get an apology from the guy who drew this cartoon?

REDBIRD NATION = MORONS Reader Nick Tallyn points out a good reason why pitchers aren't substituted by the visiting team in the bottom of the first: it's illegal. Major League Baseball Rule 3.05 states that "the pitcher named in the batting order handed the umpire in chief... shall pitch to the first batter or any substitute batter until such batter is put out or reaches first base, unless the pitcher sustains injury or illness which, in the judgment of the umpire in chief, incapacitates him from pitching." In other words, the starting pitcher must face at least one batter before exiting the game.

PETER GAMMONS has an interesting article about how hard it is to forecast and assemble a good bullpen these days, and mentions this depressing fact: in 2002 the Cardinals had the third best bullpen in baseball. This year they're third worst.

SIR BARRY is, at this moment, precisely 100 home runs behind Aaron. Despite my hang-ups with Bonds, I'd like to see him take a run at the record, although Bonds suggests that he's about ready to hang up his cleats. Money quote from Barry, in this week's ESPN the Magazine:

I've played most of the season with a hamstring tear. My knees ache. My hands are done. Two bulging disks. My legs don't work. I make a strong throw, I feel it, all over, the rest of the game. Willie and my dad always said the thing that knocked them out of baseball would knock me out, too -- when the pain became too much... Losing Dad was the worst thing in the world. I haven't slept in a month. My mind is always racing. I can't concentrate. I'm drained. I'm constantly thinking, thinking. It's just too overwhelming. I'm devastated. I spend all my time just trying not to have a nervous breakdown.

I'm done. The young players, it's their turn. I had my fun, and I keep screwing up and coming back. What for? Why bother? I can't do this anymore. I've already told the guys: a few more games, and I'm gone. I'm day-to-day, man. None of those records mean anything to me. My godfather and my father are the only reason I played, for their approval. I admired the rest of them -- Hank, Babe, Ted -- but I wasn't fighting for their approval. I've always played for the acceptance of my godfather and father. That's it. And now my father's gone.

Wow. Part of me thinks that Bonds will get a winter of rest, calm some of his demons, and go at the record with all fury next season. But if the main motivating force in his life is now gone, we could very well be seeing his last season, especially if the Giants win it all.

BEASTS FROM THE EAST ESPN.com wonders (here and here) if there's an East Coast bias in sports reporting. I would say, of course there's an East Coast bias, although I'm not so sure it's a sinister thing. After all, far more people live on the East Coast than in the Midwest, so if anything it's a simple market bias that manifests itself as East Coast favoritism.

That doesn't mean the bias isn't incredibly annoying to a Midwesterner. Two weeks ago, for example, the Cards and Cubs wrapped up the most important and thrilling series in Wrigley Field in the past generation. There was no mention of it on the front page of ESPN.com. They went with this headline instead: "Jeter May Miss Opener of Red Sox Series."

Posted 9:48 PM by Brian
GAME NOTES, Cards 11, Brewcrew 2

• Tomko had perhaps his easiest night of the year, with more runs batted in than the entire Brewers team. On the season, Tomko has a higher OBP than Mike Matheny, although I realize that's not saying a whole lot.

• Tomko even carried a no-hitter into the fourth inning. I've said this before, but every time a Cardinal goes more than two innings without giving up a hit, I start thinking no-no. Every time. Even though I've only seen one no-hitter from end-to-end in my entire life.

• Think any Cardinals got wasted on the team flight back from Houston? I bet Kline is a sloppy drunk. Edmonds seems like he might hit on your girlfriend after a few. Girardi slaps everyone on the back. Garrett Stephenson sits in the corner and mopes. Danny Haren tries to get people to play "I never."

• After Glendon Rusch starting warming up in the bullpen, Joe Buck said, "I wouldn't mind taking a flyer on him" next year. Can't you just see ol' GR pitching for Tony and Dunc? It's inevitable.

• In the 3rd inning, Pujols was intentionally walked with runners on second and third. Here's an interesting comparison: with first base open and runners in scoring position, Pujols has been walked 21 times in 84 appearances. Under the same circumstances, Barry Bonds has been walked 49 times in 72 trips to the plate. In fact, Bonds has come to the plate 17 times this year with runners on second and third. He's been walked in 16 of those at bats.

• Most home runs allowed in one season, Cardinal pitchers:

39 Murry Dickson, 1948
34 Bob Gibson, 1965
34 Dustin Hermanson, 2001
34 Brett Tomko, 2003

Tomko/Dustin/Gibby. Can't think of one without the others.

• When sizing up Brett Tomko's year for the Cardinals, you may want to ask, which Tomko? At Busch he's got a 2.88 ERA; on the road it plummets to 7.73.

• Tonight's win ended a string of seven straight series-opening losses for the Cardinals.

Posted 2:39 PM by Brian
GOOD PITCHING BEATS GOOD HITTING I've always hated that phrase, for it's oft-repeated, never proven. To win a baseball game, you need to score more runs than the other guy, and it doesn't matter if you do it by winning 2-1 or 9-8. However, this article here suggests that good pitching, in fact, does beat good hitting when it comes to the playoffs -- or at least that's how it's panned out for the last 30 years or so.

I don't know if that makes you feel better or worse about the Cards falling short of the division title. I for one feel that all titles are good titles -- they're good for ticket sales, and even a bad playoff series generates its own excitement and intrigue. On the other hand, you know and I know that this Cardinals team wasn't going anywhere in the postseason, even if it did happen to outlast the Cubs and Astros. What's more, sometimes division crowns have the unpleasant effect of masking a team's central flaws. A front office says to itself, well, we won the division with these fellows, so let's stand pat and give it another shot next year (when in fact, "these fellows" may be why the team didn't advance beyond the first round).

So, in our recent quest to come to grips with the Cards' Fall from Grace, let's remember that a division crown, followed by a three-and-out in the playoffs, may have been the worst thing for this ballclub. Jocketty and Co. might now have the political capital to open this team up like a head of lettuce.

Posted 7:05 PM by Brian
THE DOUBLE CROWN The Cards lost more than one race this weekend -- Pujols effectively dropped out of the Triple Crown running. He's now third in the NL in RBIs, one behind Sheffield and fourteen behind Preston Wilson. Wilson had 7 ribbies this weekend, Pujols none.

TIPS TO SURVIVE THE DOG DAYS The Cardinals could very shortly be out of a pennant race for the first time in over four years. But you gotta admire the spirit behind this Reds weblog. Yes, the Reds are in last; yes, they're 17 games out; yes, they're mathematically eliminated from the postseason. But this guy is still having a ball watching his team eek out a 1-0 win over the Cubs. We'll be joining you soon, buddy...

THE RAMBLING, GAMBLING 'SPOS Steve Stone -- yes, that Steve Stone, the Cubs broadcaster -- wants to buy the Expos and move them to Las Vegas. Seriously. Rob Neyer dealt with the issue of Vega$ baseball in one of his columns from last winter.

Posted 3:24 PM by Brian
FLIMFLAM Was there a game today? I wouldn't know (watched the Rams instead). I suppose your opinion about the final score has less to do with the Cardinals and more to do with whether you're mostly a Cubs-hater or an Astros-hater. My Dad prefers to see Chicago over Houston in the postseason, in large part because the town was good to us after Darryl Kile died. But remember, many of the Astros were good to us then too (Jeff Bagwell, Craig Biggio, Brad Ausmus, and Billy Wagner all flew in for Kile's memorial service); and besides, Cub-loathing is a St. Louis tradition, right up there with gooey butter cakes and toasted ravioli. Better the Astronauts than the Little Bears in my opinion.

Let's move on to lighter things. Brian from Sox Nation (the sister site to Redbird Nation) recently sent us this query:

Hey RedBird,

How come NL teams don't pinch hit for their pitcher in the first inning on the road? For instance, why not take a bat on the bench, lead 'em off, and then lift that player for the pitcher in the bottom of the first? Clearly you could only do it on the road. Is it because managers want to be sure to have as many bats as they can on the bench? Still, I'm thinking of, say, Randy Johnson on the road - you know he'll go deep into the game, why not get a swing or two out of a real hitter in the first inning?

Thoughts?

Clever. La Russa experimented with the pitcher in the 8-hole a few years back, and back with Oakland he tried the nine-man rotation (using starters for 3 or 4 innings every 3 days), so you figure he'd be open to the idea. But at the end of the day I don't think he'd ever do it, partly because his starters are so unreliable, but mostly because he likes as many moving parts as possible off the bench in the later innings.

But that doesn't mean it's not a fair idea. Earl Weaver tried something like this in the mid-70s to delay the first at bat of Mark Belanger, a slick fielder who couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with six rounds of buckshot. At the end of the 1975 season, Weaver would pencil in Royle Stillman, a reserve outfielder, into the #2 spot as his starting "shortstop." That way Stillman could take his swings in the top of the first inning, then sit for the afternoon while Belanger trotted out to short. Weaver not only got Belanger's glove for the whole game, he didn't have to see Belanger's bat until the second time through the order, as in this game here. The gimmick seemed to work. Stillman was 3-for-6 under Weaver's strategy, a nice spell for Belanger, who had a .286 OBP and a .276 SLG that year.

Apparently Dick Williams tried something similar in 1973, when he used a backup first baseman named Gonzalo Marquez as his second baseman in the first inning, in place of regular 2B Dick Green. (Weaver also pulled a vaguely similar stunt in 1981, when he wrote in pitcher Steve Stone as his starting DH every day, just in case the Orioles chased the opposing pitcher from the game in the first inning. That way Weaver would never have to burn, say, Terry Crowley, his left-handed DH, in case the other team brought in lefty reliever before Crowley's spot in the lineup came around. The league since passed a rule that outlaws this practice.)

Anyway, if I were La Russa I wouldn't take Brian's suggestion. If you use a reserve in your leadoff slot on the road, you do delay the pitcher's at bat, but only by one batter (the starting pitcher would become the #1 hitter the second time through the order, rather than the #9 hitter the first time around). And considering that you'd burn through a bench player -- who's probably not as good of a table-setter as your actual leadoff hitter -- then it doesn't seem worth the shenanigans.

However, my cousin Mark recommends this: for every game on the road, pencil in the previous day's starting pitcher as your #9 hitter. Why? On the off-chance that the 9-hitter comes up in the first inning, you could pinch hit for him without wasting a player. After all, the previous day's starting pitcher wouldn't be available anyway (except as a pinch runner, or, less likely, a pinch hitter in extra innings).

It sounds far-fetched, but it still seems worth it. Consider this game back on June 18th. The Cardinals went into Milwaukee and sent 9 men to the plate in the first. The inning ended with Jason Simontacchi striking out with runners on second and third.

Now suppose Garrett Stephenson (who threw 100 pitches a day earlier) started the game as our ninth hitter. He'd be due up in the top of the first with two runners in scoring position, and you could hit, say, Kerry Robinson for him. That way you get a better bat into the lineup, and it wouldn't really cost a thing. Actually, you wouldn't even need to burn a real hitter if you didn't want to -- if Woody Williams was the starter the day before, you could just use him rather than a guy like K-Rob. (There's another benefit too -- the Brewers couldn't intentionally walk your 8th hitter to bring up the pitcher in the first, because you could counteract the move with a pinch-hitter.) Then you send out Simontacchi to pitch the bottom of the first, and he wouldn't have to bat until 17 Cardinals had hit ahead of him.

Now, you might say this gimmick is silly -- it would rarely be needed, it would goof up your stats, it would set you up for ridicule, and the only time you'd employ the strategy is if you sent your entire lineup to the plate in the first, i.e., if you already have a comfy cushion. But when the Cardinals went up 4-0 in the first back on June 18th, they didn't know they were going to score 5 more runs and win going away. I mean, 4 runs is not that comfortable for this team (our record is only 8-26 when scoring four or five runs). Besides, teams do lose games after scoring a bunch of runs in the first, sometimes with their pitcher making the last out of the inning, as in this game here.

I think it's a cool little loophole, and if it ever worked, you might even get George Will to write a book about you.

Posted 11:38 PM by Brian
BERNIE MIKLASZ accuses the Cards of quitting. Quoth Bernard:

In recent days it's become obvious that this team no longer cares. The Cardinals have too many casual at-bats and knucklehead lapses in the field. They don't raise their intensity. They yield too easily. They jake it... Manager Tony La Russa's team, 4-9 this month, is tanking on him.

And then he points to a few stats:

In the seven September games vs. the Cubs and Astros, the Cardinals' big guns are muted. Albert Pujols is five for 26, Scott Rolen six for 28, Edgar Renteria one for 21, Jim Edmonds four for 15, Tino Martinez one for 16. That combined .160 batting average comes from five players who are receiving about $31 million in salary this season.

I think Bernie conflates a few ideas, but I agree with the gist of his commentary (even though I think matters of the heart, or lack thereof, are overrated when it comes to dissecting baseball tams). I've been especially shocked at how clueless Vina has been -- whether he's quit or not, I don't know (remember, he also made a series of ridiculous plays in Game 3 of the '02 NLCS, so maybe he's trying too hard, not too little). But conspiracy theorists will find some anti-Vina ammunition here. Reader Russ Deaton doesn't accuse Vina of laying down, but he does lay into him for his lousy timing, which is fair.

Posted 6:25 PM by Brian
WHITE FLAG TIME? No deep secret about this loss -- Matt Morris pitched very well; Roy Oswalt pitched better.

The Cardinals have never been more than 4 games back this entire year -- until now. We currently sit 4.5 behind the Stros and 3.5 behind the Cubs. And if you weren't feeling dire enough about our chances, then this chart illustrates the uphill task we face:

If the Astros go 5-9, we need to go 9-4 to tie.
If the Astros go 6-8, we need to go 10-3 to tie.
If the Astros go 7-7, we need to go 11-2 to tie.
If the Astros go 8-6, we need to go 12-1 to tie.
If the Astros go 9-5, we need to go 13-0 to tie.
If the Astros go 10-4, they win no matter what.

And that's not even taking into account the Cubs. Right now the math just doesn't work in our favor.

What's interesting to me is that the Cardinals have dragged their feet all season long, always hovering no more than a handful of games over .500, never putting together a serious streak after early June, and yet -- despite all that mediocrity -- we had sole possession of first place entering the final month of the season. These last few days I'd been thinking that the Cardinals had the pole position and simply choked.

But now I'm not so sure. When we look back on what went wrong this season, there are two basic diagnoses:

(a) The Cardinals are a fine team -- a pennant-caliber team, chock full of superstars, more or less the same team that won 97 games last year -- that never performed up to its capability. Or,

(b) The Cardinals really are not that good of a team -- i.e., our 76-73 record is our capability.

It's an important distinction to make, because the answer you give says alot about who's to blame this year and what we should do heading into next year. If (a), then the Cardinals simply underperformed, and the players and the coaches and the manager should be blamed for lack of execution. There's not much to do in the offseason but keep the core of the team intact, plug up some weaknesses, and hope we play better next year.

If (b), however, then the team hasn't been underperforming; they've been under-conceived. The main culprit in that scenario is Walt Jocketty. And his prescription for next year, then, is not to make nip-and-tuck changes -- he's got to tear up a few roots, if not a lot of them. Because a .500 team that's getting older, in a division with a young and hungry Cubs team, does not look good going forward.

I suppose there's always option (c) -- that is, a combination of foreseeable and unforeseeable mistakes by this club. We could have guessed going into this season that our bullpen would be poor, that the back end of our rotation would be shaky, and that at least two of our key starters would miss significant time to injury (Drew, Isringhausen, and Woody Williams were all red flags before the season started). What we could not have guessed is the lingering injury to Morris, the sheer scope of our health problems in general, or our horrendous record in one-run games.

The most depressing thing about our season to date is that we're close enough to the division leaders that if any one of these variables changed -- if we had Izzy early in the season, or if we had another arm or two in the bullpen (could have been a Calero or a Stechschulte), or if a couple of those one-run losses to the Reds went the other way -- then we'd be in a totally different place today. But it wasn't meant to be.

ONE LAST THING I didn't see the game on TV, so I don't feel qualified to comment on what happened with umpire Jerry Crawford tonight. But if everything I heard and read is accurate, then Crawford ought to be suspended for the rest of the season and MLB ought to quietly let him go in the offseason.

Posted 10:16 AM by Brian
MISTY WATER-COLORED MEMORIES I had a movie clip up the other day that reminded us where we were just one year ago today, but took it down due to technical difficulties. Here's the website where I got it -- simply scroll down and press the link for 9/20/02, when the Cards clinched the NL Central. Scroll down further to find some incredibly cool McGwire clips, Jack Clark jacking one out in Dodger Stadium, folks going crazy in '85, even Bob Gibson back in '68. Fine stuff.

THE NAPOLEON OF WOONSOCKET I also got a response to my question about the pronunciation of Nap Lajoie's name (thanks Bill D.). Baseball fans have pronounced his name countless ways over the years: La-JOY, La-JOEY, LASH-way, LAZH-way, LASH-wah, LAZ-way, LAJ-way, etc.

Bill tells us that it's pronounced, simply, La-ZHWA. (A family relative says here that it's more like La-SHWA, but close enough.) Another website confirms that Nap was known to pronounce his own name La-Zhwa.

So there you have it -- next time you're trying to pick up chicks at a Society for American Baseball Research convention, you'll be well-armed.

SEPTEMBER SWOON John Shiffert reports that in 56 Septembers since 1945, the Cubs have played sub-.500 ball 41 times. Overall, their September winning percentage is 29 points lower than their overall mark. The Cubs record in September this year? 9-3. Uh oh. Is this the year the Billy Goat Curse comes to an end?

JOE MAURER, the guy the Twins selected ahead of Mark Prior in the 2001 draft, has been named Baseball America's Minor League Player of the Year. Past winners include Rick Ankiel, Derek Jeter, Manny Ramirez, Andruw Jones (twice), Frank Thomas, and Dwight Gooden (and on the flame-out side, Ron Kittle, Mike Bielecki, and Mike Marshall).

The Twins are one of the few teams to pass on a future superstar (Prior) with the first pick and still come out looking good. In 1966 the Mets had the first pick and grabbed catcher Steve Chilcott -- so the A's took Reggie Jackson #2. In 1984 the Mets again had the #1 pick and initially targeted Mark McGwire... but they opted for Shawn Abner instead.

Counter-examples? In 1987 Mariners owner George Argyros wanted to sign pitcher Mike Harkey with the #1 pick, but his scouting director persuaded him to nab Ken Griffey Jr. instead. A couple years later, the Braves seemed dead-set on choosing Todd Van Poppel, but at the last moment they picked a kid named Larry Jones (his friends called him Chipper).

THE CHUBBY SAMARITAN How come curmudgeons never mention this story when they're talking about today's selfish, overpaid ballplayers?

Posted 7:35 PM by Brian
LIFE SUPPORT It's only the 5th inning as I type this, but the game is over -- it's 11-0, and we're getting out-hit and outscored by the opposing pitcher. So the game is over (unless you believe we're capable of payback for this), but the real question is this: is our season over?

Let's face facts:

1. The Cardinals are having trouble breaking even against horrible teams (Reds, Rockies), and they're getting pounded by good teams (8-14 in the second half vs. teams over .500, including 1-5 vs. the Astros and Cubs).

2. Our division rivals are taking care of business. I wouldn't call either the Cubs or Astros the class of the league (too many holes for each), but for the most part they're winning the games they have to win.

3. We have no pitching. It's well-known that we have no bullpen, but our starters were actually respectable for much of the year. Not so anymore. We eulogized Woody Williams after his last start, and there's little reason to feel any better about him. His ERA since the All-Star break: 6.41. I don't know if that comes from age (he's 37), or all the pitches he's thrown (he leads the NL in pitches per start), or that he's finally falling in line with the rest of his career (he had a 4.32 ERA before coming to St. Louis). Whatever the case may be, you've got to start considering him as just another Tomko or Stephenson right now.

4. Our team sure looks tired. Edmonds (knee) and Renteria (back) are playing through pain, and it shows in their spiralling numbers. Rolen seems rundown (he's been making uncharacteristic errors lately). The team isn't communicating in the field (Vina and Renteria have each made two mental errors in the field the last three games). We're a pretty old team, and we seem to have very little gas in the tank.

We're getting to the point where we need a miracle to pull this thing out. What kind of miracle? Well, nearly all of our players would have to start playing differently than they've played the last few weeks. I'll continue to hope for a miracle (officially anyway), but I won't count on one.

Posted 7:15 PM by Brian
NAMES, ETC. My brother-in-law Alec sends along this priceless addition to our quest for great baseball names.

DAVE PINTO advocates Pujols over Bonds for MVP, primarily b/c of Bert's playing time.

FILTH AND SLANDER This website is making the rounds in Hollywood -- it's basically an online gossip rag that relies heavily on contributions from L.A. waiters and waitresses. I find it hilarious for two reasons:

(a) because well over half of it is undoubtedly untrue; and
(b) at least some of it is undoubtedly true.

And some of it is even trashy gossip about baseball players, which is why we're performing this public service and passing along to you the following slanderous rumors:

George Brett: bisexual
Maury Wills: affair with Doris Day
Mark Grace: cuckolded by Ray Liotta
Cal Ripken: abused wife after catching her sleeping with Kevin Costner
Joe DiMaggio: wife-beater; whoremonger; Mobbed-up
Reggie Jackson: gay or bisexual
Derek Jeter: slutty
Mickey Mantle: frequented brothels
Sandy Koufax: gay
Mike Piazza: has a taste for Latin men

You'd think this site would have the dignity to include the one about Harry Caray sleeping with Augie Busch's wife, which supposedly got him fired as broadcaster for KMOX. And isn't there a rumor about Tito Landrum fathering a child with Tommy Herr's wife?

Posted 11:59 PM by Brian
JUNE 1, 2002 Why is this game significant? It's the last time the Rockies won a road series from a team with a winning record (until today, of course). That was 468 days ago. That may or may not matter much by the end of the year, but I sure regret bulk-ordering those "CARDINALS 2003 WORLD CHAMPS" t-shirts.

Posted 9:20 PM by Brian
GRAND WIZARD Professional moron Phil Rogers contributes an article on managers to ESPN.com. I actually like his structure for the piece -- he tries to categorize different MLB managers according to style, such as "Screamers" (i.e., Larry Bowa) and "26th Men" (i.e., Dusty Baker).

What I admire about his approach is that it gets away from the prevailing opinion (heard mostly on sports call-in shows) that managers are either all-good or all-bad. In reality, most managers are good for some teams and bad for others; it's all a question of fit. Joe Torre, for example, is terrible at whipping a group of clueless also-rans into shape (see his handling of the 1979 Mets); someone like Dick Williams or Billy Martin was better for that task. But Torre is wonderful at getting a bunch of established stars to relax and play loosely, confidently (see his handling of the 1996 Yankees). Context matters.

Having said that, I have to chuckle at Rogers' designation for Tony La Russa: a Grandmaster. Says Rogers, "he's two or three moves ahead of the other guy almost always." Huh? TLR has many worthwhile attributes -- he's generally good at keeping teams prepared and fired-up down the stretch (despite our poor showing this September) and he and Dave Duncan are some of the best in the business at reclaiming veteran arms (again, despite some misfires this year). As for in-game strategy, however, he's as ditzy as they come. Just witness the last few postseasons, when Bobby Cox, Bob Brenly, and Dusty Baker (none of them very good tacticians) maneuvered circles around the man. Besides, with all apologies to Bobby Fischer, only one guy truly deserves the title of Grandmaster.

Posted 8:26 PM by Brian
EGGHEAD ALERT Our Bostonian friend Brendan poses this pop question in light of our recent names post:

What current baseball player's name is worth more Scrabble points than any in baseball history?

The answer is Javier Vazquez. For those of you scoring at home, that's J (8) + A (1) + V (4) + I (1) + E (1) + R (1) + V (4) + A (1) + Z (10) + Q (10) + U (1) + E (1) + Z (10) = 53 points

Of course, you could never lay down those tiles in an actual Scrabble game -- you only get 7 letters at a time (good luck producing "JAVIERVAZQUEZ" as an add-on to a pre-existing word), plus there's only one "Z" in a regulation Scrabble game.

Posted 2:19 PM by Brian
AW, MANNNNNNNNNN.... (That's supposed to be read with a long, slow whine.) You had to figure that Sterling Hitchcock had at least one lousy performance in him. He seems like the type of guy who walks around with a powder keg tucked under his arm and a book of matches in his back pocket. But did you figure that he'd give up 4 homers in fewer than 4 innings? Or that those homers would come off the bats of Ron Belliard, Jay Payton, Kit Pellow, and Juan Uribe? Or that we'd give up 18 hits to the (road-version) Rockies? Or that our own lineup would get schooled by Darren Oliver? Or that Milwaukee would down the Astros? Or that Mark Prior would get cuffed around by the Expos? I didn't expect all those things, but the general story is vaguely familiar: one step forward, two steps back.

LAST NIGHT Pujols became the 5th Cardinal with 40 or more homers. The others? McGwire, Mize, Edmonds, Hornsby. Pretty decent company.

Posted 9:09 AM by Brian
NUMBER QUIRKS David Salvia (a Cards fan in Boston, believe it or not) sends along this factoid, and asks:

LaRussian inspiration, incompetence, or dumb luck?:

Cardinals' record, since June 20, on day after an off day: 1-6

Cardinals' record, since June 20, in first games of series: 6-18

In general the Cards are getting very good at dropping the first games of series. Leaving aside the showdown in Wrigley (oh, that we could), the Birdnut have now lost their last 4 series openers, only to come back and win the final two games. They'll try to make it 5 today.

Another Redbird loyalist, John VonBokel (he should be on our All-Name team), wises us up about our use of statistics and playoff odds (we now have, like, a 4% chance of playing into October). Here's what John has to say:

I've been obsessively checking the Postseason Odds Report as well (until the last couple days anyway), but I recently read the article it's based on. The interesting thing is that in that article, they apply the formula to the playoff teams of 2002 as of last October 1st. The predicted winners of the first round? Yankees, A's, Braves, Diamondbacks. Let's see, that's 0-4. They did a little better in predictions for the LCS and WS (2-1), but they also calculated overall odds of each team winning the championship, and where did Anaheim land? Well, they were the highest ranked of the teams that made it past the first round, but with only an overall chance of 10.4%. So the point I'm trying to make here is as much as I love using statistics to analyze the past, they're not very good for predicting the future.

TONY AWARD Tony La Russa won his 2,000th game last night, good for 8th on the all-time manager's win list. Tony is a healthy 59 years old and still in high demand, which means he figures to get many more wins. How many? Well, let's say he manages for 5 more years at 85 wins per season (I'm just pulling these numbers out of my ass) -- that would put him at 2,425 wins, good for 3rd on the all-time list. Ten years at 85 wins/per and he shoots up past John McGraw into second place. But he'll never top the Taciturn One, Connie Mack, who won 3,731 games, largely because he was both manager and part-owner of the Philadelphia A's for 50 years and never fired himself.

AND A QUICK NOTE The ideal Cardinals lineup that I suggested yesterday was for this year only. I mention it because I believe that Drew, when healthy, should be playing every day, not platooning. A few people asked me about it.

Posted 9:08 AM by Brian
NAMES, NAMES, NAMES A bunch of readers sent in their favorite names and nicknames following our "names" post on Monday. Here are some more to chew on:

Wilmer "Vinegar Bend" Mizell (got a few emails on him; excellent choice)
Pee Wee Reese
Leo "the Lip" Durocher
Bake McBride
Orlando "Cha Cha Cha" Cepeda
Milt "Uncle Meat" Byrnes (That one's from my Mom; Byrnes was a family friend growing up, and a member of the Browns 1944 AL Championship team. My grandmother used to keep the cap that Byrnes wore in the World Series in her bottom drawer, carefully wrapped in tissue, and periodically my Mom and her brothers would be allowed to look at it with awe... I love stories like that.)

(Speaking of the Browns, my Mom also said that she'd always heard that Mickey Mantle had a rained-out audition with the Browns, not the Cardinals. And because the Browns couldn't afford to pay for Mantle's overnight hotel fee, he had to go back to Commerce. Anyone know the true story? I'm basing my original tale on very scant research.)

More names, from Christian Ruzich:

Nap Lajoie -- full name, Napoleon Lajoie. Surprisingly, born in Rhode Island, not France, which might be why his teammates called him Larry. (Matt Rollo also mentioned how non-Frenchies usually butcher the pronunciation of Lajoie's last name. How do you pronounce it? When I was a kid I naively pronounced it "La-JOE-ee," until my grandpa told me it was "LAZH-wee." Is that right?) (Another Lajoie tidbit: for many years -- 1903 to 1914, to be exact -- the entire Cleveland team was known as the Naps, in honor of their captain, Napoleon Lajoie. And their current name, the Indians, is named after an actual Indians player, Louis Sockalexis, who attended my alma mater, Holy Cross.)

Anyway, back to Christian's additions:

Lave Cross -- full name, Lafayette Napoleon Cross. Once again, born in Milwaukee, not France.

And in the nickname section, a few from the first decade of the last century: Frank "Wildfire" Schulte (because of his speed), Charlie "Piano Legs" Hickman, George "Hooks" Wiltse (because he hands as big as meathooks), and two pitchers who threw as fast as moving vehicles, Christy "Big Six" Mathewson and Walter "The Big Train" Johnson.

Edward Nolan, who pitched in the 19th c., was called "The Only" Nolan, but I have no idea why.

Matt Rollo has some great adds as well:

Then there's the group of guys who modified their names to sound less ethnic John Pete Wagner was really Johannes, or "Honus". What a cool nickname too - The Flying Dutchman.

Aloysius Szymanski - Al Simmons. And of course Stanislaus Musial. Stanislaus the Manislaus.

But maybe my favorite baseball name of all time - James Thomas "Cool Papa" Bell. (Ah yes -- Cool Papa Bell... How could I forget. I got his autograph when I was a kid.)

And Redbird Nation staffer Flynn sends in these doozies:

Shortest - Ed Ott
Longest - William VanLandingham

Name that Bob Sheppard, legendary PA guy at Yankee Stadium, said was his all-time favorite to say - Salome Barojas (Sah-low-may Bah-row-has)

Also - Vida Blue, Nate Bump, Bump Wills, Eric/Harry Rasmussen, Chet Lemon, Darryl Strawberry, Don Money, Dave Chalk, Lance Painter, Bob Walk (who pitched!), Rob Picciolo, The All-Q battery Quisenberry and Quirk,

And finally - a tremendous nickname that nobody knows about... minor league hockey player Brent Gretzky (Wayne's
brother) - nickname: The Good One.

I love that. Here's another story I dig from Marty, another of our readers:

Another one, which is only special to me (and my mom)...when I was 5 or 6 years old, I would collect soda bottles in my wagon and return them to the corner market. I would spend all my money on baseball cards. I remember one day running home excitedly, I had to show my mother this card. I ran in the house with a perplexed look on my face as I was holding the card up to the crucifix on the wall. I was comparing the card to the crucifix and yelling for my mom. Mom, Mom, come quick...I just got Jesus on a baseball card...but it doesn't look much like him. You guessed it, Jesus Alou... I thought maybe the Lord had decided to become a baseball player!

Thanks again to everyone who wrote in!

Posted 8:31 PM by Brian
GAME NOTES Cardinals 10, Rockettes 2

• Can he do it? I'm talking about Pujols and the Triple Crown, of course. He's now first in batting average, first in homers, and 8 back in ribbies. That's a lot of RBIs to make up in two and a half weeks. The frontrunner, Preston Wilson, would almost have to stop playing for Pujjy to pass him. Which, come to think of it, isn't that far-fetched. Check out this story following the Dodgers sweep of the Rockies this past weekend:

Perhaps no single scene better captured the Rockies' plight than Preston Wilson gingerly walking to his locker Sunday. He would rather gargle tacks than miss a game, but he was forced out after the third inning with unbearable back spasms near his pelvis. Wilson bowed to the pain after he had to yell for Larry Walker to catch a ball in the third inning.

"When it gets to the point where there are flyballs in the gap, and I am like, 'Come on, guys, get it,' that's a problem," said Wilson, whose back has been bothering him for a few days and flared up when he rammed into the center-field wall in the first inning. "I couldn't move out there."

If Preston has to miss a few games here and there, that could be enough for Albert to achieve full-on Yastrzemskification.

• Hrabosky and Buck made much out of the fact that Brett Tomko was holding his glove higher into his windup, thus improving his balance, thus neutralizing the Rockies. And indeed, he had noticably better velocity and control (it's the most innings he's gone all year without giving up a walk). We'll see if the new mechanics help Tomko his next time out (after all, he was facing a suspect Rockies team and he has a history of following good outings with lousy ones), but sometimes small adjustments like this can pay big dividends. I remember a game two years ago when Woody Williams tweaked the grip on his changeup and upgraded from an okay pitcher to a helluva pitcher. Can Tomko do the same? He's certainly got the raw materials.

• Exchange tonight between me and my girlfriend:

MIRANDA: (seeing Pujols step to the plate) Is Pujols hot?
ME: I guess he's cool-looking.
MIRANDA: Oh wait, I'm getting a better look at him. He just looks like a mean jock.

• Two plays in the 4th inning exemplified the exasperating/tantalizing nature of David Jonathan Drew. In the top of the 4th, Helton singled with one out and the runner on first, Garrett Atkins (go ahead, Berman, make some lame diet joke), was prepared to settle into second. But Drew lazily jogged in to scoop up the hit, assuming Atkins would stop at second. The Rockies third-base coach picked up on this and sent Atkins, who motored into third with one out. Didn't end up being a huge play, but at the time that extra base was large. What's frustrating about it, though, is that it's not an isolated thing -- Drew pulls that stuff all the time, like he's out to lunch. But then in the bottom half of the inning Drew turned on a Scott Elarton pitch up and in and absolutely unloaded it into the third deck. Just a beautiful swing, the kind you could marry. The ball landed 471 feet away, but it wasn't even close to Drew's longest homer of the year. It's moments like this, when Drew follows staggering air-headedness with staggering athleticism, that heat up the debate over whether to sign him this winter.

• Later in the 4th I saw a play I'd never seen before. Vina was running from first, the pitch was low and away, and Charles Johnson gunned the ball from his knees. Elarton, who had no idea Vina was trying to steal, simply speared the throw down to second (Elarton is 6'8"). The throw wouldn't have gotten Vina anyway, but it was a incredibly goofy-looking.

• Tonight was Tony La Russa's 2,000th win in the bigs. We can debate all day long whether TLR is a benefit or a detriment to this team, but you don't win 2,000 games by accident, and you don't do it by being a moron. Congrats, Tony, bad '70s haircut and all.

• The Cardinals still trail the frontrunners in our division, but the scoreboard-watching was pretty fun tonight. Down in Puerto Rico the Expos shaved the Cubs lead to 4-3 in the bottom of the 8th, with runners on first and third, no one out, and Vlad up. Remlinger struck out Guerrero, got the next guy on a comebacker, and it looked like the Cubs were headed to their 7th win in a row. That's when the glass slipper fell off -- the Expos responded with back-to-back doubles (the first on a misplay by Alou) then back-to-back singles to seal the game. The NL Central might feature a lot of blah teams, but the race itself has been thrilling as hell.

Posted 2:20 PM by Brian
GATEWAY ARCHITECTURE Fellow Birdnut Josh Schulz does a nice lineupectomy for the Cardinals; that is, he offers his optimum run-producing lineup for our current crop of players. It's a fun little lab experiment, so we'll try our hand at it as well. Here's our ideal batting order for the 2003 Cards:

vs. RHP
1. Renteria, SS
2. Drew, RF
3. Pujols, LF
4. Edmonds, CF
5. Rolen, 3B
6. Tino, 1B
7. Vina, 2B
8. Matheny, C

vs. LHP
1. Renteria, SS
2. Perez, LF
3. Edmonds, CF
4. Pujols, 1B
5. Rolen, 3B
6. Marrero, LF
7. Matheny, C
8. Hart, 2B

A few explanations:

• Renteria is a tailor-made leadoff hitter, and it mystifies me that La Russa has him buried in the 7 hole. He has a great ability to reach base (.385 OBP), great ability to put himself into scoring position (40 doubles), great speed, and not so much power that you'd be wasting his home runs. In fact, if you pencilled in E-Rent leading off, he'd instantly become the best leadoff hitter in the NL.

• Hitting Renteria first would not only put more baserunners ahead of our big boppers, it would also give Renteria more at bats. Our #7 hitters this year average 4.11 plate appearances per game; our #1 hitters average 4.64 -- that's an extra at bat every other day. Or, put another way, if you led off Renteria, you'd give him almost 100 more at bats per year and take away the same number from Hart or Vina. That's worth one or two wins over the course of a season.

• The one downside to batting Renteria first is that you can't utilize his steals. Leadoff hitters are typically thought of as scrappy little guys who steal bases, but that won't work for our lineup. I mean, would you send the runner with Edmonds and Pujols on deck? Near the end of a tight game, maybe, but otherwise: no way. Our big guys have way too much power (Pujols alone has 86 extra-base hits and counting) for us to risk a caught stealing. You want Renteria to be around as much as possible for the heart of our order.

• Pujols is a perfect cleanup hitter. He has the best combo of power and batting average on our team, which is ideal for a 4th hitter. Think about it: the cleanup hitter is either guaranteed to hit in the first inning with runners on base, or he's going to lead off the second with no one on base. Pujols' .680 slugging and .442 on-base average fit both roles.

• However, I could only bat Pujols 4th against lefties. If he hits third against righties you get to keep things righty-lefty-righty-lefty-righty-lefty-righty, which makes it damn near impossible for the opposing manager to bring in a reliever and get the ideal platoon matchup for more than one batter.

• That leaves Jedmonds to hit cleanup vs. righties and 3rd vs. lefties. I like Jed as a third hitter quite a bit -- he's got a good enough eye to hit ahead of Pujjy, but enough pop to get us on the scoreboard if the first two hitters fail to get on.

• And Rolen is a great fifth hitter. As Bill James pointed out in his 1988 Baseball Abstract, after the #1 hitter the man who leads off an inning more than any other is the #5 hitter. Surprising, I know, but it makes sense. After all, the first inning ends 1-2-3 a little less than 30 percent of the time. The most common leadoff hitter for the second inning is the fifth hitter, typically the one player in the lineup who's least suited to lead off (usually it's a guy like Aramis Ramirez or Pat Burrell). But Rolen, with his .379 on-base average, fills the job nicely.

• I've got Eduardo Perez in the 2-hole against lefties. He has a .359 on-base average overall (.441 against lefties), plus some gap power, so he's a fine guy to have at the top of your lineup. Also, I'd play Perez in the outfield when he's in there and shift Pujols to first. Pujols is sort of a klutz in left but excellent at the bag, and the Cardinals should be making long-term plans to move him there full time.

• You'll notice that I'm platooning Tino. Not sure how the owners would take this, but it's the right move. Tino is horrific against lefties (.219/.301/.342), but decent against righties (.287/.364/.448). That means he hits like Mo Vaughn against LHP and someone like Travis Lee against RHP -- i.e., platoon him.

• I'm also platooning Vina, both to rest him periodically and to hide his .182 average vs. southpaws.

• There's not much hitting at the bottom half of our order. Matheny is fine this year against lefties, but a gaping hole against righties. (We've already discussed our need to find him a platoon mate.) Marrero should improve as he gets healthier. He's a good guy to hit ahead of Matheny and Hart vs. LHPs, especially if his ankle heals and he regains the stolen-base prowess he showed before this year (46 stolen bases, only 9 caught stealing). The stolen base is actually a much more effective weapon at the bottom of your order, when you have guys without much power and must rely more on one-run strategies.

So that's my ideal lineup. It'll change by next year, what with roster moves and the like, but it's a solid configuration for now. I think you can win a game or two with those guys hitting for you.

Posted 1:12 PM by Brian
LEE HARVEY OSWALT (I just like the sound of that.) Houston's Roy Oswalt is scheduled to face the Cardinals and Matt Morris on Saturday. How'd he fare in his first game back after 6 weeks on the shelf? Crack reporter Will Carroll has the goods:

Oswalt was near his normal velocities, reaching the mid-90s in the first inning, but dramatically tailing off. The drop -- from an established 93 to an 86 -- is more than simple fatigue due to lack of conditioning, and the constant adjustments he made to his mechanics were hard to watch. Points for gutting it out to Oswalt, but this is one of those things like watching Ralphie walk in a room during "The Sopranos."

Posted 9:32 AM by Brian
RoY Check this out -- a fascinating about-face from Rob Neyer about Rookie of the Year candidates from the Japanese League.

KODIAKS In case you're curious, here's the Cubs pitching rotation for the rest of the year, courtesy of our friend the Cub Reporter. The Cubs now have four 12-game winners (Prior, Clement, Wood, and Zambrano) for the first time since 1969, plus they're well on their way to becoming only the 2nd team in major league history with more pitching strikeouts than hits allowed. Think about that for a moment: every time their pitchers have an inning where they give up 2, 3, 4 hits, they get 'em all back, and then some, in K's. Remember back in the day when the Cubs rotation featured Doug Bird, Randy Martz, and Allen Ripley? Them's were good times...

MARK PRIOR, MINNESOTA TWIN Has a nice ring, doesn't it? Barry Rozner pokes fun at Minnesota for passing up the Cubs phenom in the 2001 draft (they pre-emptively refused to pay Prior's $10 million price tag). I can't believe the Twinkies didn't snag Prior either, considering Prior was the most sure-fire talent to enter the draft in at least the last 20 years. But the Twins did get Joe Mauer instead, who may be the most valuable property in the minors, so you can't chide them too much.

THE WHITE MANNY RAMIREZ Here's Bob Ryan in the Sept. 3 edition of the Boston Globe, writing about Manny Ramirez:

[W]e all know deep in our heart of hearts that if there is one person in the employ of the Boston Red Sox who is capable of hitting a two-out, two-strike winning home run in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 7 of the World Series, it is Manny Ramirez, to whom, it is distinctly possible, said wallop would mean no more than if he hit a solo, seventh-inning home run against the Twins at City of Palms Park on March 15.

How does Ryan know this? He just does, that's how.

Now, I realize I'm playing the race card here, but picture, if you will, a white athlete with a similar m.o. Let's call him, say, Shawn Green -- a guy, like Manny, who allegedly practices hard, but never shows emotion during games. Now picture this Green character, like Manny, making a ton of money -- say, $15.7 million per year. Now try to picture Bob Ryan going off on Shawn Green in print, basically calling him a heartless player with no soul. That's where the picture breaks down, doesn't it?

DANCING IN THE DARK Check out this home video Red Sox first baseman Kevin Millar made of himself in 1989.

Posted 9:21 PM by Brian
GAME NOTES Rocky Mountain High 8, Cardinals 1

• Entering the game, the Rockies had lost: 13 of 14 overall, their last 10 road games, and more road games than any team in baseball. Sometimes you like those trends, but other times (if you're aware of regression to the mean) you think, "they're due."

• Did the time off help Vina? You wouldn't think so -- after all, he tore the shit out of his hammy -- but over the last three years Fernando is hitting only .259 in September, his lowest of any month. This year he's hitting .435 in September. Perhaps Vina, who's known for playing through pain, is less fatigued than years past.

• I don't know how to say this politely: Jason Jennings has an enormous ass.

• Larry Walker is one of this era's great players, but (like Pete Reiser, Cesar Cedeno, and Tony Oliva) he won't make the Hall solely because of injuries.

• Replays showed that Matheny gunned out Preston Wilson trying to steal in the top of the second, but umpire Larry Vanover called him safe. Wilson later scored ahead of Zaun's homer. It's interesting -- it used to be thought that you stole a base off a catcher. Then sabermetricians made us aware that stolen bases came off pitchers too. Now we're learning that stolen bases also come off of umpires. See, there are no firm standards for out calls at second base. Different umps have different thresholds, such as (a) the ball got to the fielder before the runner is in; (b) the runner is tagged somewhere on his body; (c) the runner is tagged on the leading half of his body; (d) the runner is tagged on his head/arms/shoulders; (e) the runner is tagged somewhere before he touches the base; (f) the runner is tagged on the leading surface with 6" of dirt between the runner and the base; or (g) the runner is caught in a run-down. In this case, Wilson seemed to beat the throw but not the tag, which was good enough for Vanover.

• What is it with Houston Astros catchers? They kill the Cardinals, even after they leave the team. Tony Eusebio was an old backup C for the Astros, and he hit something like .840 vs. the Cardinals. Over the last three years, Brad Ausmus is hitting .300 against the Cards (.246 against everyone else) -- and who can forget his single-handed win over us back in April? Craig Biggio is another Cardinal killer/ex-Houston catcher. And now ex-Astronian Gregg Zaun -- .212/.286/.285 entering the game, but a homer, a double, and four RBIs against us. Yeesh.

• Pujols has a reputation for hitting to all fields -- in fact, we at Redbird Nation opined that this is the secret to his success. But is it accurate? Dave Pinto over at his lively weblog, Baseball Musings, lists the major league leaders in terms of "pull rate." Here are the ranks of all Cardinals with over 200 balls in play (among 264 total major leaguers):

28th Tino
30th Bert Pujols
147th Rolen
164th Jedmonds
182nd E-Rent
225th Thumper Hart
257th Michael "Mike" Matheny
258th O-Pal

So Pujols isn't the spray hitter he's cracked up to be -- in fact, he's in the top 11th percentile among the most extreme dead-pull hitters. So why the rep as a guy who goes the other way? My guess is that we tend to remember Pujols' opposite field hits, but forget just how often he grounds out to third and short. I mean, can you honestly remember Bert ever grounding out to second or first?

What's interesting, however, is that, after Pujols, the Cards lineup is full of hitters who do go the other way. Rolen, Jed, and Renteria all pull the ball less than most, and Hart, Matheny, and Palmeiro are radical opposite-field swingers.

• It's highly unlikely Pujols'll win the Triple Crown this year, but he's making a closer run at it than anybody within memory. He's 1 homer behind the leader, Bonds, and 10 ribs behind tonight's opponent, Preston Wilson. (That's about as close as Larry Walker came in '97, when he finished first in home runs, 10 RBIs behind Galarraga, and 6 batting average points behind Gwynn.) Last July I called out John Perricone, who writes a blog called Only Baseball Matters, for dismissing Albert's Triple Crown hopes as "ridiculous." I made my case to Perricone, told him about it in an email, but naturally he ducked the argument.

• Remember last Wednesday, when La Russa stubbornly insisted on bringing in Fassero rather than Josh Pearce, then defended his blunder by saying, "If you would have made that Pearce move I hope you're a manager in this league because I'd like to go against you." Translation: "Pearce sucks shit; only a moron would ever use him." I've been wondering how a young pitcher like Pearce takes something like that. Apparently he didn't take it to heart too much, because since that comment he's gone 3.2 innings, 1 earned run. Not superlative, and not really indicative of anything except that he can hold his own just fine. With every solid game he pitches (including a good game against the Cubs themselves), La Russa's move becomes that much more indefensible.

• Earlier this evening we suggested that tonight's game is damn near a must-win for the Cardinals. If either the Astros or the Cubs go 9-9, we've got to go 11-6 just to tie. If either do as well as 11-7, we've got to go 13-4. We're not dead exactly, but you might want to have this list handy just in case.

Posted 5:12 PM by Brian
HEAD GAMES According to the latest Postseason Odds Report (a metric which estimates teams' postseason chances by taking into account their performance to date and their remaining schedule), the Cardinals are in trouble. The system gives us a 9.7% chance of making the playoffs, compared to 32.4% for the Astros and a whopping 65.2% for the Cubs.

Which begs a question that was posed by Marty, one of our readers: "how many wins will it take to win (or at least tie) the division?" Marty crunches some numbers to arrive at an estimate:

M. Shannon reported that LaRussa said before the Cincy series that if we win 2 of 3 games in each of the rest of the series, we will win the division. Well, since then, the Cubs have won 3 straight, and we have followed Tony's advice and won 2 of 3... I think we will have to win 14 of or final 18 in order to win the division. Chicago has a soft schedule left, I could see them winning 13 of the 19 games they have remaining. That would put us in a tie with them if both of these scenarios plays out. In order for us to win 14/18 we pretty much need a sweep against a struggling Rockies team with a very bad road record.

In other words, tonight is a must-win game. As are Wednesday and Thursday. Another good reader by the name of David brings up the same question as Marty. His calculations:

The way I figure this is that the Cubs will probably go something like 11-8 at the very worst over their last 19 games: best-case scenario they lose 2 of 3 in Puerto Rico, but then, playing sub-.500 competition the rest of the way, they average taking 2 out of 3 per series from the Mets (2-1); the Reds (4-2); and the Pirates (4-3). Maybe the Pirates would take 4 of 7, but I'll balance that possibility by the odds they take the Reds 5-1, etc.

That would put the Cubs at 87-75.

The Birds would have to go 12-6 to tie, but let's face it, they don't want a one-game showdown with Mark Prior, so let's say they have to go 13-5 to top the Cubs. Can they do it? Say they split vs. Houston (3-3) and then continue their luck vs. Schilling & Johnson (if they face them) and take 2 of 3 from Arizona. That would leave the Birds having to go 8-1 in their 3 series vs. the Rockies and the Brewers. Can they do it?

In my opinion, this next series vs. the worst road team in the league is one the Cardinals have to sweep. If the Cardinals pull something ugly and lose two of three to the Rocks then I think we can start the debate about LaRussa's future.

Well put, guys. It's time for the Cardinals to get out of the shallow end. We can't just tread water and hope to win this thing by default. We need a run, a serious run. It's now or never.

Posted 9:09 AM by Brian
A TALE OF TWO TONIES Rob Neyer rips on Royals manager Tony Pena for his recent misadventures with the bullpen, and I swear nearly every sentence he writes applies just as easily to La Russa. Want to play a fun game? Let's take one of Neyer's paragraphs and replace every mention of Pena with La Russa, and every mention of Jason Grimsley (7.45 ERA since the All-Star Break) with Jeff Fassero:

So why did La Russa twice use Fassero, rather than one of his top relievers, in critical situations? Because Fassero is one of La Russa's guys. In La Russa's mind, unless you're in the doghouse, you're just as good as anybody else, so you're going to play no matter the situation. Sure, one might argue that La Russa's loyalty does wonders for clubhouse morale. But I've got it on good authority that losing is pretty rough on morale. Don't you think that a few of the players were wondering, [last week], why Fassero was allowed to blow that lead?

Isn't that neat? Consider now that both La Russa and Pena share the same first name, both manage in Missouri, and both were raised by Spanish-speaking mothers, and ask yourself if they've ever been seen in the same place at the same time...

DOMO ARIGATO, MR. DELGADO Ex-Cardinal Wilson Delgado's stats since joining the Angels: 9-for-25, .360 batting average, .448 on-base percentage. I insisted, absolutely insisted, we keep that guy. (Okay, maybe not, but I am happy for him, small sample size and all.)

JOE SHEEHAN points out the opponents' winning percentages of the teams left in the NL wild-card hunt:

Cubs .453
Cardinals .482
Diamondbacks .489
Astros .490
Dodgers .509
Marlins .544
Phillies .544

He writes: "Dusty Baker is getting an awful lot of credit for getting the .570 talent he inherited to play .531 baseball. He'll probably be getting a lot more in three weeks."

BARN BURNERS Here's Sheehan again, who seems to be coming down with a touch of Fall Fever:

"Just as an aside, check out the schedule for the week of the 15th. In the mid-week games, the Phillies and Marlins play in Philadelphia, the White Sox and Twins in Minnesota, and the Diamondbacks and Dodgers in L.A. That weekend, effectively showdown weekend, the Royals and Sox play in Chicago, the Astros and Cardinals in St. Louis, the Mariners and A's hook up in Oakland, and the Dodgers and Giants--just one contender, but these two could be 55-95 and play a great series--are in L.A. I'm not a fan of the Wild Card, but if there's ever going to be a week for the sport to steal the audience's attention and get some positive focus on the tremendous excitement generated by races, it's that week."

NOT NOW, GUYS More theft from Baseball Prospectus, this time from Will Carroll:

"Jason Isringhausen is experiencing more shoulder soreness and his availability is limited, forcing TLR to go to his...what’s the polite term?...less than ideally constructed pen of castoffs and has-beens. The Cards are also still playing without Jim Edmonds. His injured knee should keep him out of the lineup until mid-week, at the earliest."

SELIG DE BOURGEON A Montreal radio station somehow pulled the wool over Bud Selig's eyes, even though Selig is himself an expert in the field of wool-pulling. Reprehensible, and wonderful.

Posted 10:52 PM by Brian
MONIKERS Today’s mailbag question comes from a loyal Redbird Nation reader who also happens to have given birth to me. I call her “Mom,” which is a unique and special nickname I coined for her. Here's Mom’s email:

Hey Bri, the other day I was thinking what a neat baseball name Bo Hart is and then I thought, “I’m surprised Redbird Nation hasn’t done a piece on all the great names in baseball.” Enos Slaughter has to be one, also Cal Ripken. Stan Musial isn’t so great but Stan the Man Musial is musical. Is Babe Ruth a great name or is it just that the name itself conveys the best? Anyway, these flew off the top of my head, I bet you could add jillions.

One of the great things about baseball is the sheer volume of it. Hundreds of thousands of games since 1869, tens of thousands of players: that adds up to a lot of names. This season alone, 173 players have made their major league debuts – among them, Koyie Hill, J.J. Putz, Humberto Quintero, Aquilino Lopez, Shane Victorino, Pete Zoccolillo, Rocco Baldelli, Kiko Calero, Chin-hui Tsao, Laynce Nix, Nate Bump, Jason Roach, Bubba Crosby, and, yes, Bo Hart.

Of course, this is just one year. The Baseball Encyclopedia is stocked full of so many good names that we need to break them down into smaller categories. So here goes…

Great Hillbilly Names Baseball has (after hockey) the most hoosiers per capita of any sport in the world, so it’s no surprise there’s a plethora of names that sound better when whistled through a gap in your teeth: Skeeter Barnes, Stubby Clapp, Razor Shines, Jayhawk Owens (his real name), Ody Abbott, Possum Whitted, Jigger Statz, Ping Bodie, Mookie Wilson, Gookie Dawkins, Pokey Reese, and Esix Snead.

Great Latino Names Let’s face it – Latino names are more fun and mellifluous than blunt, upright Anglo names. Luckily baseball has its share of great ones since the Latin explosion of the 1960s: Bombo Rivera, Barbaro Garbey, Arquimedez Pozo, Hansel Izquierdo, Izzy Alcantara, and Diomedes Olivo.

Great Tough-Guy Names Urban Shocker, Enos Slaughter, Brick Smith (which was his birth name). My brother Sean contends that Urban Shocker is the greatest name of all time, in any sport. Can’t argue.

Great Full Names Some names are like Russian novels – they improve with length. Among the best: Ugeth Urtain Urbina, Ulysses Simpson Grant Stoner, Calvin Coolidge Julius Caesar Tuskahoma McLish (but his friends called him Buster, for real), Hawatha Terrell Wade, and the greatest melting-pot name of all-time, Juan Tyrone Eichelberger.

Great Onomatopoetic Names Some players look and play just like they sound. Ty Cobb's name instantly evokes a man as swift and no-nonsense as a switchblade. Kirby Puckett: picture an odd sort of bucket, like the man himself. Mickey Mantle sounds like what he is, a rangy, toe-headed All-American ballplayer. (Here’s an interesting tidbit about Mantle – he was born in Oklahoma, but he grew up in Commerce, a town along the Kansas/Missouri border, so naturally the Mantles grew up Cardinals fans. When the Mick was a teenager, his father Mutt -- Mutt Mantle, another great name -- took him for a tryout with the Redbirds in St. Louis. But unfortunately the tryout was rained out, and the Cardinals never got another look at the wunderkind. Hurts, don’t it?)

Great Ladies' Man Names Call it whatever you want: dash, panache, flair, duende. These guys were born with it: Covelli Crisp, Marvell Wynne, Wily Mo Pena, Satchel Paige, and Valerio de los Santos.

Great Archaic Names Some of these names are old, some just sound ancient – Phenomenal Smith, Mysterious Walker, Scarborough Green, and Roosevelt Brown.

Great Names from the 1993 Indians Pitching Staff Bob Milacki, Mike Bielecki, and Dave Mlicki (you could look it up).

Great Weirdo Names You should never leave the house wearing these names: Ossee Shreckengost, Bill Wambsganss, Boots Poffenberger, Pete Weckbecker, Andy Replogle, Yam Yaryan, Mark Lemongello, and Garth Iorg.

Great Percussive Names Don’t these names sound like bongos? Biff Pocoroba, Bob Unglaub, and Van Lingle Mungo

Foolish Names Bud Weiser and Charlie Wacker.

Banal Names Howard Wall, Greg Legg.

Great Serbian Republic Names Joe Zdeb, Eli Grba, Kevin Mmahat, Emil Yde, Ricky Trlicek, Sal Yvars, Sig Gryska, Joe Kmak, Rocky Krsnich, Monte Pfyl, and, of course, Radhames Dykhoff (thanks to John Shiffert for these).

Great Minor League Names Unfortunately these guys never played in the majors, but they have first-ballot Hall of Fame names: Bladimir Carolfiles, WanderLiner Nova, Xavier Civit, and, my favorite, Wonderful Terrific Monds III (a Braves farmhands; the legend in his family was that his great-grandfather was so thrilled when his wife gave birth to a boy after 11 girls that he exclaimed “wonderful, terrific!” – the name stuck and became a family tradition).

And now for some nicknames...

For the most part I’ve only mentioned given names, birth names. But there are some great players who were known almost exclusively by their nicknames: Dizzy Dean, Kiki Cuyler, Goose Goslin, Minnie Monoso (full name: Saturnino Orestes Armas Minoso Arrieta).

Great names, all. Here are some more of my favorite nicknames:

Bob “Death to Flying Things” Ferguson (because he caught everything)
Arlie Latham, “the Freshest Man on Earth” (after a song from the 1880s)
Frank “the Big Hurt” Thomas (you know why)
Stan “the Man” Musial (coined by Bob Broeg; previously he was “the Donora Greyhound”)

Sal “the Barber” Maglie (for throwing close-shave pitches)
“Sudden Sam” McDowell (for his heater)
Aurelio Lopez “Senor Smoke” (ditto)
“Charlie Hustle” Pete Rose (given to him by Whitey Ford after Ford walked him in a spring training game and Rose sprinted to first)

“Penitentiary Face” Jeffrey Leonard (he had that look)
Hugh “Losing Pitcher” Mulcahy (40-76 lifetime)
Sheldon “Available” Jones
“Full Pack” Don Stanhouse (that’s how much Earl Weaver allegedly smoked when he pitched)

Antonio “the Octopus” Alfonseca (born with 12 fingers, 12 toes)
Amos Rusie, “the Hoosier Thunderbolt”
Lon Warneke, “the Arkansas Hummingbird”
Sandy Koufax “Super Jew” (on the early 60s Dodgers, Larry Sherry was “Rude Jew,” and his brother Norm was “Happy Jew”)

Dave Winfield “Mr. May” (given to him by George Steinbrenner for his postseason failures)
Rich Garces “El Guapo” (means “the Handsome One” in Spanish)
Rusty Staub, “Le Grande Orange” (red hair, played in Montreal)
“Milk and Cookies” Tony Muser (after he suggested his players ease up on the milk and cookies and drink more booze instead)

Mike Hargrove, “the Human Rain Delay” (took forever in the batter’s box)
Will “the Thrill” Clark (I miss that guy)
Dick “Dirt” Tidrow (for the way he dirtied uniform during pregame fielding drills)
Dennis “Oil Can” Boyd (one of 14 children of Negro Leaguer; checked in mental hospital in middle of 1986 season; "oils cans" are beer cans in Mississippi)

Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown (three fingers on pitching hand)
Al Hrabosky, “the Mad Hungarian”
Ruben Sierra, “the Village Idiot” (coined by Tony La Russa)
Frank “Creepy” Crespi (broke his left leg playing army baseball, then broke it again when he crashed into a wall in a wheelchair race)

Ryan Klesko, "T" (coined by Rickey Henderson, who couldn't remember his name)
Ron Gant, “Mr. Noctober” (.219 postseason average with Atlanta)
Danny Graves, “the Baby-Faced Assassin”
Ross Grimsley “Skuz” (would go for months with the same sweatshirt, and days w/o combing hair or using deodorant)

Joe “Dago” DiMaggio (ethnic slurs were big back in the day)
“Little Dago” Billy Martin (coined by Billy Martin himself)
Mike “the Wrong” Maddux (hilarious)
“Hard-Hittin’” Mark Whiten (12 rbi’s)
“Super Joe” Charboneau (Rookie of the Year flameout, used to open beer bottles with his eye socket)

“The Iron Horse” Lou Gehrig (classic)
Luke “Old Aches and Pains” Appling (notorious hypochondriac)
Mickey “Gozzlehead” Rivers (used to call people “Gozzlehead,” a word he picked up from the ghetto; once Reggie Jackson boasted that he had an IQ of 160, and Rivers said, “Out of what, 1,000?”)

Jim Bibby, “Fontay O’Rooney” (Bibby called himself this, and no one knew why)
John Lowenstein, “Captain Midnight” (b/c he wore sunglasses all the time, even at night)
Bo “Thumper” Hart (invented by Redbird Nation; use it)
“Carl Reggie Smith” Reggie Smith (derisively given by his teammates for his attempts to “act like a white man” – namely, Carl Yastremski – “trapped in a black man’s body”)

Lenny “Nails” Dykstra (like Penguin Cey, perfectly evocative)
Carl “Skoonj” Furillo (short for “scungilli,” or “snail” in Italian, b/c he was so slow)
Steve Garvey “Mr. Perfect” (used mockingly by teammates)
Bill “Spaceman” Lee (sprinkled marijuana on his cereal; used to wear a t-shirt in the Sox clubhouse that read “friendship first, competition second”)

Lonnie “Skates” Smith (played left field like he was wearing skates)
Ron “the Penguin” Cey (ever seen him?)
“Dr. Strangeglove” Dick Stuart (ever seen him field?)
Dave "Oops" Stewart (name the Dodgers hung on him when he thought he was picking up a hooker, only to find out it was a cross-dressing cop)

Those are all the names I got, Mom. Thanks to Baseball Primer, Rob Neyer, and the Baseball Library for a lot of this research. And if anyone has any other names they’d like to share, pass 'em along.

But remember, if you want some real good names – even better than baseball – you gotta go to college hoops: Exree Hipp, God Shammgod, Boubacar Aw, Godlove Mwamsojo, Uche Okafor, Scientific Mapp, his brother Majestic Mapp, Bebop Walker, Alico Dunk, and even a guy who used to play for LSU named Shaquille O’Neal.

Posted 11:32 PM by Brian
DRAMA QUOTIENT Today’s game was essentially over by the first inning, with the Cards jumping all over Reds starter Seth Etherton, and Matt Morris subduing the Small Red Machine from the get-go. It was an undramatic end to a week full of drama.

But precisely how dramatic was this past week? Was the showdown with the Cubs our most dramatic series of the year? Was it the most dramatic Wrigley series of all time? Can you measure such a thing?

Now, I know what you’re thinking: those are stupid questions. And I agree; they are pretty stupid. After all, if you really want to measure the drama of a baseball game, simply hold your hand to your carotid artery and count your heartbeat. Besides, you might ask, why do you need to measure drama anyway? Either you feel it or you don’t, right?

Well, yes. But I get a kick out of little formulas anyway. If nothing else, they're grist for hot-stove arguments. So I've come up with something called DQ, or Drama Quotient. If you want to measure a game’s DQ (or Drama Quotient), assign points in the following categories:

The Scoreboard
Give 2 point for each inning after the fifth (but before extra innings) in which the teams are tied or within one run;
Give 1 point for each inning after the fifth in which the teams are within 2 runs (don’t give overlapping points if you’ve already given points for the above);
Give 3 points for each extra inning (to a maximum of 25 points);
Give 3 points for each lead change;
Give 3 points for each blown save;
Give 2 points for each save;
Give 5 points if the game-winning run scores in a team’s final inning at bat;
If a team overcomes a deficit of 4 or more runs, give 2 points for each run that’s overcome (i.e., if one team erases a four-run deficit, that’s 8 points; five-run deficit: 10 points; and so on)

Individual Pitching Performances
Give 10 points if a pitcher carries a no-hitter into the 7th inning;
Give 20 points if a pitcher carries a no-hitter into the 8th inning;
Give 25 points if a pitcher carries a no-hitter into the 9th inning;
Give 30 points if a pitcher pitches a no-hitter;
Give 35 points for a perfect game (NOTE: points for no-hitters shall not overlap; if a guy pitches a no-hitter into the 8th, he receives 15 points, NOT 15 + 10 points);
Give 5 points for each strikeout a pitcher has over 15

Individual Hitting Performances
Give 1 points if a player hits 2 home runs;
Give 4 points if a player gets 5 or more rbi’s;
Give 5 points if a player hits 3 home runs;
Give 5 points if a player gets 5 or more hits;
Give 7 points for each walk-off homer;
Give 10 points if a player hits for the cycle;
Give 25 points if a player hits 4 home runs

Team Stats
Give ½ point for each triple;
Give ½ point for each outfield assist at second or third;
Give 1 points for each team LOB past 7;
Give 2 points if each team has a HBP;
Give 2 points if the attendance is 30,000 or more;
Give 4 points for each grand slam;
Give 4 points for each outfield assist at home ;
Give 10 points for each triple play

Season Situation
Give 1 point if the game occurs in August;
Give 3 points if the game occurs in September;
Give 20 points if it is a divisional series game;
Give 25 points if it is a championship series game;
Give 30 points if it is a World Series game;
Give 25 points if it is a Game 7 (or Game 5 in a divisional series)

A few explanations:

* I wanted to limit point totals to things you can measure by looking at a box score. Things like great catches and bean brawls are surely fun and dramatic, but you can’t go back to games from, say, 1971 and factor them in. (Although I tried to include brawls in a small way – a game will accumulate more points if both teams hit opposing batters.)

* I happen to think all triples are exciting, even in an 11-0 game, so I gave them a little shout-out.

* The attendance points might seem goofy, but there’s no denying that a packed house generates more excitement than almost anything that happens in the Stade Olympique echo chamber

* The points for August/September could backfire too, as a game between the Orioles and Indians in September will generate even less drama than Opening Day between these two teams, but overall I figured games down the stretch were more thrilling. I also wanted to include some credit if the game had playoff implications, but there was no easy way to factor that in.

So let’s figure out the Drama Quotient for each game this past week, and see if it gives an accurate reflection of the drama on the field.

Monday: 8 points
Mark Prior kept this game thoroughly undramatic. The only real points were from all the runners the Cubs left on early. Otherwise, a snooze. (Note: the official attendance was 38,410, but at least half those fans were gone after the rain delay, so I chose not to award points for the crowd.)

Tuesday, Game One: 52.5 points
A ton of action in this game, most of it due to the marathon pitching duel and Sosa going yard to end it. The half-point is for Palmeiro pegging Alou at third base in the 9th.

Tuesday, Game Two: 18 points
The Morris gem. This game was actually more exciting than the DQ suggests, but there was no real way to account for the beanballs from Wood, the miscall by the ump, the subsequent near riot.

Wednesday: 53.5 points
According to the DQ, this game was almost exactly as dramatic as the 15-inning job, which sounds about right. It featured a huge Cubs comeback, a late collapse by the Cards, a grand slam, a beanball exchange, five hits from Alou, etc., etc.

Thursday: 32.5 points
I didn’t find the series finale nearly as exciting as the nightcap of the double header, but DQ says otherwise. Although there were three lead changes, and both the Cards and Cubs within a run of each other from the fifth inning on.

Friday: 37.5 points
A definite flaw in the system. If you just looked at the scoreboard – a pitcher’s duel, a comeback in the ninth against Izzy, a handful of extra innings, even Taguchi pegging a runner at home – you might think this was a gut-wrencher. It wasn’t.

Saturday: 9 points
This one was only marginally more exciting than the Prior game, mostly because the Cards erased an early 3-0 Reds lead.

Sunday: 21 points
Almost all the drama was derived from the no-hitter Matt Morris took into the 7th inning. Otherwise it was about as thrilling as the average episode of Six Feet Under.

So what was our most exciting game of the year? The system says it was the 20-inning game against the Marlins on April 27th, which earns a 76.5 DQ rating. That one was truly epic: 11 extra innings, a five-run comeback by the Marlins in the bottom of the ninth, a runner nailed at home, 37 combined runners left on base.

As for the most exciting game of all time, I don’t know. Game 7 of the ’91 World Series gets a 79. Don Larsen’s perfect game earns a 71. And Game 7 of the ’60 World Series lands an 85. Not bad, but the fact that a game in April between the Cardinals and Marlins rates in the same vicinity suggests that DQ could use some adjustments.

So take the formula with a few grains of salt -- it's all in good fun. You could also go back and figure out which teams are the most dramatic of all time – the ’69 Mets? The 1914 Miracle Braves? The system might have practical applications as well. You could, for example, see if “momentum” is an actual influence – for example, are teams that win dramatic games more likely to win the following game? Do teams reputed to have good clubhouse chemistry (say, the 2002 Cardinals) win more dramatic games than teams with supposedly poor clubhouse atmospheres (say, the 2003 Phillies)? My guess is that neither momentum nor team chemistry are quantifiable, but it might be fun to find out.

But the most practical application for Drama Quotient is that you no longer need newspaper accounts of games, nor wordy paeans to tightly contested battles, nor even Redbird Nation – hell, you might not even have to watch baseball games ever again. Instead, just input box scores into an Excel program, have it spit out a series of numbers for each game – 24… 16.5… 31 – and relive all the chills and thrills of a real-live ballgame.

Posted 10:25 PM by Brian
CLEARING THE COBWEBS

Don't be sad
'Cause two out of three ain't bad
-- Meatloaf

But with the Cubs sweeping the Brewers on the "road" (reportedly traveling Cubs fans turned Miller Park into Wrigley Field North), three out of three would have been a hell of a lot better. Especially when you look at the collective linescore for the series:

....................R.....H.....E
Reds...........10...22....6
Cards.........24....37....0

The Cardinals had more than twice as many runs, almost twice as many hits, and infinitely fewer errors than the Redlegs, but we couldn't nail down the sweep.

There wasn't much to learn from this series except for the obvious: (a) Morris is back, big time; and (b) Woody is back, as in he's fully morphed into the journeyman who used to pitch for the Padres and Blue Jays. He's now allowed 5 or more runs in over half of his last 17 starts.

St. Louisans used to assess their playoff hopes by despairing, "Can you imagine Brett Tomko as our Game 3 starter?" It's now turned worse: "Can you imagine Woody Williams as our Game 2 starter?"

Posted 1:56 PM by Alec
ACK Todd Van Poppel's last 11 games:

July 9, 1 IP, 4 H, 4 ER
July 7, 2 IP, 2 H, 1 ER
July 6, 0.1 IP, 2 H, 3 ER
July 3, 2 IP, 0 H, 0 ER
May 25, 1 IP, 3 H, 2 ER
May 24, 0 IP, 4 H, 5 ER
May 22, 1.1 IP, 1 H, 0 ER
May 15, 2 IP, 2 H, 1 ER
May 10, 2 IP, 2 H, 0 ER
May 8, 2.1 IP, 3 H, 1 ER
May 3, 4 IP, 5 H, 3 ER

Last night the Cards made Van Poppel look like a Cy Young candidate:

6 IP, 2H, 0 ER

Posted 9:15 PM by Brian
CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADJECTIVE Bleak. Depressing. Somber. Dismal. Dispiriting. Funereal. I honestly didn't think this team could fall this far this fast. Not just for the week (on Sunday we had sole possession of first place), but in this game. After three batters we had two hits, two runs, a line-shot homer by Pujols, a relaxed home crowd, and an opponent phoning it in. By the next inning the Reds starting pitcher was done for the evening, and it was starting to seem like one of those refreshing spa-treatment games, a cleansing way to rid the body of harmful Wrigley toxins.

And after that: nothing. From our hitters, that is. Sterling Hitchcock once again pitched terrifically -- 7 strong innings to bring his ERA with St. Louis to 0.95. But our hitters didn't do a thing. Thoroughly shut down. Four hits and no runs in 36 at bats against the likes of Todd Van Poppel (7.50 ERA entering tonight's game), Phil Norton (also 7.50), John Riedling (5.24), Scott Randall (11.25), and Chris Reitsma (4.01).

For the nth time this week, the middle of our lineup deserves a huge chunk of the blame. This is what some of our 5-6-7 hitters are doing this week:

Scott Rolen 6-31
Tino Martinez 1-15
Miguel Cairo 3-20
Orlando Palmeiro 3-22
Edgar Renteria 1-20

Collectively, that's 14-108, a flaccid .130 batting average. Astounding. What's more astounding is that the Cardinals began the night a mere game out of first, starting a long homestand for the September stretch drive, and yet Busch Stadium was so quiet you could honestly hear, on the TV broadcast, people conversing with each other in the stands.

Posted 12:18 PM by Flynn
PIECES OF GUM As a card-carrying member of Redbird Nation (and my card is a 1982 Bob Forsch Topps) I was, like all of us, devastated by the horrendous 1-4 showing this week at Ye Olde Wrigley Shoppe of Horrors. The pain that I suffer, however, is vastly more acute than most of yours. You see, I live in Chicago. On the North Side. About a mile from Wrigley. I was born and raised in the Lou, but various circumstances (job, wife) brought me to Carl Sandburgland. As I rode the L into school today I stared out while passing Wrigley Field to witness the scene of the crime. The bastards still had that stupid white “W” flag flying from yesterday. Kill me now.

This series, more than any I can remember, brought out the asshole in a lot of Cub fans. There was outright vengeance in the cheering this week. There was a definite sense of people behaving like they had been “done wrong” and were getting back at their transgressors. The poor Cubs were finally getting the upper hand on the bully Cardinals. Hmmm... who could that attitude have come from?

The air was charged, to say the least. As my mom would say, “Well, they’ve never been there before and they just don’t know how to behave.” Whatever it is, the North Side was, and is, up for grabs right now.

I went to Monday’s game and saw Mark Pri000000000r prove why he's the best pitcher in baseball right now. More notes on that will follow. Tuesday’s game was witnessed piecemeal, which is, if you have the luck of Dusty Baker, a tremendous way to experience a game. I had business all over downtown Chicago that day so I spent the five hours of the game ducking in and out of bars and places with TVs to catch blurbs of action. I saw Renteria strike out with the bases loaded while standing in a crowd of suits at the bar of a Benigans (nobody even bothered ordering anything). I was in a deserted burrito place with six Mexican guys when Palmeiro made his catch in the ninth. And I walked into a lobby at the exact moment Sosa lit up Fassero, who, by the way, should be called the Sheriff because he is the leader of the posse of arsonists the Cardinals call a bullpen.

Some notes –

On Monday Prior stuck out, in succession, Kerry Robinson and So Taguchi. I have not researched this but I am pretty sure that is the first time number zero and number ninety-nine whiffed consecutively.

Prior has the Giant Sequoia legs and knows how to use them, the good looks, the smarts, the great heater, the poise, and the hopes of a beleaguered franchise on his back... Sounds like this guy to me. As a Birdnut fan I can only hope Mr. Prior isn’t Terrific against us his whole career.

Stuff about Wrigley Field:

The giant scoreboard in center field is a fantastic part of the Wrigley experience. I'd buy a ticket on an off day and just sit and watch the guys work the scoreboard if I could.

For a while I was confused about the numbers that preceded a team’s name for the out-of-town scores. For example, you’d look up and see:

1 St. Louis
14 Cincinnati

Well, of course the Super Genius who would invariably sit behind me would announce, condescendingly, “Those are their pitchers, you twit. Obviously number 1 is pitching for the Cardinals and number 14 is pitching for the Reds.” Of course, knowing much more than Super Genius, I would say “Oh, thanks Cub fan. I hope Ozzie is doing well against Pete Rose today.” To which he would burp and mumble something about how terrible it is that stadiums are now being named after companies. (While he is sitting in Wrigley Field. Hello, Juicy Fruit?) I have since learned that those numbers, dear scoreboard watcher, correspond to how the pitcher is listed in the Cubs scorecard. So, you have to have a scorecard to make sense of the scoreboard. There you go.

What about those quaint rooftops? They are pretty cool. But, how quaint? Well, a ticket to a rooftop runs about $125 a person and includes beer and a spread of hot dogs, brats, and such. Oh, did I mention they don’t open until 25 minutes before the game and shut down 5 minutes after the game? Oh, and if the game goes longer than 3 hours they shut down the food and beer. Oh, and there are two owners who control about 10 of the 12 rooftops. Real quaint.

How about the roof that has that Miller Lite sign? Last year it was Sears, and for many years before 2002 it was Torco. Two old ladies who don’t want anything to do with the rooftop crowd, but who do appreciate the revenue from the sign, own that building. There was a story in the Tribune last year that Sears paid them $400,000 to put their sign on their roof. They got the cash and, I think, matching striped corduroy pantsuits.

There is one holdout house, two doors down on Kenmore (behind the Budweiser house), where three guys just get up there with lawn chairs, a cooler, and a Hibachi and take in a few games. These men should be given Nobel Prizes.

Murphy’s Bleachers? – How about $5 for a can (not even a bottle) of Bud? And no, that is not “just what you have to pay around here.” Most places sell pints of beers like Bass for $3.50 to $4. Bud is a bit less. And Jim Murphy, my former neighbor and late owner of the bar, was one of the most conniving, selfish, disliked men in the whole neighborhood. Night games at Wrigley, which he campaigned for until his death, are bad the community, a strain on the residents, and not really necessary for revenue. Jim Murphy simply wanted more business for his bar and disguised (badly) his desire as a representative of the community.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Wrigley Field. It is a beautiful ballpark and a terrific place to catch a game. There are “onion grinders” at the condiment stands for your hot dog (Wrigley hot dogs are from Hebrew National; their slogan – “We answer to a higher authority.”), the view of the North Shore skyrises to the east is great, and the inviting and relaxed atmosphere of bars and restaurants surrounding the park can’t be beat.

A game at Wrigley is a blessed experience if only because none of the players have “theme songs” and music is only played between innings, not between batters, pitches, or breaths, like it is almost everywhere else.

The greatest thing about Wrigley, though, can be summed up in one word: troughs.

See you at the Confines next year!

Posted 9:18 AM by Brian
FASSER-OW Rob Neyer weighs in with his thoughts about Cards penman Jeff Fassero:

Fassero is 40 years old, but of course that doesn't disqualify somebody from pitching in the major leagues. Jamie Moyer (17-6, 3.59), David Wells (12-6, 4.45), and Roger Clemens (13-8, 4.01) are all 40 (actually, Clemens just turned 41).

But with Fassero, you get the idea that he's pitching for the Cardinals not despite his age, but because of it. And it seems to me that being 40 is a pretty lousy reason to have a job pitching important innings for a team that's in a pennant race.

Here are Fassero's ERA's for the last five seasons, including this one:

7.20
4.78
3.42
5.35
6.04

Now, I'm certainly not a scout, but just looking at those numbers I get the distinct impression that Fassero's roster spot might be better, or at least more cheaply, filled by some kid from the Lickskillet League. And this season, in addition to that 6.04 ERA he's won one game and lost seven. If you're looking for reasons why the Cardinals are in second place rather than first, Fassero's season-long presence has to rank somewhere near the top.

HEALTH REPORT And medhead extraordinairre Will Carroll has the scoop on some recent irregularities:

[I]n the unexpected category, Eduardo Perez underwent an appendectomy and is lost to the Cardinals for at least two weeks, and likely for the remainder of the regular season. With those injuries behind us, I’m still stunned that TLR elected to use Woody Williams as a de facto closer. Williams was scheduled to throw his side session [on Wednesday], but that’s much different from being thrown into a game that matters as much as this one. With a bullpen decimated by injury, ineffectiveness, and a doubleheader that included extra innings, TLR made his play and could have done more damage than good. Williams is expected to make his scheduled start.

Losing Eddie Perez for the rest of the season could be huge. He's devastating against lefties, which makes him a particularly useful platoon partner for J.D. Drew, who seems to hit just fine as long as he's given adequate rest. Perez's absence makes both Drew and our bench weaker, and as we've seen this past week, we need all the depth we can get.

THE AFTERMATH We suggested a week or two ago that the Cardinals should win 5 of the 8 games vs. Chicago in August and September to give themselves a good shot at the division crown. Why? Because the Cubs' schedule the rest of the way is a breeze. While the Cardinals and Astros bash each other's brains out for 6 games, the Cubbies play the Brewers, the (fading) Expos, the Reds (6 games), the Mets, and the Pirates (7 games). Only one of those teams (the Expos) is over .500, and just barely.

Silver linings: the series against Montreal is in Puerto Rico, and it's reportedly hurricane season. Travel and weather hang-ups could fatigue the Northsiders. Also, both Moises Alou and Aramis Ramirez got banged-up in Thursday's game and might sit for tonight's contest against Ben Sheets and the Brew Crew.

AND ONE FINAL PINPRICK If you haven't sufficiently relived the agony of our recent debacle at Wrigley, check out this stat:

Rolen and Renteria combined to leave 31 runners on base for the five games. They drove in one run.

Posted 11:13 PM by Brian
LIVE FROM CUBLAND Christian Ruzich, who writes a terrific Cubs blog called the Cub Reporter, wrote me last weekend and proposed a little exchange program: both of us would air out our thoughts about the five-game Cards-Cubs series and post them on each other's site. So I have a few things to say over at the Cub Reporter, and we've set aside some cyber-real estate for Christian here. I hope you enjoy his wrap-up as much as I do -- somehow the losses go down easier when your oppressor has a human face. So without further ado, here's Mr. Cub Reporter himself:

The last four days saw an all-time classic Cubs-Cardinals series, made more important than usual by the fact that both teams were in the playoff hunt in September for the first time since '89. Wrigley Field played host to a 24-inning pitcher's duel doubleheader, ejections, managerial bone-headedness, terrible defense, and much more. We had things you wouldn't believe: Cardinals saying they wanted to play for the Cubs, Cubs belly-bumping umpires, managers yakking at each other from the top step of the dugout, pitchers hitting pitchers, dogs and cats living together. It was anarchy. When the dust cleared, the only thing pretty about it was the result, as the Cubs had leapfrogged the Cardinals in the standings.

Let me put on my pessimist's hat (it's very comfortable for a Cubs fan) and tell you it could have been much worse for the Cubs. Game one was really the only game that the Cubs won easily, behind stellar pitching (all 130 pitches of it) by Mark Prior. Game two, the 15-inning affair, saw Moises Alou make one of the dumbest baserunning decisions ever, trying to go from first to third on a single to shallow left. Only eight innings of one-hit relief from the recently shaky bullpen and a questionable call on the ball Pujols "dropped" (the first of many bad calls in the series) put the Cubs in a position to win. When the top of your order is Tom Goodwin and Tony Womack, you better hope Sammy Sosa has a 15th inning home run in his bat. Game three's lineup, which included Troy O'Leary, Alex Gonzalez, and Paul Bako, created about as much offense as you might expect, which is to say none.

Game four turned out to be a battle of the bullpens, with the Cubs' bad one (3.1 IP, 4 hits, 3 walks, and the grand slam) just nosing out the Cardinals' abysmal one (3 IP, 7 hits, 6 runs), thanks to the odd decision to bring back Monday's starter, Woody Williams, and pitch him in relief. This is a move truly worthy of Sooper Genius(TM) status, though it pales in comparison to the decision by Dusty Baker to turn to Shawn Estes, the worst starter in the majors, for the final game of the series. All year, Baker has given Estes the ball and Estes has failed to respond, and yesterday was no different, as Estes threw five innings of nine-hit ball and got his ERA back up over 6.00, where it hadn't been since his epic two-inning, 12-hit, game-score-of-4 outing at Coors in late April.

But, as down in the mouth as all that sounds, the fact is the Cubs took the series. As I wrote last week, the Cubs and Cardinals are, in many ways, mirror-image teams. The Cards can hit like crazy; the Cubs actually improved their offense by trading for Randall Simon. The Cubs have the best young rotation in the league; the Cards put Jeff Fassero in their rotation and it wasn't done ironically. I wrote last week that the eight games these two teams played would help us determine whether the cliche that good pitching beats good hitting was true, but I don't think we know the answer to that any more now than we did a week ago. All I know is that the Cubs are only a half-game out of first, but my excitement is tempered by the fact that the Cardinals are only a game out. This division isn't going to be decided until at least the 28th of this month.

Before I go back to writing on my own site, let me say a few things about some of the Cardinals players. Jim Edmonds is a guy I'd love to have on my team so I could root for him. He seems like the biggest red-ass in the game, he's got that upper-cut swing that looks ridiculous except when he hits the ball out with it, and he's got an arm like a cannon. Hell of a player. Rolen and Renteria are pretty damn good, too, and then there's Pujols. He just seems like an old soul, someone who's wise beyond his years. He has a veteran presence that you just don't expect to see from a 23-year-old. And man, can he hit. He'll probably win the MVP award this year, even though he won't deserve it, and it won't be his last.

There are some good guys on this team, and to me that makes a rivalry a lot more enjoyable. I'd much rather see my guys going up against players I respect and fear -- it makes the hard-fought victories seem that much sweeter. Of course, all the Tino Martinez in the world doesn't make up for a punk like Kerry Robinson. How's that 0-for-9 taste, number zero?

And with that, I leave you. The Cubs and Cards aren't scheduled to meet again this year, though I wouldn't be surprised if they do play again in a game or games that mean even more than these last five did. If they do, I can only hope the games are as exciting as this series was.

Posted 1:54 PM by Mark
DOPE La Russa just put Josh Pearce into a 6-5 game, with a runner in scoring position. Using his own logic, he's a lousy manager.

By the way, Pearce got out of that jam and escaped unscathed from the next ining as well.

Posted 9:19 AM by Brian
ENEMY TERRITORY Here's an interesting blog from a Cubs fan named Al Yellon. What's interesting about it is that Al has as many gripes about Dusty Baker's mismanagement of yesterday's game as we do La Russa's. I've never thought much about it til this year, but Dusty and Tony seem more and more like two peas in a pod. Both have a fetish for "proven veterans," both tend to ride their pitchers hard, both make incredibly bizzarre bullpen choices, both can get too emotionally wrapped up in games, both play favorites to an extreme. The difference is that Baker got luckier yesterday, just as he did in the '02 NLCS.

Posted 3:23 AM by Matt
LARUSSA'S A JOKE Tony LaRussa managed today's game as if he was on the Cubs' payroll. While the statistics Brian cites below might lend some justification to bringing in Fassero in back-to-back games, I would be extremely surprised to learn that Fassero has pitched in any game after he's thrown over 40 pitches the day before. And the worst thing was that it was clear pretty quickly that Fassero was even worse than he usually is (which is so bad that you'd have to invent a new adjective to describe it), but Tony had no plan B, only some misguided hope that Fassero somehow would pitch differently than he has in relief all year. Yes, you can blame Jocketty for this, and I do, but a manager's also got to work with what he has, and for LaRussa to force himself into a position where he can only pray that his fatigued, 89 year-old pitcher can get through an inning is absolute managerial negligence. And given his limited options in the bullpen, isn't it totally obvious that his plan A should have been to allow Dan Haren to give up more than one run before pulling him? LaRussa pulled a pitcher whom he was afraid was gonna get tired and shelled with a tired pitcher who's gotten shelled in relief all season long. Steve Stone and Chip Caray were salivating when LaRussa put Fassero in, and throughout the 6 batters he left him in for, and I would have been if I were a Cubs' fan, too. I would say LaRussa's moves are mind-boggling, but they're really not. I've been watching him manage for years now, and I think he's just a really stupid person who's terrible at his job. It's that simple.

Bernie Miklasz asked him why he didn't bring in the fresh-armed Josh Pearce and LaRussa gave a stupid, arrogant, non-answer: "If you would have made that Pearce move I hope you're a manager in this league because I'd like to go against you." What did LaRussa prove today other than that he's a manager that every manager should love to go against everyday, because he'll hand you the game on a silver platter?

This Cardinals team has a core of players that could lead us to a World Championship. We're so close. But we need an architect who can creatively fill in the roster with guys that will complement that core, and an on-field executive who will make choices that give us our highest-percentage shots to win. Jocketty's not that architect and LaRussa's not that executive. After we lose this year – whether it's in the playoffs or at the end of the regular season, I'd bet my big toe that we will once again be nothing more than also-rans – it's time for them to go.

Posted 10:52 PM by Brian
HARENGATE Read between the lines, and you can tell Haren wasn't happy about being pulled from today's game after 5 innings and 67 pitches:

"[La Russa] didn't really ask me how I felt," said Haren. "It was never an issue if I was tired. I felt good all the way to the end... I could've kept going."

Redbird Nation wasn't too happy about the move either, but we waited to hear La Russa's reasoning before passing judgment. La Russa's alibi:

"If you take a look at a couple of [Haren's] games, when he gets into the second part like the other day in Cincinnati... there had been a lot happening in those first five innings... He had already passed the test for the day." If you can get past the busted grammar, I think La Russa's point is that he wanted to pre-empt Haren from hitting a wall after going through the Cubs' lineup a couple times.

And to La Russa's credit, there's some justification for that logic. Haren does tend to hit a wall in the middle innings: after 60 pitches, opposition batters are hitting .341 against him with a .568 slugging percentage (compared to .263 and .395 before 60 pitches). And as for bringing in Fassero after throwing him into the fire on Tuesday, TLR has some stats on his side there too. Working on back-to-back days, Fassero has a 2.46 ERA in 16 games. In light of those numbers, La Russa's moves appear slightly more justified.

On the other hand, this wasn't a normal game. We were severely short-handed out of the bullpen -- neither De Jean, Eldred, nor Izzy was available to pitch (De Jean was ready on an "emergency only" basis, and I quite literally think Orlando Palmeiro would have pitched before Isringhausen or Eldred). What's more, Haren did have a 5-run cushion to work with. So you'd think La Russa would have actually let Haren screw up, rather than working off of some presumptive screw-up that never came to pass.

Posted 3:17 PM by Brian
A NEW LOW Tony La Russa did a great job putting J.D. Drew in the lineup moments before the start of today's game. Unfortunately, that was the last good move he made all day. Everything after that was a disaster.

He pulled Haren too early (67 pitches!), he brought in the wrong guy (Fassero) to relieve him, he stuck with Springer (8 HRs in 15 innings) too long, he brought in Woody Williams (two losses in three days) when he clearly wasn't fit to pitch, and he decided to pitch to Alou (5-5 on the day) rather than Randall Simon (0-5).

Some of these moves are more defensible than others. Perhaps Haren, a 22-year-old who's been flogged this year more than ever, could only pitch 5 innings or so. Perhaps Springer and Fassero were our only arms in the pen. Perhaps all indications were that Woody Williams (rather than a better-rested Garrett Stephenson) was ready to go. Perhaps La Russa favored pitching to Alou rather than Simon because Alou is generally worse against righties (.255 average vs. Simon's .278). So you can forgive La Russa as much as you want. But at the end of the day, every move he made was wrong.

Of course, there were other goats too. Rolen left 6 runners on base. Renteria looked utterly lost (1 for 15 in the series and a mammoth error in the bottom of the 8th). And we suffered from our fair share of bad luck -- the 24 innings yesterday depleted our pen, and Eddie Perez's appendectomy limited TLR's maneuverability (perhaps we'd have seen the righty Perez, and not the lefthanded Tino, at plate with first and third and one out in the top of the 8th).

But when you get right down to it, the real culprit for this loss is Walt Jocketty. I hate to hammer this point home, because Jocketty's been a great GM for the Cards, plus I'm not privy to the orders he gets from upstairs. But the fact is that this five-game series has been on the book for 3 months. We knew we were going to need arms, lots of 'em, if we wanted to stare down the Cubs. And instead Jocketty brought a collection of kitchen knives to a gunfight.

Fassero? Springer? Those guys are trying hard; it's not their fault they're so lousy. But it's worth asking again: why didn't Jocketty and the Cardinals claim Felix Heredia off waivers when he could have been had for the picking? The Reds waived him last week and we passed on him. He's got a 2.96 ERA in 60 games. His pro-rated salary is about $100,000. When you figure that a playoff appearance would be worth well over a million dollars to the Cardinals coffers, and then add in the escalating ticket sales for 2004, then I can't see how that money wouldn't be a reasonable gamble.

Would Felix Heredia have made a difference in game one yesterday, or in today's game? That's the painful part: we'll never know.

Posted 12:00 PM by Brian
BUSHERS The minor league season ended yesterday, with the Cardinals farm system compiling a cumulative 224-262 record. That works out to a .461 winning percentage, or 75-87 over the course of 162 games, about what the Pirates, Rangers, and Rockies are doing this year.

The Memphis Redbirds finished dead last in their division in the Pacific Coast League, but our AA squad, the Tennessee Smokies, finished first (despite a so-so 38-32 record). All in all, only 2 of our 6 bush-league clubs finished over .500.

Do these cume records mean anything? Bill James showed a few years back that they're predictors of future success at the major legue level. So how do the other teams in our division do? Here are the cumulative minor-league winning percentages for the rest of the NL Central franchises:

Pirates .579
Astros .530
Reds .470
Brewers .464
Cubs .461

Not that impressive as a whole, although all 6 of the Pirates' teams finished with winning records. The Astros solid showing is partly a mirage, as their top two teams had poor records, but they piled on wins down in Rookie ball.

As for individual prospects, it should surprise no one that our cupboard is bare. Baseball America recently issued its list of the Top 25 minor-league prospects, plus a list of 26 honorable mentions, and there's nary a Cardinal farmhand in the bunch.

Posted 12:31 AM by Brian
CHOCKABLOCK This day-night doubleheader had everything:

446 minutes of baseball
48 strikeouts
46 players
37 runners left on base
24 innings
23 hits by both clubs
10 shutout innings by the Cubs' bullpen
8 runs
5 earned runs
4 knockdown pitches (3 of them from Wood's hand to Morris' head)
4 big errors (one on Pujols, one on Sosa, two on Ramon Martinez)
3 home runs
3 seventh-inning stretches
2 controversial calls
2 ejections
1 bruised right knee (Jim Edmonds')
1 walk-off homer
and 1 Kid Rock singing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame"

I honestly think we'll be talking about today's twinbill 20 years from now, right alongside other Wrigley classics like the Sandberg-Sutter Game and that crazy afternoon when Coleman and McGee pulled off a double-double steal.

Today's games were like those battles along the Western Front during WWI, where the French and Germans would fight for months on end, lose hundreds of thousands of casualties, and move the trenchline about a foot or two. At the end of the day the Cardinals are still perched atop the NL Central, a half-game ahead of the Astros, and the Cubs are still a game-and-a-half behind.

The nightcap was salvaged by Matt Morris, who not only pitched like Matt Morris c. 2001, but showed more grit and class than I knew he had. I'm talking about the showdown between Morris and Wood in the 3rd inning, when Morris squared to bunt Matheny over to third with no one out.

Wood's first pitch was right at Morris' midsection, wheeling Matty around and forcing him to land awkwardly on his tender ankle. Fair enough. Maybe Wood just lost control of the ball, which he's apt to do now and again. Or, less charitably (but still forgivable), maybe Wood was getting a little payback for Albert Pujols jawing at him in St. Louis last week. Or maybe Wood just wanted to unsettle Morris in the batter's box. Fine. The only thing truly annoying about the pitch is that home-plate ump Tim Timmons called it a swinging strike, which is quite possibly the worst call I've seen in two years. Morris was clearly taking his right hand off the bat and pulling back with his left, plus he was turning clockwise out of the batter's box, away from the pitch. Ridiculous call.

But what happened next makes Kerry Wood, and not Tim Timmons, the bad guy. Wood hurled his second pitch right at Morris' head. No question it was intentional, especially given the circumstances (not to mention Wood's decided lack of regret on the mound). Morris sat on the ground, mystified. Worse yet, the WGN cameras cut to reaction shots from the crowd, and almost to a man the Wrigley fans were laughing and hooting it up. And you thought St. Louis was full of rednecks?

But wait, it gets worse. Morris took the gentleman's route in the 5th inning, choosing not to throw at Wood in retaliation. Instead he made tidy work of him, punching him out on three straight strikes. But Wood wasn't done. When Morris came up to bat in the 7th, again trying to bunt over Matheny, Wood again threw at Morris. I swear if Matty hadn't moved out of the way the ball would have shattered his face. This time the Wrigley crowd cheered wildly. And I'm not talking about a few isolated yahoos either -- these were thousands of fans rooting on their pitcher to injure a man who's not only hobbled by a bad ankle, but who chose not to retaliate when he had the chance. It was as bad as anything I've seen in Fenway, Veterans, or Yankee Stadium, and that's saying something.

Tom Pagnozzi once said that the Cards-Cubs rivalry was "a beer-drinking series," and that's always something I've enjoyed about the competition. Yeah, we hate the Cubs, the Cubs hate us, but at the end of the day it's about beer and baseball and bleachers, just a good ol' Midwestern ruckus. But there was something ugly in Wrigley tonight, and not just the knockdowns. Antonio Alfonseca cross-checking an umpire? What's up with that? And Moises Alou was only marginally better. (But of course, we already knew Alou was one of the bigger jerks in baseball. Did you know that the guy still goes around griping about not being given the 1997 World Series MVP? Even though his team won the Series and the award went to a teammate -- Livan Hernandez -- instead?) When Alou, Lofton, and Sosa are in the outfield, you've got more ego than an Independent Spirit Awards bruncheon.

Let's not forget, though, that there are several class acts out there, both on the Cubs team (how can you not love Doug Glanville?) and among their fans. For a good example of one, check out Christian Ruzich's Cub Reporter, which has some nice field reports from deep inside enemy territory. Christian's a hell of a nice guy, and he knows baseball, so it's a worthwhile read.

Posted 10:52 PM by Brian
WAS IT A CATCH OR WASN'T IT? Pujols' error in the first game was, of course, huge. You could even argue that it cost us the game, although I'm usually loathe to blame whole games on isolated plays like this, for the hypothetical chain of causality can get a little screwy.

The more interesting question is: Did Pujols truly muff the ball, or were we Denkingered? I watched the replay about 10 times on TiVo and I honestly don't know for sure if it was a catch or not. According to the rulebook, a legal catch occurs when a fielder "gets secure possession in his hand or glove of a ball in flight and firmly holds it." In other words, you've gotta (a) catch the ball, and (b) hold onto it.

The rule elaborates: "If the fielder has made the catch and drops the ball while in the act of making a throw following the catch, the ball shall be adjudged to have been caught. In establishing the validity of the catch, the fielder shall hold the ball long enough to prove that he has complete control."

That's where the gray area comes in. How much is long enough to prove complete control? If Pujols was merely transferring the ball from his left hand to his right hand in order to make the throw, it's a catch. If, however, he hadn't yet proven that he had complete control, then it's not a catch. (By the way, that's why so many fielders hold the ball aloft after making a diving or shoestring grab -- they're not so much gloating about the catch as they are proving to the ump that they have control of the ball.)

Third base ump Bill Hohn thought Pujols didn't have complete control. I personally thought he did, as did La Russa and Pujols himself. If so, you could argue that Hohn cost us at least one run, and possibly the entire game. Then again, I think you can just as plausibly argue that had Pujols not botched the transfer, Hohn never would have had to make an iffy call to begin with. I suppose I'd say we ran into some bad luck, but I wouldn't go so far as saying Hohn cost us the game.

WAS IT FAIR OR FOUL? What strange parallel justice, with the third-base umpire making such huge judgment calls in each game of the double header, one going against the Cards, the other going against the Cubs. The pro-Cards call was on Moises Alou in the bottom of the 7th. Bases loaded, 2 outs, 1-2 pitch, Alou drills one down the third base line. Umpire Justin Klemm calls it foul. He was right on top of the play, in perfect position, about two feet away from the ball. So I'm inclined to think he was right. But was he?

When I saw it with the naked eye I couldn't tell at all. When I saw the replay from the high home-plate angle, I was convinced it was foul. But when WGN showed the second replay, the low first-base angle, I wasn't so sure. It seemed like a bit of chalk kicked up, which would indicate that Alou's hit kissed the line as a fair ball.

So I end up, even after all the Zapruder-like analysis, about as confused with this play as I do with Pujols' error. My thinking is that Hohn probably screwed up the call in Game One, and Klemm (more understandably) screwed up the call in Game Two. Both miscalls balance each other karmically, so it's a draw, just like the double-header itself.

Posted 6:11 PM by Brian
THE UNFRIENDLY CONFINES This was one of the Wrigleyest of Wrigley Field games, in that there were an unbelievable number of surreal, funhouse-mirror moments (naturally I thought of the Sandberg-Sutter game from '84 a few times today). One of the more surreal side notes is that this nip-and-tuck pitchers' duel was a make-up for a May 11th game in which the game was suspended after four innings and the Cardinals winning 11-9. On that day, Tino Martinez hit two homers, Pujols hit a grand slam, and, for the Cubs, Moises Alou, Corey Patterson, Troy O'Leary and Alex Gonzalez all went deep.

That game didn't count. This one does. And it counts a lot more in the middle of a September pennant race, or feels like it anyway. The Sosa homer hurt like hell, of course, but when I look back on this game, 3 things just kill me. And they were each, at the time, miracles:

(1) Simontacchi's performance. Perhaps the best he's looked all year. No earned runs and seven K's in 5 innings of work. And he pitched at least as well as Carlos Zambrano, which is more than can you ask for. When a gift falls out of the sky like that, you'd hope you could make more of it.

(2) Sosa's error. It was getting to the point in the game where you thought one wrong move was gonna end it. And Sosa made a stupidly wrong-headed move with no outs in the top of the 9th, first calling off Womack on a pop fly by Rolen (even thought Womack could have caught it easily) and secondly sliding on one knee and putting himself in an awkward position to catch it. Sosa dropped the ball and, once again, it seemed like the kind of gift that spelled great things for the Cards.

(3) Palmeiro's catch. Clutch. Given the context, one of the best catches I've ever seen. Turned a walk-off extra-base hit into extra innings. One of my favorite things about the catch was the brief moment when O-Pal was engulfed in the ivy and everyone in the stadium, plus everyone watching at home, thought the game was over. It was, instead, a miracle.

Usually (and this has been statistically proven) if you get one miracle a game, you'll win. We got three miracles and we still came up short, which is crazy for a game as close as this one. Who's to blame?

Fassero is an easy target -- his pitch to Sosa was a meatball with tomato sauce -- but Fassero actually pitched about as well as expected. He carved through the Cubs' lineup for 2 innings, and gave us a couple chances to score. Not a great outing, obviously, but it's hard to point fingers at our bullpen after they went 9 1/3 innings and allowed only 5 hits and 2 runs.

No, the real culprit of today's game was our hitters. Perhaps last Saturday's game convinced the Cards that Jim Edmonds could win games all by himself. He was great (as usual lately), slamming a homer off of Zambrano and scoring both our runs. But the rest of our big boys failed time and again. Rolen: 0-6. Pujols: 0-5. Renteria: 0-3 (including a couple huge outs). How 'bout our #1 and #2 hitters? 0-14.

Granted, many of these ABs were against Zambrano, a great (or at least soon-to-be-great) pitcher. But we were also 0-12 against so-so hurlers like Remlinger and Alfonseca. That's where I thought the game was lost, from the 10th to the 13th innings, when we had Izzy matched up against Alfonseca, and our hitters failed to step up.

One of the things that earns a team the tag of "losers" is when only half the team shows up at any one time. That is, if their hitters are doing well, their pitchers aren't. If their starters are on, their bullpen is off. No one is on the same page, and the best performances go wasted. I wouldn't go so far as to call the Cardinals a bunch of losers this afternoon, because all in all they hung tougher than I thought they would (given the starting pitching matchup especially), but a loss is a loss, and we certainly weren't the winners.

Posted 10:50 PM by Brian
EXCESS WOOD Earlier Matt mentioned Woody Williams' inefficient outings on the mound. Since the All-Star break, Woody has thrown 1,017 pitches over 55 2/3rds innings. That works out to over 18 pitches per inning, or 164 per 9 innings. More pitches per inning = more early hooks = more reliance on our bullpen = more blown saves = ... you can see where this is going...

Posted 8:08 PM by Brian
IN THE BIG INNING Some say that the Bible opens with a baseball reference -- you know, "In the big innning..." (Genesis 1:1). And today the Cards kept alive a biblically frustrating streak: in our last 8 losses, we've had one inning where we've allowed 4 runs or more.

In our last 17 games, we've won 9 and lost 8. In our 9 wins, we've never allowed more than 3 runs in an inning. But something curious happens in our 8 losses. Take away our worst inning, and our pitchers are the picture of sobriety: only 19 runs in 59 innings. But they always include one shattering bender of an inning, for a cumulative 44 runs over 8 innings. Wow.

Today's game looked at first like a classic pitching duel, but only on the scoreboard. Sure, Greg Williams and Mark Prior were trading zeroes through 4, but Woody's shutout was on life support from the first batter of the game. He put runners in scoring position in each of the first four innings, and left the bases loaded twice. His final numbers: 13 outs, 13 baserunners, .500 OBP. Ugly. Let's hope Woody's troubles stemmed from the rain delay and not from his post-June swoon. Since the All-Star break he's 2-4 with a 5.01 ERA.

PARENTAL ABUSE One of the worser things about the 5th inning, aside from its interminableness (a word almost as long as the inning), was that it allowed Dusty Baker to give Mark Prior an early day-off. You figure the Cubs have a healthy 7-0 lead through six, plus an able bullpen, and Prior is only 22 years old, and it's cold and wet outside, and he's accumulated some of the most pitcher-abuse points in the major leagues -- a no-brainer, right? Baker could have yanked him after 6 innings and 103 pitches and closed the book on Prior's afternoon.

But Baker trotted out Prior for the 7th inning anyway, bringing his pitch-o-meter up to 115. Not my choice as armchair Cubs manager, but not so horrible. Prior only threw 12 pitches in the inning, he looked sharp, and it allowed Dusty to save his bullpen for this grueling spate of 4 games in the next three days. Fine.

But then Dusty sent out Prior for the 8th too. That's when things got a little obscene. I mean, it wasn't like La Russa was even putting up a challenge at this point (he pinch-hit for Pujols and Edmonds with two-on, one out in the inning). And Baker has a host of new arms available from Iowa for September call-ups. But Prior's pitch count rose anyway: 120, 125, 130, all the way to 131.

There's some debate about how dangerous this is. Some people say Prior has such picture-perfect mechanics that it doesn't really matter how many pitches he throws. Think of him as Warren Spahn for the Aughts. Others say that rising pitch counts always result in breakdown at some point; or at least they might, so better safe than sorry.

As a Cardinals fan I don't mind Baker playing fast and loose with his young arms. Kerry Wood has been noticably worse this year when coming off of a taxing start. And Prior -- I'd like to say that I want to see him have a long, healthy, productive career, but the devil on my shoulder says otherwise. After the kind of horrible luck the Cardinals have had over the years with potential ace starters (Alan Benes, Darryl Kile, Rick Ankiel) I think a little schadenfreude is permissable.

HE'S GOT LEGS, AND HE KNOWS HOW TO USE 'EM Last Tuesday I made a comment about Mark Prior's tree trunk of a lower body. And just last night I was flipping through a photo album of old-timey ballplayers, and I stumbled across a picture of Mark Prior's legs, but on the body of the Iron Horse himself, Lou Gehrig. Check it out. We're gonna have to start calling Prior the Titanium Horse or something.

GEEZER We first offered this item back in April, but in honor of Jeff Fassero's appearance at Wrigley today, we present to you a list of players who are younger than Fassero: Todd Benzinger, Dale Sveum, Kal Daniels, Chris Bosio, Mariano Duncan, Mike Greenwell, Kirt Manwaring, Joe Magrane, Jose Lind, Sam Horn, Charlie Kerfeld, Jose Oquendo, Matt Nokes, Dwight Gooden, Bret Saberhagen, and Pete Incaviglia.