Posted 12:01 AM by Brian
TONY THE TIGER, PART 2 of a 4-part series

Yesterday we examined Tony La Russa's leadership style. Today we put him back under the microscope and take a look at...

HOW HE USES HIS PERSONNEL

DOES HE FAVOR A SET LINEUP OR A ROTATION SYSTEM? It’s a merry-go-round. This past year, La Russa used 125 different lineups, the most of any manager in baseball. In fact, he used his most frequent single lineup (what’s commonly called an “opening day lineup”) only six times. In several other years TLR has led the league in number of lineups used.

But there is a method to La Russa’s madness. He claims that his lineup machinations give his primary players rest while cultivating depth and preventing moral decay in the reserve ranks. Indeed, La Russa’s record down the stretch – 73-36 in September over the past four years – lends some credence to his thinking.

DOES HE GO WITH PROVEN PLAYERS OR YOUNGSTERS WHO STILL HAVE SOMETHING TO PROVE? Early on, La Russa liked taking chances on young guys. In Chicago and Oakland, he made regulars out of Harold Baines, Tony Bernazard, Vance Law, Rudy Law, Ron Kittle, Terry Steinbach, Mark McGwire, and Jose Canseco.

But as La Russa has gotten older, so have his teams. This year the Cardinals were the oldest team in baseball, with our average player 31 years old (courtesy of gray-beards Cal Eldred, Jeff Fassero, Lance Painter, Woody Williams, and Joe Girardi). And for the past several years La Russa has clearly favored age over youth. In 1996 he found 143 at bats for Mike Gallego despite his .224 slugging percentage (at the time TLR said, “Gallego plays second base the way Ozzie Smith plays shortstop”). In 1997 he handed the third-base job to Gary Gaetti (38) over David Bell (24). In 1998 he usually went with Tom Pagnozzi (age 35) or Tom Lampkin (34) over Eli Marrero (24). In 1999 La Russa favored grizzled Shawon Dunston over young Adam Kennedy. That same year he demoted J.D. Drew to Memphis in favor of 34-year-old Thomas Howard and 40-year-old Willie McGee (Drew was still fighting for playing time by May of the following year, despite slugging .700 and leading the team in homers). In 2000 he picked Rick Wilkins over Keith McDonald as his third-string catcher. And in 2001 La Russa’s starting third baseman out of spring training was Bobby Bonilla (38), not Albert Pujols (21).

La Russa has made regulars out of very few players in his eight years in St. Louis. And even when he does plug youngsters into the lineup, he keeps them on a short leash, often replacing them with a veteran whenever he gets the chance. Dmitri Young was our starting first baseman in ’97, but he was soon swapped in favor of John Mabry (and later Mark McGwire). La Russa pegged Marrero as his starting catcher for 1999, but he handed the role to Matheny then next year. Joe McEwing was his second baseman in ’99, but Vina took his job in ’00. In fact, there are only 3 position players in St. Louis who La Russa broke in as regulars for any appreciable time: Drew, Polanco, and Pujols.

You might conclude, then, that La Russa simply likes old guys and distrusts youngsters. But I don’t think that’s quite right. For example, La Russa has called young Albert Pujols the best player he’s ever had (choosing him over vets McGwire or Rickey Henderson). And even though La Russa intended to start Bonilla at third back in 2001, he still recognized Pujols’ strengths at the time and plugged him into the lineup while others (notably Baseball Prospectus here) urged him to give the kid another year in AAA.

So no, I don’t think La Russa’s necessarily plays favorites according to age. I think it’s more that he favors a certain kind of ballplayer – sturdy, hard-working types who don’t complain, so-called “winners.” Some of these guys are quite young: Joe McEwing, Bo Hart, Rolen, Pujols. But it so happens that most sturdy, hard-working, reliable guys are older rather than younger (indeed, that’s true of most professions).

On the flip side, La Russa absolutely abhors players who he perceives as lackadaisical or uncommitted to winning: the aforementioned Drew, Stephenson, Tomko, Bud Smith, Fernando Tatis. The end result is that TLR frequently doles out playing time not necessarily by age, but based on certain character traits. Tino Martinez offers a good illustration – when he first came to St. Louis he had a reputation as a gamer; but as he complained more and more, La Russa played him less and less. He didn’t get a free pass because he was a veteran – he simply landed in La Russa’s doghouse, which is like Alcatraz for ballplayers fighting for ABs.

DOES HE PREFER TO GO WITH OFFENSIVE PLAYERS OR DOES HE LIKE THE GLOVE MEN? La Russa seems to like good leather up the middle, particularly at catcher (he’ll take a glove-minded catcher over a bat-minded one any day of the week). That’s one of the reasons Mike Matheny has kept his job, despite putrid hitting numbers and terrible platoon splits. Otherwise TLR has had the luxury of guys who are fine players on both sides of the ball. Edmonds, Rolen, Renteria, Drew, Lankford, Jordan – all of them very strong on offense and defense.

As for his role players, La Russa loves those multi-positional in-betweeners – Marrero, Polanco, Cairo, Paquette, Gallego, Eduardo Perez, Wilson Delgado. Even if a guy isn’t naturally suited to play several positions (someone like, say, Pujols or Shawon Dunston), La Russa will assign him additional fielding positions. To underscore this point, La Russa once declared, “I believe if you had really good pitching and 13 Placido Polancos, you’d win 100 games.” This perfectly suits La Russa’s dream of an ever-shifting, mix-and-match, tinkertoy ballclub.

DOES HE LIKE AN OFFENSE BASED ON POWER, SPEED, OR HIGH AVERAGES? La Russa and Jocketty have built a team based on power. In 1995, the year before La Russa took over, the Cardinals were second to last in the league in homers (our starting infielders had a grand total of 5, 5, 2, 3, and 5 home runs). In ’96, La Russa’s ballclub added Gant and Gaetti and climbed to 11th of 14 teams in home runs. After that their power numbers took off. Every year for the last six (except for 2001), we’ve finished in the top 4 in team homers. We finished first in ’98 and ’00, and third the last two years, despite playing in a neutral park for gopher balls.

DOES HE USE THE ENTIRE ROSTER, OR DOES HE KEEP PEOPLE SITTING AROUND ON THE BENCH? As Bill James once wrote about La Russa, “if they’d let him carry 30 people, he’d use them all.” In this way TLR resembles Herzog, who frequently said if they’re good enough to be on his roster, they’re good enough to play. Everyone on La Russa’s ballclub can count on 150 ABs a year, whether it’s Mike Difelice, Pat Kelly, Bobby Bonilla, or Luis Ordaz. And these aren’t all garbage-time at bats either – La Russa will use these guys in the most critical situations, which is one reason players tend to enjoy playing for La Russa’s teams.

DOES HE BUILD HIS BENCH AROUND YOUNG PLAYERS OR VETERAN ROLE PLAYERS? His benches are a mix of veterans and youngsters, but they’re all role players. Each has a specific function – i.e., there are very few guys just taking their licks and being groomed as regulars.

La Russa famously ushered in the era of hyper-specialization with this pitching staff, and he’s somewhat similar with his bench players as well. He obsesses over every platoon advantage, sometimes leaving himself shorthanded late in games in order to find the handiest role player as soon as possible.

On Monday we'll return with part 3 of our series on Tony La Russa, when we take a look at his sometimes notorious, always intriguing use of in-game strategies.

Posted 12:00 AM by Brian
LITTLE GRADY Ben Jacobs of Universal Baseball Blog, Inc. defends the firing of Grady Little up in Boston. I encourage you to read his whole argument; it's one of the most well-reasoned opinion pieces I've read in a long time.

(Is Universal Baseball Blog, Inc. -- with its shout-out to Robert Coover -- the coolest blog name out there? Might be. Although The Eddie Kranepool Society and Elephants in Oakland give it a serious run for the money.)

THE CURSED BAMBINO Zach Everson suggests that the Yankees -- yes, the New York Yankees -- are actually more cursed than the Boston Red Sox. How? Just look at the fates of New York's biggest stars: Babe Ruth (died young), Lou Gehrig (died very young), Joe DiMaggio (died bitter and alone), Mickey Mantle (died regretful), Roger Maris (died with an asterisk), Billy Martin (died drunk-driving), Thurmon Munson (died younger than Gehrig), and Catfish Hunter (died young). Meanwhile, Ted Williams was paraded around Fenway Park before the '99 All-Star Game with generous tears welling in his eyes.

BETSY NEWMARK compares baseball's postseason to the electoral college. Huh?, you ask. Well, each game of the postseason has a winner-takes-all format, similar to winning a state's electoral votes -- that is, a one-run squeaker is the same as a ten-run blowout. The end result is the same for postseasons as it is for elections. Al Gore (or poor Benjamin Harrison) can win the popular vote, but not the states' electoral votes, just as the Yankees can outscore the Marlins and lose the series. Square, I know, but I dig analogies like that.

Posted 7:01 AM by Brian
TONY THE TIGER, PART 1 of a 4-part series

Does Tony La Russa suck?

If you tune into KMOX sports open line, especially after another one-run Cardinals loss, you’ll certainly hear an answer. But if you open up the Post-Dispatch and read a column by Jeff Gordon, an organizational shill if there ever was one, you’ll hear a completely different answer. Log on to a chat room at STLToday, however, where fans are inventing new emoticons to express their feelings about the Cardinals manager, and you’ll hear yet another viewpoint.

But the question – not just does La Russa suck?, but does any manager truly suck? – is notoriously difficult to answer, for a couple of reasons. First of all, the job itself is not transparent. Much of what goes on in managing takes place behind closed doors, away from the press – like whether to have a private meeting with a struggling young player, or when to ignore the urgings of your advance scouts, or how to synthesize the contradictory messages from your pitching coach and your medical staff. In fact, sometimes you can’t fully assess a manager’s career until it ends, when secrets are made public, or when the manager and his players publish their memoirs.

What’s more, it’s my belief that very few managers are blanket good or blanket bad. Most bring different things to the table, with strengths and weaknesses depending on the team at hand. For example, a veteran club like the Yankees probably wouldn’t respond to a ranting bullwhipper like Billy Martin or Dick Williams; a hand’s-off skipper like Joe Torre or Sparky Anderson seems more up their alley. But change the team, the town, the front office, and the personnel, and suddenly you find that Billy Martin’s weaknesses are strengths, and Sparky Anderson is a three-time world champion struggling to keep his team over .350.

In that spirit, I’m trying to avoid easy verdicts about La Russa’s fitness for office – does he suck? is not what I’m after. Instead I’m looking for La Russa’s tendencies, his likes and dislikes, what he brings to the table. During the next few days I’ll be asking a number of questions about La Russa’s roster usage, his in-game strategies, and his approach to the pitching staff, in an attempt to see the man for who he truly is. The questions themselves are taken from the managerial boxes Bill James presented in both his 1984 Baseball Abstract and in his Guide to Baseball Managers. With a few answers and educated guesses, we might gain a better understanding of who this Tony La Russa character really is, and whether he’s the right guy to manage the Cardinals in 2004 and beyond.

Today we’ll ask a few questions about La Russa’s leadership style, and then we’ll get into the more tactical matters on Friday, Monday, and Tuesday.

AGE: 59

RECORD AS MANAGER: 2,009-1789, .529, 25 years, 9 division titles, 3 pennants, one ring.

RECORD AS CARDINALS MANAGER: 689-606, .532, 8 years (third longest tenure of any current manager), four division titles, no rings (not yet, anyway).

WHAT WAS HE LIKE AS A PLAYER? In a word: dogged. La Russa was a sub-Mendoza hitter in the majors, but he held on for a solid 16-year minor-league career as a middle infielder, largely by weathering a series of injuries, the worst of which was a torn tendon in his throwing arm that still bothers him today. “That’s the only place I give myself any slack,” says La Russa of his playing career. “I didn't give in to the injuries and the pain. I had guts, and I wasn’t going to just give up or disappear.”

One of the storylines in Michael Lewis’ Moneyball is how Billy Beane has kept his vow never to draft players like himself (that is, toolsy athletes with little discipline). La Russa, on the other hand, tends to favor younger versions of himself: multi-positional middle infielders, hangers-on, and hard-workers with immense drive and stick-to-it-iveness.

WHAT HE BRINGS TO THE BALLCLUB

IS HE AN INTENSE MANAGER OR MORE OF AN EASY-TO-GET-ALONG-WITH TYPE? Oh, I’d say he’s intense. Just watch him in the dugout – he paces around, brooding, jaw clenched, kicking paper cups. He’s as into the game as any of his players. One time in Montreal he leaped up in anticipation of an extra-base hit and banged his head on the dugout ceiling.

And his intensity remains long after the game ends. A couple years ago he refused to wear the same jersey after the Cardinals had lost; another time he cast aside a pen he believed had cursed a bad road trip. After each game, he replays his every decision on blue notecards, churning over his mistakes, often taking hours to decompress. Says La Russa, “The losses, they go way past midnight.”

La Russa sometimes takes out this intensity on the guys under him. “I'm a believer in pressuring our players,” he says. “You never accomplish anything unless you feel the pressure.” This past year he had run-ins with Garrett Stephenson, Fernando Vina, Tino Martinez, and Brett Tomko. While managing the A’s he memorably tagged Ruben Sierra, his own player, the Village Idiot. And he once barked at a lollygagging Jose Canseco, “Do that again and I’ll knock you on your ass.”

IS HE MORE OF AN EMOTIONAL LEADER OR A DECISION-MAKER? A decision-maker. La Russa is emotional, for sure, and occasionally his intensity rubs off on his team (or, as in the wake of Darryl Kile’s death, the team adopts his focus and resolve). But he’s definitely more of the hard-working, legalistic, advance-planning type than a leader of men. He’s certainly not a warm fuzzy, as even longtime Cardinals coach George Kissel admits: “He doesn’t get as close to players as he probably should… He keeps people out there and is not going to be a holly-jolly guy.”

La Russa has frequently been criticized as a poor communicator. Shortly before his trade to San Diego in early August of 2001, Ray Lankford griped, “The guy who is the manager probably hasn’t talked to me since June. Like I’m punished. Like I’m grounded. I’m a grown man!” These unplesantries recall an even splashier charge, first made public by Ron Gant: that La Russa doesn’t like black players.

Said Gant after his trade to Philadelphia: “Rickey Henderson didn’t like him. Royce Clayton didn’t like him. He treated Ozzie Smith like dirt. Brian Jordan didn’t like him.” You can even add Mike Easler to this list, an ex-Cardinals batting coach who nearly sued the Cardinals for his unceremonious firing a couple years back. And indeed, if you look at the guys who assume leadership positions on La Russa’s teams – guys like McGwire, Rolen, Kile, Edmonds, the superstars who stay in St. Louis at a reduced salary – they’re invariably white.

But ultimately I find the racism charge unfounded. La Russa’s a stubborn guy, and he’s butted heads with whites as well as blacks – Andy Van Slyke and Jeff Brantley come to mind. He’s an equal-opportunity pisser-offer. And my reading of the Ozzie Smith situation is that Ozzie is an asshole who was too proud to platoon with a younger player (Royce Clayton, a black man, by the way), then used his stature in the community to make La Russa look bad to the St. Louis media.

As for relations with other minorities, La Russa seems to have a great rapport with Latino players. His Mom was Spanish, which became the first language in his home growing up, and the language La Russa still speaks with players such as Edgar Renteria and Albert Pujols.

(If you’re looking for a more legitimate charge of managerial racism – although I find this anecdote more silly than anything else – there’s a story told by Mike Shropshire in his book about the 1973-75 Rangers, a story that was repeated and verified by Whitey Herzog on Bobby Costas’ show Later: When Bill Madlock first arrived with the Texas Rangers, he walked into Whitey’s office and introduced himself. Whitey shook his hand, told Madlock to sit down, and then called security. Whitey thought, “this guy cannot be the real Bill Madlock. No black guys are called ‘Bill.’ Every black guy I've ever known or heard of whose given name is ‘William’ goes by Willie or Billie. Only white guys go by ‘Bill’.” Evidently Herzog had never heard of 11-time NBA champion Bill Russell.)

IS HE MORE OF AN OPTIMIST OR A PROBLEM SOLVER? La Russa is not one to simply live with his problems; he does whatever he can to take corrective action. An optimistic manager is likely to be a salesman; he’ll emphasize strengths rather than weaknesses, go with the hand dealt to him and try to make good. That’s not La Russa at all. He’s constantly shuffling his personnel, dwelling on perceived weaknesses rather than perceived strengths (case in point: J.D. Drew).

What’s more, La Russa likes to remake his teams with “his” guys, starting with his cadre of coaches (Dave Duncan, Dave McKay, etc.), and trickling down to his benches, his bullpens, and so on. In fact, the late-90’s Cardinals were densely populated with guys who played for La Russa in Oakland: Dennis Eckersley, Mike Gallego, Scott Hemond, Willie McGee, Todd Stottlemyre, Rick Honeycutt, Mark McGwire, Mike Mohler, Bobby Witt,Craig Paquette, and coaches Carney Lansford and Dave Parker. Some pundits called us the St. Louis Athletics, but St. Louis La Russas would have been more accurate. We still have, undoubtedly, a team made in La Russa's own image.

Check out Redbird Nation tomorrow for part 2 of our series on Tony La Russa, when we'll examine his approach to hitting and roster construction.

Posted 10:33 PM by Brian
YOURS IF YOU WANT HIM If everyone in St. Louis scrapes together ten bucks or so and contributes it to the Cardinals, we can have Manny Ramirez, no strings attached. Seriously.

Posted 11:05 AM by Flynn
St. Louis, Misery
As the tartar sauce sits unused in Pac Bell, Wrigley, and Yankee Stadium, Cardinal fans throughout the Nation are forced to endure another long winter thinking about what was missed, yet again. Much ink and cyberspace will be used to discuss what went wrong, what should have been, and what can be done to remedy it all for next year, for the Cardbirds as well as for 28 other teams.

It’s now been 21 seasons since the Birds won it all. The Cardinals are creeping up on the longest drought of their existence. Consider this – a Cardinal fan born in 1906 could have lived a very productive life, cheering on such Champions as the ’26 Yankee Beaters, the Gashouse Gang, the wartime Swifites, the El Birdos in the 1960s, and Whitey’s Runnin’ Redbirds. Hopefully he could hang around long enough to see the 1996 team give it a good run. Such a fan would have had to endure only one really extended championship drought, that of 1946 to 1964. That’s 17 seasons.

What about a fan born in 1971? That same fan -- let’s call him Me -- has now gone 23 seasons since the Objects of Our Obsession won it all. While it has been great fun watching a contending team these past few years, and rooting for the track team back in the pennant-winners of ’85 and ’87, there seems to be an attendant misery for fans in Missouri that is gaining in strength.

What is this misery? Well, what defines misery for a baseball fan? If you are like me you got a bit tired of hearing about the Cubs’ 95-year drought while watching them this Fall. It’s an amazing thing, for sure, but after the eleventh “You know, when the Cubs last won the Series they were posting scores on the cave walls in mastodon blood” reference, I had just about had it.

Is what Cub fans have gone through misery? Or is misery getting your team to a series-clinching game and losing 8 straight times, like Oakland? How about getting close then blowing a 3-1 lead (1985 and 1996 anyone)? How about freak events that somehow derail your seemingly unimpeded path to victory (Denkinger, Buckner, Bartman, Dent, Eric Gregg – see 1997 NLCS). How about Donnie Moore? He should get his own category. Is stuff like that worse than not getting there at all?

To study this I came up with a completely arbitrary and unscientific “Fan Happiness” formula. The time period I chose to cover was the last 25 years. This period covers basically my own living memory of baseball. I do sort of remember the 3-pitches, 3-homers performance of Reggie Jackson in the ’77 World Series but that may be because as a six-year old I though the name Burt Hooten was just about the funniest thing of all time.

25 years is also a nice number giving us, obviously, 25 World Champions, 50 Pennants, 10 Division Championship Series (I am including the 1981 strike-induced mini-playoffs), and 140 possible playoff appearances. There is some sort of artificial symmetry to these round numbers. Finally, 29 of the 30 MLB teams have gone to the postseason at least once in this period, which makes for something.

Side note – for all the self-pity Cub fans have been showering upon themselves (and in which the rest of the nation got a university-level course via ESPN and Fox), consider that they have been to the playoffs four times in the past 19 years. This generation of Cub fans needs to look at their parents and grandparents for the real angst. 1946 to 1984 is a REALLY long time to go without a sniff of October. For all my disgust with the usual Cub nonsense, this fact cannot be ignored and the fans who are now about 65 are the ones who really deserve the most pity. Well, people who bought this deserve some pity, or ridicule, if you really think about it.

Back to misery. I figure that, for all the pratfalls and intensified hurt that accompanies postseason meltdowns, just making it there is a huge accomplishment for a team and its fans. The clincher is at least one fun game isn’t’ it? Think we won’t go crazy the next time the Cards win the Central? Now, admittedly, if you win your division several times in a short span of years, fans get finicky and tend to “reserve” some of their whoops for what they hope will be bigger and better things. See – Atlanta. Of course, that isn’t always true. A team could be on its way to its third division title but circumstances occur that make its victories much more meaningful – see 2002 Cardinals.

So, with the understanding that a division champion like the 2003 Cubs brings its fans much more joy than one like the 2003 Yankees, I accept that caveat and boldly go ahead with the formula. Here it is – one point for reaching the postseason, two points for winning a DCS series (including 1981), 5 points for winning the pennant, 10 points for winning the World Series. Additionally, there is a subtraction of 3 points for an “LCS heartbreak” and 5 points for a “World Series Heartbreak” and further subtraction for “Agony Points.” Any team that blows a 3-1 series lead automatically qualifies for Heartbreak. Any team holding a big lead in a deciding game that ends up losing qualifies for heartbreak. The Agony Points are assigned for hard to quantify things like Oakland’s inability to close out series, a team that has won it all in the last 25 years but is currently in a huge drought (like the Royals), and other intangibles. Bonus points come in for teams that break a huge drought (’84 Cubs, 2002 Angels) or accomplish something special (2001 Mariners - 116 wins).

After adding up the points I came up with an “Enjoyment Number” and a “Per-Year Score” (to take into account the success of the Marlins and D-Backs). Not surprisingly, Los Yanquis, with their 5 World Series wins, lead the way with a whopping 111 points. The top ten, with point scores:

1. Yankees 111
2. Braves 59
3. Dodgers 41
4. Marlins 36
5. Twins 36
6. Blue Jays 36
7. A’s 35
8. Cardinals 29
9. Mets 28
10. Orioles 27

The bottom five

30. Expos -1
29. Devil Rays 0
28. Cubs 1
27. Rockies 1

So, according to this formula, even though Cardinal Nation is in a Steinbeckian drought, we have a bit more to be thankful for than 22 other fan bases. That ’82 season goes a long way.

Some interesting things – The monotonous success of the Braves simply cannot be ignored, for all the talk of “blown chances” and postseason meltdowns. Also, while the Cubs have gone into the playoffs four times, the heartbreaks in 1984 and 2003 wipe out all but one of the happiness points they may have had.

Some teams that are "hanging on" in the formula as a result of long-ago glory: Brewers, Royals, Pirates, Tigers. None of these teams has even been close for ten years or more. They are currently ranked above teams that have been in it a lot recently but haven’t put it all together, such as the Astros, Red Sox, and Giants. (Boston’s ’86 and ’03 Heartbreaks don’t help them much...) These rankings are the result of a formula that assumes misery is abated for several years by winning a World Championship. This is, of course, eminently debatable. I mean, look, the Dodgers are ranked high mostly because of their wins in’81 and ’88. But really, who's had more fun the last ten years, Los Angelenos or Cardinal Nation? Blowing holes in my own formula, I know...

Since the Marlins and Diamondbacks are mere infants in their baseball lives but have still accomplished something that Houston, Milwaukee, San Diego, Seattle, Texas, and Montreal never have, I came up with a “per year” figure of fan happiness that, not surprisingly, came out like this:

1. Yankees 4.44
2. Diamondbacks 3.33
3. Marlins 3.27
4. Braves 2.36
5. Dodgers 1.64
6. Twins 1.44
7. Blue Jays 1.44
8. A’s 1.40
9. Cardinals 1.16
10. Mets 1.12

So there’s the formula, but is it at all accurate? Depends. I mean, could the fans of, say, Cleveland claim more happiness from their powerhouse teams in the '90s that won two pennants and were a perennial contender than the fans of the Angels, who had close calls in ’79 and ’86 (a heartbreak) before monkeying their way to the ring in 2002? Or do fans need those crushing times to make the good one feel better? How many times did you hear “Marlins fans don’t deserve this” over the last few weeks?

Is misery a pre-requisite to championship euphoria? There seems to be some validity to that. Remember a few years back when the Yankees were closing in on their 700th championship on the wave of yet another record-breaking payroll? Well, how about the misery of Joe Torre, who had just lost his brother and had his own health issues? I am not in any way making light of either of these things here; just pointing out that the contrast between a present victory and previous misery makes for a sweeter win.

Enough. This is all a rhetorical exercise by a Cardinal fan currently living in the Chicago Cub Lair of Woefulness. The talk of agony and curses and foul balls here in Dustyville has rendered me batty. If you stop and think about it (to apply sensitivity training to the whole thing), the Cardinals should be due to win in about 7 more years. 30 teams, each team gets to win a year. Sounds like a modern day PE class: “Here’s your ribbon! You were the best at everything, just like everybody else!”

That’s not the way it works, though. (Thankfully.) Each year 29 teams go home unhappy and one gets to enjoy it all for about five minutes before the speculation begins about whether they can do it again.

Misery? Fans need misery. Misery begets hope. Hope generates interest, interest turns to obsession, and obsession turns to ecstasy on those rare moments when it all goes your way. Here’s hoping we’ll know what that is again, next year.

Posted 9:04 AM by Brian
THE WHITE RAT So Whitey Herzog, suffering from McKeon envy, wants to manage the Red Sox. (Here's the article; the headline cracked me up.)

Whitey is one of the best managers I've ever seen, but I wonder how well he'd do under a GM who's less than half his age. After all, Whitey's stubborn as hell, and he seems to be getting more curmudgeonly with age.

I think Whitey would do better in an organization where he has more control and plays a bigger part in rebuilding. Few people remember that Whitey, as director of player development for the Mets in the mid-'60s, was largely responsible for assembling the team that went on to win the crown in '69 (and the NL flag in '73). He also helped put together champions in Kansas City, Anaheim, and, of course, St. Louis. In my opinion Whitey's talents would be better served by filling the manager's vacancy in a town that could truly use him -- that means Baltimore, not Boston.

HERE'S A NICE RUNDOWN of the top major- and minor-league free agents on the market this winter.

Posted 7:02 PM by Brian
THE 2006 YANKEES Interesting tidbit from bizball guru Doug Pappas:

The Yanks' $164 million payroll this year was more than three times greater than the Marlins' $54 million. Perhaps even more astonishing, the Yankees already have a payroll well in excess of $54 million... for the 2006 season. Giambi, Jeter, Mussina, and Bernie Williams, all by themselves, stand to make $69 million three years from now, guaranteed. Pappas continues,

The figures above are conservative. They assume that no options will be exercised, and don't include yet-unpaid portions of signing bonuses, which would push the Yankees' future commitments well over $400 million... The Yankees already have to replace or re-sign three members of their 2003 starting rotation. Irreplaceable closer Mariano Rivera's contract expires after the 2004 season. The farm system has no one likely to help before at least 2006. This could get very, very ugly.

Or very, very beautiful, depending on the eye of the beholder.

Posted 8:59 PM by Brian
BECKETT, UNASSISTED What a fitting end to this game and this World Series, with Josh Beckett taking it by himself to tag out Posada and finish off his 2-0 complete-game masterpiece.

I was among the fans who applauded Jack McKeon even before the game for going with Beckett on three days rest (although I didn't put it in writing, so feel free to call me a bullshitter if you like). Sure, McKeon had a game to play with, but who was his alternative to start Game 6? Mark Redman? Dontrelle Willis? Rick Helling? Uh-uh. Beckett was the right call before the game and a righter call after the game. Like Jack Morris in Minnesota, Beckett will be a hero forever in South Florida.

Jack McKeon's a great story, of course -- 72-year-old guy, never won squat, enjoying his retirement with his grandkids when he got the call to helm the Marlins -- but more than all that, he gave the single best postseason managerial performance I've ever seen (that covers about the last 25 years). He pulled all the right strings -- relaxed and conservative when he needed to be; bloodthirsty and aggressive when it came time for that.

The Marlins now have as many world titles as the Cubs, Indians, and White Sox, and one more than the Philadelphia Phillies. I still can't quite grasp that they went into the House That Ruth Built and kicked the mighty Yanks right in the teeth, Aura and Mystique be damned. There were about umpteen moments during Game 6 where I was convinced the ghosts of Yankee Stadium would rear their maggoted heads, but each time Beckett quelled the possibility.

It's become fashionable nowadays to say that the postseason is a crapshoot, that the sample size of games are so small that you may as well determine the winners by rolling D&D dice. And indeed, the Yankees scored more runs this series than the Marlins, and had they squared off with them over 162 games we might have seen a different result. Nevertheless, over the past week the Marlins exposed nearly every one of the Yankees weaknesses -- their poor up-the-middle defense (Enrique Wilson's gaffe in Game 5, Jeter's costly error earlier tonight), an aging starting rotation (Wells' back giving out in Game 5), their shaky middle relief (Weaver blowing Game 4, Contreras blowing up the next night), and their inexplicably streaky hitting (their approach at the plate was frequently awful, particularly from Boone and Soriano).

Initiative Media, a media buyer for large corporations, did a ratings study during the league championship series and concluded that the Marilns-Yankees matchup would receive the lowest ratings of the four possible outcomes (with Cubs-Red Sox first, Cubs-Yanks second, and Sox-Marlins third). I don't care. For the third year in a row we were treated to a fanstastic World Series, chock full of memorable images: Pudge picking off Nick Johnson; Cabrera's opposite-field bomb off of Clemens; Clemens punching out Castillo on his last trip to the mound and the standing O that came right after; Sierra's two-strike game-tying triple; A-Gonz jacking that 331-foot walk-off homer; Bernie Williams' warning track flyout against Ugie Urbina; Gonzalez pulling off one of the most athletic slides I've ever seen to score the eventual Series-winning run; Beckett tagging out Posada to become a legend; and the sheer joy on Pudge's face as he lept into Beckett's arms. A great series, a great postseason, a great season...

Stay tuned to Redbird Nation this week, as we'll be unveiling our multi-part analysis of that strange, puzzling, hot-wired man by the name of Tony La Russa.

Posted 9:59 AM by Brian
CHICAGO CUBS, EVILDOERS Greg Couch, who did some great reporting for the Chicago Sun-Times on the Cubs ticket scalping scams last Spring, now tells us that the Cubs are holding on to money they received for advance World Series ticket orders. They're automatically applying the money to next season's season ticket purchases, but in the meantime -- season ticket orders aren't due until January -- the club pockets several million dollars in interest, enough to pay for, say, Aramis Ramirez's 2004 salary ($6 million).

And this is the team we're supposed to feel sorry for? The one the national media misses so much from the World Series?

THE INTERNET BASEBALL AWARDS are now official and posted online. These awards are quite honestly more meaningful to me than the actual BBWAA awards, if only because there are smarter seamhead types voting on them. For example, Alex Rodriguez has now won 3 Internet AL MVP Awards, but got jobbed by the pro writers in '96, '01, '02, etc. (Then again, you do get a few jokers for the IBAs too, like the guy who had Matt Kinney as his #1 choice for NL Cy Young -- but by and large these errors have no impact on the final tally.)

Here are some notable finishers:

NL Cy Young
1. Bonds
2. Pujols
3. Sheffield
4. Javy Lopez
5. Thome
11. Renteria
15. Edmonds
18. Rolen
64. Morris
82. Woody Williams

NL Cy Young
1. Prior
2. Gagne
3. Schmidt
14. Woody Williams
23. Morris
50. Isringhausen

NL Rookie
1. Webb
2. Willis
3. Posednik
9. Bo Hart

NL Manager
1. McKeon
2. Baker
3. Cox
11. La Russa

AL MVP
1. A-Rod
2. Delgado
3. Manny

AL Cy Young
1. Halladay
2. Pedro
3. Loaiza

AL Rookie
1. Berroa
2. Matsui
3. Baldelli

AL Manager
1. Pena
2. Gardenhire
3. Macha

Posted 8:39 AM by Brian
TWO DAYS AGO David Wells was asked to compare his training regimen to Roger Clemens'. His reply:

"[Y]ou don't need to bust your ass every day to be successful... I'll leave the working and conditioning to those guys forever. They can write a book and do videos. They can make money on that, on how to last 20 years in the big leagues by conditioning. I'll write, 'How Not to Work Out.'"

Wells lasted one inning of last night's Game 5 after succumbing to back spasms.

WILL THE SERIES GO SEVEN? Historically speaking, the World Series is disproportionately likely to go the limit. But mathematicians are stumped as to why this happens.

The NYT observes that "a simple statistical calculation — assuming the two teams are evenly matched and the winner of any game might as well be determined by a coin flip — shows that seven-game series should occur less than a third of the time, 31.25 percent." However, "in the past 50 World Series, nearly half — 48 percent — have stretched to the maximum seven games."

HISTORY LESSON, PART II The Yanks have trailed 3–2 in the World Series seven times and ended up winning just twice, never in the three tries with the final two games in Yankee Stadium.

Posted 11:38 PM by Brian
FLYING FISH I'm feeling lazy, so I'm just going to reprint a few bits of useless info I cribbed from Jayson Stark's column:

• With his 310 career wins, Roger Clemens came into Game 4 with nine more than all the Marlins who had pitched in this World Series combined (301).

• When Cabrera homered off Clemens in the first inning, they combined for a World Series record -- biggest age differential between a player who hit a home run and the pitcher who gave it up. Clemens is 20 years and 257 days older than Cabrera -- blowing away the previous record, 16 years, 236 days between Mickey Mantle and Preacher Roe (1953 World Series).

• Clemens was drafted by the Red Sox about six weeks after Cabrera was born.

• The Marlins are the 12th different team the Yankees have played in the World Series. They've played four clubs from each of the three NL divisions -- missing only the Expos, Astros, Brewers and Rockies. Here are the teams they have played:
NL EAST -- Phillies, Braves, Mets, Marlins
NL CENTRAL -- Cubs, Reds, Cardinals, Pirates
NL WEST -- Dodgers, Giants, Diamondbacks, Padres

• Stark says that the Cardinals have faced the second most World Series opponents, with ten, but I count only eight (Yankees, Athletics, Tigers, Browns, Red Sox, Brewers, Royals, Twins). Am I missing anyone?

HERE'S YOUR COMMISSIONER, Bud Selig, tilting at windmills, as usual.

Posted 9:40 PM by Brian
ROCKET I didn't think he had it. Clemens was frankly awful in the first inning -- he fell behind six of the seven hitters he faced, couldn't blow a third strike past anybody (despite throwing 15 two-strike pitches), gave up five hits, and labored through 42 pitches. When 20-year-old Miguel Cabrera (the next Pujols?) drilled a two-run homer into right center, it seemed like a clear message to Clemens: step aside, gramps.

But somehow Clemens gathered himself to throw only 67 pitches over the next six innings without allowing another Marlin to cross the plate. That's simply incredible, especially for a guy taking the mound for the last time in his professional life. And when the Yankees pulled yet another heart-pounding rally to tie the score with two outs (and two strikes!) in the top of the ninth, those old ghosts Mystique and Aura seemed to descend on Pro Player Stadium like a bad outbreak of malaria.

But like the '01 D'backs, the Marlins are an upstart franchise who just doesn't know how things are done in these parts -- someone forgot to tell them they're supposed to be losing to the Yankees. And someone forgot to give Alex Gonzalez the message that he's not very good, that he doesn't have the mocha handomeness of media idol Derek Jeter, that, as Al Leiter said during the NLCS, "he's about as close to an automatic out as you're gonna get." Instead A-Gonz willed one over the left field wall -- Big Mac/Trachsel-style, barely over the 330 sign -- and suddenly, defiantly, we got ourselves a serious World Series.

As soon as the game ended, my girlfriend smiled and said "go home, Yankees!" About two seconds later my brother Matt called and said, "I can't believe Weaver went out there stoned."

Posted 9:39 PM by Brian
DOUG PAPPAS explains why, Fox hoopla aside, this really isn't the 100th anniversary of the World Series.

THE DEPENDABLES I was rooting around on the Internet earlier today, getting my geek on, and I stumbled across a radio interview with sabermetrician Bill James from 2002, where he gives us his list of the most consistent players of all time. His formula essentially measures the standard deviation of a player's value from year to year, then ranks them against all other players in major league history. His results are interesting, so I'll give them to you here --

Bill James' 10 Most Consistent Players of All Time
1. Hank Aaron
2. Honus Wagner
3. Pete Rose
4. Ron Cey
5. Kenny Lofton
6. Doc Cramer
7. Wade Boggs
8. Mel Ott
9. Lou Gehrig
10. Jake Beckley

Bill James' 10 Most Consistent Pitchers of All Time
1. Urban Shocker
2. Lee Smith
3. Greg Maddux
4. Cy Young
5. George Blaeholder
6. Christy Mathewson
7. Doc White
8. Carl Hubbell
9. Bruce Hurst
10. Vic Raschi

Among the most inconsistent players of all-time: Rico Carty, Brian Jordan, and Wally Backman.

Postscript: I ordered an old Bill James book on Half.com, and during checkout Half pointed out that customers interested in Bill James were also into the White Stripes, Grandaddy's Sophtware Slump, and Johnny Cash's American IV. If that's not persuasive evidence that James is one of the coolest guys on the planet, I don't know what is...

Posted 8:42 AM by Brian
NAIL BITERS You would think that the New York Yankees -- who have won four of the last seven World Series, and at one point a couple years back won fourteen straight World Series games -- would be sheer wrecking crews, masters of the blowout and the lopsided score. But in fact, most of the World Series the Yankees have played in recently resemble last night's game, which ended with a crooked 6-1 final score but stood at 1-1 with two outs in the 8th inning.

The Yankees' run under Joe Torre has been a litany of late-inning heroics. Consider:

In 1996 against the Braves, the Yanks got blown out twice at home to fall behind two games to none in the Fall Classic. But in Game 3 they won after entering the 8th inning down 2-1. Game 4 (the Jim Leyritz game) they won in extra innings. Game 5 was a 1-0 pitching duel in which Pettitte defeated Smoltz. Game 6 was a one-run win. That's four tight games, four wins.

In 1998 they swept the Series from the Padres, but again, most of the games were close: in Game 1 they were losing 5-2 in the 7th and stormed back to win; Game 3 they were losing 3-0 in the 7th and stormed back to win; Game 4 was 1-0 in the 8th before the Yanks put it away. Three tight games, three wins.

Same deal in '99 vs. the Braves. Game 1: losing 1-0 in the 8th when they erupted for 4 runs to take the Series lead. Game 3: won in extra innings. Two tight games, two wins.

2000, Game 1: won in extra innings over the Mets. Game 2: held on for a one-run win, 6-5. Game 3: tied in the bottom of the 8th before the Mets scored two to win 4-2. This was the first close World Series game the Yankees had lost after 11 straight wins. No matter: they came back to win a one-run Game 4, and a Game 5 that was tied going into the 9th inning. Five tight games, four wins.

2001: the Yankees won 2-1 in Game 3, and extra-inning duels in Games 4 and 5 (the Byung-Hyun Kim games), before losing their second tight World Series game in six years, the classic Game 7 final against the D'backs. At that point the Yankees raised their Fall record to 16-2 in tight ballgames (compared to 3-5 in all other games). So far this year they're 1-1, losing a nail-biter in Game 1 and edging the Marlins last night in Florida.

I don't think it's any surprise who's behind these late-inning successes: a certain Panamanian named Mariano Rivera. In 19 World Series games over 29 innings he's given up only four earned runs (for a 1.24 ERA). During all October games -- championship series as well as World Series -- Rivera is even better: an 0.77 ERA in 94 innings pitched.

I can't think of another player who left such a lasting imprint on a dynasty the way that Rivera has. He's almost more like a basketball player who can take over a short series game after game (notwithstanding his gigantic misstep in Game 7 of the 2001 Series). You can name anyone else -- Reggie Jackson, Bob Gibson, Home Run Baker -- but I think Mariano Rivera is the best postseason player of all time.

Posted 1:52 PM by Brian
DRAMA QUEENS If you wonder why most of the country get tired of self-absorbed Red Sox fans, check out this letter to Bill Simmons, reprinted in today's Page 2 column:

I haven't slept for more than five solid hours in two weeks. I can't remember my own telephone number. My eyes are so red I'm certain people think I've been toking like Marley in his halcyon years. When I got home last night, my wife (who could bear no more and left the bar after the 10th) was wimpering like a scared puppy, completely unequipped to deal with her first Red Sox cannonball to the gut ... she is bitter at me for subjecting her to this life and keeps muttering, "I don't know what to do ... I don't know what to do ... I can't handle this ... you did this to me!!" And ... (in the too-much-information category) I haven't had a solid bowel movement in six days.

Posted 9:02 AM by Brian
THE GREAT ALAN BARRA -- contrarian sportswriter and, it should be said, Yankees fan -- makes a persuasive case for rooting against the Marlins in this year's World Series. In a nutshell, he thinks you should never pull for an organization that was built up, torn down, and gutted by the evil three-headed hydra of Wayne Huizenga, Jeff Loria, and Bud Selig. Barra's reasoning is solid, but for the most part I think you should root for the poor people of Florida, who have to put up with the bullshit of their owners and deserve a little taste of what the Yankees seem to feast on year after year.

One could easily rebut this by pointing out that the "poor people of Florida" were hardly supportive of their team during the lean years. This year they finished 28th in the majors in average attendance. Last year they were 29th (and they passed the Expos only because a wealthy financier bought tens of thousands of tickets on the last day of the season so that the Marlins wouldn't have the fewest fans in baseball). But isn't there an argument to be made for creating new fans, just as 1982 turned on countless young St. Louisans to the glories of Cardinal baseball? It's better than churning out new Yankees fans, that's for sure.

ANKIEL SIGHTING Yesterday during his BP chat, Will Carroll mentioned that "the Cards are considering using [Rick Ankiel] as a DH/OF while he heals and he should be throwing by mid-season." One of the upsides of a guy like Ankiel is that he's a got a sweet hitting stroke and could plausibly be used as a Brooks Kieschnick-type pitcher/hitter.

Unfortunately Dick Ankle isn't that good a hitter. For a pitcher, sure, but in AA Tennessee this year Ankiel hit a modest .240 with a slim .400 slugging percentage and .269 on-base percentage. His major-league numbers: .209/.314/.253. Of course, Ankiel did tear apart the rookie leagues a couple years ago, smoking 17 xb-hits in only 105 at bats, but by and large I think it's safe to compare him to someone like, say, Andres Torres as a hitter.

As for Rick Ankiel the pitcher, a few people have suggested that the best thing for his career is for the Cardinals to cut ties with him and let him get a fresh start with a new organization. I used to agree with this thinking, but now I'm not so sure. First of all, the Cardinals have been unusually patient with Ankiel, and he seems to have bonded with Tennessee pitching coach Blaise Ilsley. In late June Ankiel strung together some solid starts before going down for the season with a Tommy John injury. Secondly, try to imagine what would happen if Ankiel actually joined a new organization. He'd be a 25-year-old kid in 2005, the subject of any number of painfully hopeful spring training profiles, wondering if this is the year and how he's battling his inner demons, and all that needless speculation. It's better, I think, if Ankiel simply recovers in anonymity and does what he can to untrack himself next year, in a familiar environment.

Posted 6:46 AM by Brian
A SAHARA BETWEEN SERIES With their latest impersonations of Sisyphus, Vinko Bogataj, and Charlie Brown, the Cubs have extended their streak of 58 years between World Series appearances, the longest in major league history. Here are the longest droughts for each of the other franchises (since 1901):

58 Cubs (1946-present)
44 White Sox (1960-present)
43 Browns/Orioles (1901-1943)
43 Senators/Rangers (1961-present)
42 Astros (1962-present)
41 Angels (1961-2001)
40 A's (1932-1970)
40 Indians (1955-1994)
35 Expos (1969-present)
34 Phillies (1916-1949)
33 Braves (1915-1947)
32 Pirates (1928-1959)
31 Senators/Twins (1934-1964)
27 Mariners (1977-present)
27 Red Sox (1919-1945)
26 Giants (1963-1988)
25 Cardinals (1901-1925)
24 Tigers (1910-1933)
21 Brewers (1983-present)
20 Dodgers (1921-1940)
20 Reds (1941-1960)
20 Yankees (1901-1920)
18 Royals (1986-present)
15 Blue Jays (1977-1991)
15 Padres (1969-1983)
13 Mets (1987-1999)
11 Rockies (1993-present)
6 Devil Rays (1998-present)
5 Marlins (1998-2002)
3 Diamondbacks (1998-2000)

A few things jumped out at me while compiling this list:

• A whopping four teams are working on 40+ years without appearing in the World Series. That's sincerely sad.

• The city of Chicago has a collective 102 Seriesless years. The state of Texas: 85. May I nominate the Astros as the most star-crossed franchise in baseball? They've been in seven postseason series and won exactly zero of them (and some of them were agonizing losses). Worse yet, no one's even coming to their pity party -- there's no lore or legend to their wandering ways, as there is with the Red Sox and Cubs.

• One-third of the teams in the majors are working on their longest Series droughts in franchise history.

• Besides their first 20 years in the league, the Yankees' longest dry spell was a mere 14 years (1982-1995).

• Cincinnati hasn't seen too many rings, but they make sure they compete for a title relatively frequently. Even though they're the oldest professional baseball team, they don't have any epic stretches without reaching the Fall Classic -- 20 years is their maximum (same as the Yankees).

• There were more dry spells of 30-years-plus than I'd have thought. The Cardinals are working on a 16-year streak without glimpsing the World Series. Are we going to have to wait another 20 or 30 years before seeing another? The scary thing is I'll keep rooting for them either way.

Posted 9:12 AM by Brian
NO NUMBERS, no stats, just a lot of observations from a lot of jet-lagged old men -- it's Baseball America's scouting report for both teams in the 2003 World Series. Some interesting stuff.

LONGTIME YANKS FAN Alex Belth calls the Yankee Stadium crowd last night "unusually subdued." I agree. I don't think it matters much in the final score, but didn't you get the impression that the Marlins had just started playing the World Series and the Yankees had just finished playing theirs?

Posted 11:48 AM by Brian
AARON GLEEMAN likens this World Series to the last few NBA playoffs, in which the real champion was decided in the Western Conference finals. That's not to say that Aaron doesn't give the Marlins their props -- he concedes that they're a much heftier opponents than the Sixers or Nets and other assorted Lakers and Spurs chum.

Breaking down the Series, you have to give the edge to each team in the following areas:

For the Marlins -- Putting the ball in play; defense; speed; doubles and triples power; neutralizing the running game; Willis' unorthodox windup; one extra day of rest

For the Yankees -- Drawing walks; home runs; throwing strikes; righthanded relief; lefthanded hitting (handy for that short porch in Yankees Stadium); depth of starting rotation; bullpen closer.

Their benches (lousy) and managers (superb) are a wash.

I think the series will come down to how Brad Penny and Mark Redman play. If they succeed, Fish win; if not, Yanks in five or six. I think they'll let the Marlins down and the (yawn...) Yankees will be world champs again. But I hope I'm wrong.

I ASKED my Sox-loving New England pal if he'd be watching the World Series. He said it's a tough situation, sorta like falling in love with the hottest girl in high school, asking her to the prom, getting shot down at the last second, but still having to double with her and her date (and watching them makeout) on the way to the prom. In other words, the longing to switch places is just unbearable.

HOW UNLIKELY was this World Series pairing? Well, not one of ESPN's experts correctly guessed the finalists. Nor did Redbird Nation's crack research team. At least Mark's pick for champion is still alive.

Posted 6:49 PM by Brian
A GOOD EGG If you want a gracious take on the Sox loss last night, check out our sister site, Sox Nation, for the goods. Money quote (outside of the appropriate lead-off by Teddy Roosevelt):

This postseason had much ugliness to it. Let's be honest -- game 3 at Fenway, D-Lowe's crotch grabbing, 'Lilly' taunts led by the PLAYERS! But there was much about it that was brilliant. D-Lowe's pitching, the comeback against Foulke, beating the Yanks in game 6, the spirited play after the Yanks tied it in game 7. The season was a gift to us sports fans; let's be grateful. For those who truly understand sports know that winning and losing just really isn't the point. The competition, the excellence, the camaraderie among fans, the tension, the drama, the thrills, highs and lows -- that's the point. And you know what? At the end of the day, if your value as a human being is determined by whether or not your team wins, you've got some evaluating to do.

MORE SOXANALYSIS Bill Simmons has this response to the Red Sox loss:

Of course, the TV networks and newspapers got what they wanted: They spent the entire month gleefully rehashing those same "Curse" stories for both the Cubs and Sox, flashing graphics like "RED SOX WORLD SERIES WINS AFTER 1918: 0" and showing so many Babe Ruth pictures, you would have thought John Henry Williams had brought the Babe back to life. It was borderline pathological.

Talk about pathological. The Fox executives are livid that they didn't get a Cubs-Red Sox series! The Marlins, with one borderline superstar and a puny fan base, were probably the worst of the four NL playoff teams for the ratings-minded. I mean, check out the barely concealed disappointment by Fox Sports President Ed Goren when the Cubs fell short in the NLCS.

As for the AL, sure, the Yanks are a nice consolation prize, but Fox would much rather have the Sox in the series. The Yankees are old hat, been-there-done-that; the Sox are new, exciting, with a backstory that rivals the Rubaiyat. Does Simmons not understand that all that talk about the Curse was because Fox wants you to think, "this might be the year they actually win it"? They couldn't have dreamt up a more compelling storyline, and now it's up in smoke.

Posted 9:14 AM by Brian
THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK I watched last night's game in a room full of rabid baseball freaks, about half for the Yankees, half for the Sox. As baseball fans, we all won. When Aaron Boone golfed that no-doubter into the leftfield stands, we knew that we were watching something great -- not only another twist to the best postseason since 1986, but another chapter in the biblical sweep of baseball lore.

But as human beings, we felt something else -- a little hungover, a little hollowed-out, by what happened. Sometimes it's a shame that only one team can win, and it pained me to see Tim Wakefield march off the mound with his mouth pursed and the weight of the world on his shoulders. (Don't worry, Tim, you ain't no Ralph Branca or Mitch Williams, despite taking the blame for the loss. You pitched brilliantly all series.) And believe it or not, despite all my hangups with Red Sox Nation, it ached to think about all those suffering Bostonians whose October misfortunes must seem, at this point, like some pathetic cosmic joke.

Of course, we'll hear more about the Curse, and Aaron F. Boone, but we'll probably hear more about the bungled management of Grady Little. In the 7th Pedro gave up his second bomb to Giambi, then singles to Enrique Wilson and Karim Garcia before wriggling out of it. In the 8th he got rapped for a double by Jeter, then surrendered a solid single to Bernie Williams, and fans across the country prepared for another jingoistic commercial for Joe Millionaire 2, followed by shots of Alan Embree taking warm-up tosses on the mound. Pedro was already at 114 pitches, and he's not the same guy as his pitch count climbs. Consider: on the season Pedro had a .207/.257/.308 opposition AVG/OBP/SLG through pitch 105. After that he was at .363/.417/.424. The man gets tired in a hurry. And when Hideki Matsui can turn on your 0-2 fastball and rip it down the line, that little egg-timer in your brain should politely ding your pitcher out of the game, but still Little stuck with his man. The game was lost right there, in my opinion.

Two postgame quotes struck me. The first was by Grady Little during his interview with Fox reporters: "Pedro Martinez has been our man all year long and in situations like that, he's the one we want on the mound over anybody." The second was by Pedro himself. When asked if he was tiring in the 8th and whether he should have turned the ball over to his manager, he said, "That is no time to say I'm tired... I would refuse to give the ball up if he asked me to."

In other words, there was virtually no scenario where Little would have pulled Martinez, and none where Pedro would have admitted he was tired. It was as if the pitching decision was made hours before the game -- Little wanted Pedro to be the man, Pedro wanted to be the man, let the chips fall where they may. All this despite the fact that the Red Sox have a very respectable bullpen -- during the playoffs, they had a 1.31 ERA in relief (and 37 K's and only 16 hits in 34 1/3 innings). Theo Epstein went out and got Little a bunch of shiny new arms this season, and somehow Little forgot to use them. Inexcusable.

For another point of view, I turn things over to my longtime pal Brian, who was up in New England last night, suffering alongside dozens of other Sox fans at the boarding school where he teaches. He wrote me late last night:

You know, except for Yankees fans, every baseball teams' fans have known disappointing, even excruciating losses. I was on duty in the dorm last night, and I saw the kids absolutely devastated -- 19 year old boys crying openly in the dorm common room. It was very interesting -- I was in their shoes in '86 -- but, when all is said and done, life goes on.

Though I would've lifted Pedro in the eighth at the start of the inning, I don't think it was a classic mistake. Pedro was still getting ahead of hitters, still spotting his fastball, and still gassing it up there. Posada's hit came with a 1-2 count and he hit it off the handle. Jeter's double was 0-2 and he hit it down towards the end of the bat. In other words, I thought Petey still had good stuff.

I didn't sleep very well last night, and I am not looking forward to reading about curses all winter, and I could roll into a bit of self-pity pretty easily if I wanted... but feeling cursed, or unlucky, or whatever New England wants to feel, would be pretty selfish. After all, it's not like we're living in Baghdad.

Frankly, I think last night's game was one for the ages, but it was also one for second place. The Marlins look like a buzzsaw right now...

This Marlins-Yanks series could be a great one, despite what I jokingly wrote this morning. The Marlins are a solid team, and the Yanks, while powerful, have a number of exploitable weakness (their middle relief is shaky, and their defense is flat-out atrocious). Both teams threw the kitchen sink at the other guy during their LCS, so the managers will have to get creative with their pitching choices. And fortunately both Torre and McKeon have a cutthroat, "win now" strategy when it comes to postseason moves, so we should see a dogfight. A replay of the 2001 Series -- ingenue vs. longtime superstar -- would be awfully sweet...

Posted 8:11 AM by Brian
ALL THE MARBLES Forget Ali-Frazier. Forget North Carolina-Duke, Redskins-Cowboys, Celtics-Lakers, and Maple Leafs-Canadiens. Hell, forget Alydar-Affirmed. THIS is the most epic rivalry in all of sports. THIS is what we've been waiting for. THIS is the showdown of the millennium:

Yankees-Marlins.

The animosities between these two teams go back months, sometimes entire calendar years. Who can forget the classic duel of June 6, 1998, when the Marlins Jesus Sanchez hooked up with the Yanks Ramiro Mendoza? Every child in Miami knows the sad tale by heart: Sanchez gave up four early runs (the first on a dagger-to-the-heart RBI by Luis Sojo), and fell just short, despite a heroic home run by Todd Dunwoody. They ended up losing a 4-2 heartbreaker in nine innings.

Or what about the fateful trade of July 31, 1996, when the Yankees gambled by dealing Mark Hutton to Florida in exchange for Dave Weathers? Fish fans still rub this one in the faces of the evil, pinstriped Yankees, as Weathers was a bust in New York (9.57 ERA in 26 1/3 innings pitch) while Hutton won over the hearts of Dade County with a dazzling 3.72 ERA and a permanent place alongside such Marlin greats as Ryan Dempster and Pat Rapp.

Suffice it to say, whatever team loses this '03 World Series will have to deal with taunts and bruised feelings for years to come. Last night in his press conference Joe Torre said he was "looking forward to playing the Marlins" and that "it should be a great series." Now that's some serious bulletin board material. This one could get ugly.

Posted 2:09 PM by Brian
MYSTIQUE AND AURA Our friend the Baseball Crank passes along this fascinating factoid: the Yankees -- you know, pinstriped dudes, the Microsoft of Major League Baseball -- are only 5-6 in Game Sevens. In fact, they've not won a Game 7 in 41 years.

By the way, you can thank the Cardinals for the Yanks' sub-.500 record. We spanked them in the do-or-die finales of both 1964 (Gibby) and 1926 (Ol' Pete).

Of course, the Red Sox are historically only 1-4 in Game Sevens. And who has the only Game 7 win in franchise history? That would be Roger Clemens.

Posted 1:58 PM by Brian
INFAMY This was inevitable, right?

Posted 1:32 PM by Brian
THE CURSE OF DUSTY BAKER One of the great joys of this postseason is the work of Baseball Prospectus. Their staff (Joe Sheehan, in particular) has been so on-the-money with their game comments that you feel refreshed after reading them, as if scales had fallen from your eyes. Today's column by Rany Jazayerli -- in which he lays waste to Dusty Baker and applauds Jack McKeon -- is no different.

Posted 11:11 PM by Brian
KINGFISH Quite honestly, one of the most stunning turnabouts I've ever seen. After last Saturday I started playing through the possibilities of a Cubs-Yankees or Cubs-Red Sox World Series; the idea that the Marlins would come back -- winning three games against Zambrano, Prior, and Wood, with the last two games in the cauldron of Wrigley Field -- never seriously entered my mind.

Regretfully, however, the national headline from this series is not MARLINS WIN. It is CUBS LOSE, with more ink spilled over the agonies of Cubdom (and its attendant self-analysis and self-recrimination) than on the heroic exploits of Josh Beckett (only 3 hits in his last 13 innings pitched), Ivan Rodriguez (10 ribbies), and Miguel Cabrera (two huge home runs, and a flawless rightfield).

These guys took the series from the Cubs for one simple reason: they have almost no glaring weaknesses on their team. They're solid up and down the lineup; they always throw a decent starter out there; they have great speed, good D, can hit the long ball, and have a handy bullpen. While the Cubs were forced to rely on no-gudniks like Mark Grudzielanek and Paul Bako in crucial situations, the Marlins were running out good player after good player. The Marlins have few superstars, but few black holes either, and that was the difference. They simply outlasted, out-"depthed," the top-heavy (and thinly stretched) Cubs.

Of course, the anti-Marlins backlash has already begun. Lee Sinins, who publishes a daily baseball e-newsletter, has already declared the Marlins sham champions. As he put it in an huffy email fired off mere minutes after the Marlins clinched:

The Marlins have pulled off another national disgrace, winning the NL pennant. Over [sic] spending 162 games proving themselves not to be the best team of 5, it is nothing but a tribute to the small sample size garbage of October that they can call themselves the best of 16.

This is idiocy -- pure, unadulterated idiocy of the highest order. The Marlins won 91 games this year to the Cubs' 88. (They were even better than that, at 72-42, since Jack McKeon was hired and after Dontrelle Willis arrived on the scene.) They gave up only 8 more runs than the Cubs over 162 games, but scored 26 more (which gives them a Pythagorean record two games better than Chicago). What's more, the Cubs were ideally suited to win in a short series, with much of their talented front-loaded in the big three of their starting rotation. Nonetheless, the Marlins were clearly superior in this series (they scored 17 runs in their last 11 innings), and they were just as clearly superior over a full season. Any attempt to claim that the Cubs were fundamentally better -- as Sinins has done -- is either willfully adversarial or utterly blinkered and unfair. He owes the Marlins an apology.

As for Steve Bartman, the hapless buffoon who joins Denkinger and Buckner as totems of team angst, you gotta feel for the guy. He reminds me of something the film critic Manny Farber once wrote about Preston Sturges' characters:

[E]very moment brings them the fear that their lives are going to pieces, that they are going to be fired, murdered, emasculated, or trapped in such ridiculous situations that headlines will scream about them to a hooting nation for the rest of their lives. They seem to be haunted by the specters of such nationally famous boneheads as Wrong-Way Corrigan, Roy Riegels, who ran backward in a Rose Bowl game, or Fred Merkle, who forgot to touch second base in a crucial play-off game, living incarnations of the great American nightmare that some monstrous error can drive individuals clean out of society into a forlorn no-man’s land, to be the lonely objects of an eternity of scorn, derision, and self-humiliation.

Call it the Curse of the Billy Goat transformed into the Curse of the Scapegoat.

Quite honestly, I thought I'd take more joy in the Cubs' collapse, particularly when I think of the hate mail we received at Redbird Nation back in September, when Cubbie fans were all too eager to call the Cardinals choke artists, losers, pushovers, and much much worse. But damn, I don't take joy in anyone losing, especially in the manner that the Cubs lost. I think about some of the great Cubs fans -- people like Ron Santo, and Christian Ruzich, and Al Yellon, and Jim S., and Will Carroll, and that red-haired lady crying at the conclusion of tonight's game -- and it certainly doesn't brighten my day any.

Instead, I prefer to celebrate the Marlins and their stunning comeback. How great were the odds against them? Well, teams that lead a seven-game series 3-1 are, historically, 34-5. Make it 34-6 after tonight.

Posted 11:03 AM by Brian
COUNTING CHICKENS Here's what Chicago Sun-Times columnist Jay Mariotti wrote before Tuesday's game:

Prior will be the most poised guy in the house against the Marlins, who counter with the less-than-overwhelming Carl Pavano. Fans will chew fingernails, drink more than usual and gasp at the slightest problem. Absurdly, they will ponder the goat and other forms of lurking evil... You could summon every billy goat and black cat, every ghost and demon lurking in the bricks and increasingly red ivy, and the collective saboteurs couldn't get to Prior tonight... This is a different time and place in Cubdom, people. Stop worrying, start enjoying the start of a beautiful thing.

Posted 9:09 AM by Brian
BILLY GOAT 8, CUBS 3 They say history is told by the winners. But sometimes it's told by the losers, especially when the losers play in one of the biggest media markets in the United States. In other words, it doesn't matter what the Marlins do in the NLCS, the series will be told from the Chicago Cubs' point of view.

Exhibit A: Sunday afternoon, Josh Beckett hurls one of the greatest games in postseason history. The headline on ESPN.com: DESTINY DELAYED. For the Cubs, that is. No word on the Marlins' destiny.

Exhibit B: Game 6, the Marlins mount one of the most stunning October comebacks of all-time. The headline on ESPN.com: FOUL PLAY. And every news broadcast and every sports-radio show I heard this morning began with the observation that a fan shattered the Cubs dreams.

Look, I don't want to minimize the influence of that poor bastard who snatched the ball from Moises Alou. If I was a Cubs fan, I'd be watching Game 7 tonight with a gun in my mouth, safety off, ready to go. And I don't mind the media giving this strange play a lot of air-time -- after all, it's an interesting angle, and the Cubs are a popular team with a dramatic backstory and about 200,000 times as many members as Marlin Nation.

But let's not overdo it. First of all, the play was not fan interference. I watched the replay about seven times in super slo-mo on my TiVo, and the ball was out of play. In other words, if the third-base ump would have ruled in favor of Alou, it would have been umpire interference. Secondly, I'm not convinced Alou would have caught the ball even if the fan (actually there were two meddling fans) would have backed off. Alou had to leap into the stands and try a backhanded catch with his left shoulder angled toward the playing field. Admittedly, Alou looked like he had an excellent read on the ball, and for all the world seemed like he was gonna make the catch. But you simply cannot make the claim that no fan = catch = win.

Two weeks ago on Redbird Nation I pointed out that it took me several years to realize that the St. Louis Cardinals, and not Don Denkinger, blew the 1985 World Series. Champions work around mishaps; they don't give in to them. I mean, consider what had to happen after the fan grabbed at that ball for the Marlins to overtake the Cubs:

Prior had to walk Castillo.
I-Rod had to get a base hit to drive in his team's first run.
Gonzo had to muff that potential double-play ball.
Baker had to stick with Prior (who was clearly gassed; after-effects of Game 3?).
Derrek Lee had to smoke a two-run-scoring double.
Conine had to hit a sac fly off a heat-throwing Kyle Farnsworth.
Sosa had to miss the cut-off on his throw home (otherwise he'd have had Lowell off first).
Mike Mordecai had to double off the wall to give his team a big cushion.
The Marlins bullpen had to shut down the Cubs for the last two innings.

I submit that nearly every one of those moments was weightier than that borderline play over in the leftfield stands. And yet the storyline is that a fan blew the game, which conveniently sidesteps the fact that the Marlins outhit, outpitched, and outfielded the Chicago Cubs. They reached base 14 times to the Cubs' 12. They hit three extra-base hits to the Cubs' one. They made no errors to the Cubs' two. And Mark Prior, who has been brilliant for months now, was, for once, human, giving up five runs (three earned) and 9 baserunners. He was actually outpitched by Carl Pavano.

The Cubs are still in decent shape. They have Game 7 at home, they have Kerry Wood on the mound, and they have another chance to avoid the mistakes they made in Game 6. I still think they're the frontrunners to represent the NL in the World Series. But let's give credit where credit is due. The Cubs were not beaten last night by a curse, or a hex, or a fan in leftfield. They were not beaten, as Mike Greenberg suggested this morning on ESPN Radio, by "Forces Greater Than Themselves" -- unless, that is, the forces in question are the Florida Marlins.

Posted 6:41 PM by Alec
OVERHEARD Red Sox radio announcer and St. Louis native Jerry Trupiano quoted Mike Shannon during game 5 of the ALCS, citing his obscure "ol' Abner's done it again!" call when Garciaparra came to the plate in the bottom of the 5th. Trupiano also paid tribute to Jack Buck after his death in 2002.

Posted 10:40 AM by Brian
FROM OUR SPIES IN CHICAGO You gotta check this out. Seems there's some interest in a Wrigley Series.

Posted 8:44 AM by Brian
MLB beat the NFL by a 14.1-8.7 margin in the overnight ratings. (It didn't hurt that the Vickless Falcons were getting bushwhacked by the beloved Rams.) In Boston, 62% of all sets that were on were watching the Red Sox.

TRIBAL WARFARE Believe it or not, last Saturday's altercation was pretty tame by Red Sox-Yankees standards. Don Malcolm recounts some of the greatest hits in this "Great Rivalry." (Don't miss the anecdote about Sox hurler Wes Ferrell getting so upset about giving up a few runs that he punched himself out. According to legend, Ferrell once knocked himself out by socking himself in the jaw with both fists.)

JIM BAKER has done the research and now he's delivered his verdict: "What Josh Beckett did Sunday was the single greatest pitching performance in the history of baseball by a pitcher whose team was on the brink of elimination." Read the article to see how he stacks up against other greats. (Bad news for Fish fans, though -- only 4 of Bakers's 13 greatest pitching performances led to a series victory.)

DOES ANYONE get the impression that the determining factor of this year's World Series will be Hank Blalock?

Posted 2:00 PM by Brian
TODAY'S TRIVIA From SI's Peter King:

Boston Red Sox outfielder Johnny Damon has been knocked unconscious twice in his athletic career. The second time was last Monday, when he collided head-to-head with second baseman Damian Jackson while chasing a popup in short center field in Game 5 of the American League Division Series at Oakland. The first time? As a Dr. Phillips High School football player, when he collided with Apopka High School's Warren Sapp.

Posted 8:45 AM by Brian
FIGHT COVERAGE I've had some great conversations the past two days with a good friend of mine up in New England. We've been dissecting the breakdown up in Boston from every angle (for another cool angle, check out this Zapruder-like home video of the brawl), and I couldn't possibly do justice here to the intricacies of this controversy.

But I thought I should pass along one interesting tidbit from my friend:

The Boston Globe has a bulletin board for fans to post their thoughts on the incident yesterday, and my guess is about 85% of the posts from Sox fans were VERY negative about the behavior of Pedro. Red Sox fans and the Red Sox are pretty embarassed about this. Pedro has definitely worn out his welcome.

Edward Cossette shares similar sentiments over at his fine blog, Bambino's Curse, and for a Yanks fan's perspective, check out Alex Belth's outstanding work over at Bronx Banter.

One other tidbit that I got a kick out of: a local New England movie theater was scheduled to show last night's game on the big screen. Apparently 29" is too reductive to capture this oversized event.

SPEAKING OF LAST NIGHT'S GAME, that rainout was probably the best thing that could have happened for the atmosphere of the ALCS -- it gives the teams time to cool down, to let level heads prevail. But it was terrible for ratings (not only are we one more day removed from Saturday's pyrotechnics, the game now has to go head-to-head against Monday Night Football, albeit a fairly weak matchup without Mike Vick). And it was even worse for the Yankees, who must face Tim Wakefield rather than John Burkett. That might be the most blessed thing to happen to the cursed Red Sox all weekend.

FINALLY Here's a good article about the future of Fenway Park.

Posted 9:52 PM by Brian
ANTIETAM Nobody acquitted themselves well in Boston today -- not Zimmer, not Pedro, not Manny, not Nelson or Garcia, not Posada, not that obnoxious Boston grounds crew guy. (Why Zim wasn't tossed from the game, I have no idea.) Okay, Joe Torre and Grady Little were oases of sanity amid all the carnage. But I still say that choosing sides in this series is sorta like rooting for Stalin to beat Hitler on the Eastern Front in World War II.

In retrospect, however, a number of things about the game seem pretty hilarious. Like Scott Sauerbeck's reaction after the melee in the Yanks bullpen: "I thought it was a fan, so I went, 'All right, I want to watch them beat up the fan.' Then I saw it was our grounds crew guy and we all felt kind of bad."

And here's Clemens after seeing Zimmer lying on the ground: "Andy Pettitte and I went over there and I saw a bald head on the ground. We weren't sure if it was Zim or David Wells."

Funnier than either of those quotes was the pitch that buzzed Manny Ramirez. If it were a foot lower and two feet closer inside it may have actually hit him. What a buffoon.

And speaking of buffoons, Pedro talks a lot about how he's the man. Just the other night the Yankee Stadium crowd started chanting "We want Pedro!" and Pedro grinned confidently. Two years ago Pedro dared New York to "wake up the damn Bambino. I'll drill him in the ass." Well, after today's uninspired game Pedro is only 10-9 lifetime against his archrival. During the game Fox Sports asked, "Who would you rather start in a must-win game, Clemens or Pedro at their peaks?" About 60% of the respondents said Pedro, and I was inclined to agree with them. But now I'm not so sure. Can I take Prior?

Posted 9:01 PM by Brian
D.I.Y. CHAMPIONS The other day Steve Lyons was talking about how much more likable the 2003 Marlins are than the '97 version, dismissing the team from 6 years ago by saying "they basically bought a championship." You hear this sentiment a lot -- according to the fable, then-owner Wayne Huizenga simply opened his fat wallet, rented a few high-profile players, put them in a Cuisinart: instant World Title. A freelance sportswriter named Dave Rosenbaum even wrote a book about the '97 run subtitled The Year the Marlins Bought the World Series.

But as Mark Armour and Daniel Levitt point out in their fine (but uneven) book, Paths to Glory, the 1997 Marlins were very shrewdly assembled, not just the product of a no-brainer shopping spree. I agree with their take, for several reasons:

1. The Marlins increased their team payroll from $32 million in '96 to $47.7 million in '97. That's a big bump, but there were still 6 teams in baseball with higher payrolls, including three teams (the Rangers, Indians, and White Sox) that finished with worse records. In fact, the Marlins payroll that year was only slightly higher than the Cardinals, who finished with 89 losses.

2. The Marlins had a solid core to their team before the spending increase. Charles Johnson, Luis Castillo, Edgar Renteria, Jeff Conine, Devon White, Gary Sheffield, Kevin Brown, Al Leiter, Livan Hernandez, and Robb Nen were all on the roster before '97. For the most part, the nucleus of that team was acquired via trade or through the farm system.

3. The big imports (Bobby Bonilla, Moises Alou, Alex Fernandez, Dennis Cook, and Darren Daulton) each had good seasons for the '97 Fish, but give GM Dave Dombrowski credit for finding the right free agents. For example, Dombrowski signed Bonilla for $5.6 mil and Alou for $4.5 mil, but he could have just as easily gone after free-agent busts Steve Avery ($4.9 million), Jaime Navarro ($5 million), or Mel Rojas ($4.6 million). None of these guys had seasons nearly as good as the guys Dombrowski picked up, even though the market guessed otherwise.

4. Since when can teams simply go out and "buy" championships? The Orioles, Rangers, and Mets have been trying to win titles for years, to no avail. This year, the team with the 7th highest payroll was the Mariners; #8 was the Cardinals. Neither team made the postseason.

Part of the reason folks from Chicago and Boston hate Florida is because they cling to the notion that an expansion franchise simply purchased the championship they've been dreaming about for decades. But the Marlins world title in '97 wasn't bought and sold; it was earned.

MORE FISH TRIVIA On March 31st, before the season opener against the Phillies, Marlins President David Samson predicted that his team would win 91 games and attract 1.3 million fans. On September 26th, the Marlins clinched a wild-card berth with a win over the Mets. They end the regular season with 91 victories and a final home attendance of 1,303,229.

RUMOR MILL Supposedly the Giants are going to go after free agent Vlad Guerrero. Hard. They're probably not going to re-sign Ponson, choosing instead to land a bat to protect Bonds in the lineup.

ONE MORE POST MORTEM on the Oakland A's, this time from the great Rob Neyer:

[I]t's ridiculous to suggest the A's are chokers. When the A's storm into first place every August or September with a great number of walk-off home runs, the writers fall all over themselves raving about the A's character, their chemistry, and their talent. When the A's fail to advance past the Division Series every October, the writers fall all over themselves looking for -- and claiming to actually find -- deficiencies in their character, their chemistry, and their talent...

From 2000 through 2003, the A's have played 20 postseason games against good teams, and they've won eight of them. Is that really so awful? From 1947 through 1953, the Brooklyn Dodgers played 25 postseason games, and won only nine of them. They finally won a postseason series in 1955, and today nobody questions their character or their talent.

Posted 11:34 AM by Brian
BATTLE LINES Several readers have written in to share a dilemma common to many Cardinals fans: who to root for in this postseason? Do you root for the pinstriped Evil Empire of George Steinbrenner; the pinched Calvinism of Red Sox Nation; the neophyte non-dues-paying Marlins, or our arch-enemies from Chi-town? You can see the problem here. It's like trying to leave a four-sided room with no door.

I'm sure most of your have stumbled onto a favorite team already. You've been transported by the daily heroics of I-Rod, or swayed by the passion of your r-dropping Sox-loving buddy in New Hampshire, and made your allegiances accordingly. But others of you may still be on the fence; hell, I still haven't fully cracked that East vs. East matchup over in the AL.

So here's a guide to help you untangle this mess. We've come up with a list of factors for each team -- some pros, some cons, some both -- to help you separate the good guys from the bad guys. Think of them as mental flashcards. After your done reading, you'll know who to root for.

BOSTON Pedro, Harry Frazee, Sam Malone, 1918, "Cowboy Up," Harvard, Albert DeSalvo, 100.2% capacity attendance, Johnny Pesky, 2001 Patriots, vasocongestion, Jillian's bar, Mia Hamm, David "Cookie Monster" Ortiz, Ben Affleck, the Kennedys, Pumpsie Green, Bill Buckner, Bill Simmons, clam chowder, Manny's home run trot, Damon's head, Theo Epstein, Bill James, Nomah, the Curse of Shea Hillenbrand, Varitek blocking the plate, Denis Leary, Carlton Fisk

NEW YORK George Steinbrenner, Mickey Mantle, Jeffrey Maier, Derek Jeter, Jordana Brewster, Mariah Carey, 9-11, Babe Ruth, Billy Crystal, Joe Torre, Frank Torre, Ronan Tynan, $164 million payroll, $9 million payroll tax, Giuliani, David Berkowitz, 1918 placards, Gershwin, Casey Stengel, Graig Nettles vs. Bill Lee, Bucky F. Dent, Clemens, gout, Mr. October, Donnie Baseball, "New York, New York," Spike Lee, The Journey Within, 26 world championships

CHICAGO Harry Caray, Ron Santo, Curse of the Billy Goat, corked bat, ivy, John Wayne Gacy, Ditka, Dusty's prescription sunglasses, El Pulpo, Czechago '68, Let's Play Two, Kenny Lofton NLCS 2002, Eric Karros' hair, Kerry Wood's pubescent facial hair, Capone, Jordan, Scot Thompson, John and Joan Cusack, "I hope that Houston beats their brains in", 20,000 Cubfans in Atlanta, Richard J. Daley, Chris O'Donnell

FLORIDA Jeff Loria, Jack McKeon, Dontrelle Willis, teal, 2002 California Angels, Wayne Huizenga, 1997 Marlins, 1998 firesale, Ugueth Urtain Urbina, hanging chads, Jan Hammer, wild card, Pat Riley, Renteria drives home Counsell, I-Rod tags out Snow, Andrew Cunanan, Mike "Mr. Marlin" Piazza, testicular cancer, 16,290 average attendance, A.J. Burnett's elbow, Cuban boat lift, 150 team stolen bases, Hotel Fontainebleau, Miami Hurricanes

Posted 5:58 PM by Brian
TRIVIA TIME In 1989's Back to the Future Part II, Marty McFly gets taken to the future and watches a holographic sports news broadcast proclaiming that the Chicago Cubs have defeated Miami to win the World Series. You can see the scene by scrolling to the bottom of this page and pressing the video icon.

Posted 5:14 PM by Brian
A BIRD IN CUBLAND Redbird Nation correspondent Flynn writes us from Chicago, where he attended Game 2 of the Cubs/Fish series. Flynn's wife is a Cubby fan, so you can understand his impressions:

Going to the 12-3 game on Wednesday was actually pretty fun. Sosa's homer was awe-inspiring, steroids and cork be damned, and the throaty pleas from EVERYBODY around me for Baker to get Prior out of the game were good for laughs. You know when it really hit me though? After the game, just after the Cubs "high-five line" broke up and they were walking back into the dugout, with a few of them being pulled off for interviews... I know you've been to Cardinal postseason games so hopefully you get waht I'm saying here. I always felt that "just after a win" feeling was so special and enjoyable. I loved to linger for a while and just savor the fact that the team had just moved a vital step closer to their next goal.

I was watching the Cubs strut off the field and hearing/seeing the crowd going nuts outside at Clark and Addison and it hit me - "Man, that really should be the Cardinals out there. It really, really should. I should be in Busch, hearing the horns honking outside, experiencing this feeling that everyone around me is, rather than just viewing it as an outsider..."

To state the obvious, if the Cubs were clearly better than the Cards this year I would have much less angst. I am tied up, though, knowing that they were basically better by the degree that Mark Guthrie is better than Jeff Fassero. That is to say, barely.

Bitter? Yeah. Try living where I live, and being married to a die-hard Cub fan but one who won't get into Cards-Cubs sniping. She roots for the Cardinals unless they play the Cubs. Now is that any fun? And I play the role of Asshole Cardinal Fan at family gatherings at my peril. Oh the horror....

Posted 2:46 PM by Brian
THE FINAL HUMILIATION Yes, the Cubs won more games than the Cardinals this year. Yes, they beat us head-to-head down the stretch. Yes, they even seem stronger heading into the future. But there's one advantage we'll always have over our neighbors to the North: better uniforms.

At least I thought we had better uniforms. But if you heed this poll on ESPN.com, you'll discover that the nation at large believes that the Cubs, not the Cards, have the best uniforms in baseball (they were the two finalists in a bracket of eight major league teams). 57% chose Cubs blue over Cards red, and you can't just blame it on population, or on more Cubs fans logging onto ESPN with their team in the playoffs -- after all, the Cubs downed the Yankees to get to the final showdown.

I know I'm biased, but seriously, does anyone honestly love the Cubs unis? They're not terrible (we gave our picks for the worst uniforms last June) -- in fact, those blue pinstripes are even pretty snazzy. But that Cubs logo looks like an '80s-era merit badge, and those royal blue tops reek of batting practice jerseys worn by Ivan DeJesus and Tim Blackwell. I'll take the classic birds on the bat anyday.

Then again, I guess you can't trust these polls too much. Isn't that more or less what gave us this?

MAGIC BEANES Reader Neal MacCannell passes along this article from the Cardinals website. It announces the hiring of Jeff Luhnow as the team's vice president for baseball development, plus the re-assignment of old scouting director Marty Maier.

Why is this significant? Because, as the website states, "the Redbirds are taking their first steps into the Moneyball realm." Luhnow isn't from the old boy's network of scouts and ex-players; he's a wonk, a technology and software guy, so his hiring supposedly signals a move toward the kind of empirical methods favored by Beane, Epstein, and their ilk.

We'll see. Organizational management involves more than laptops -- a numbers-cruncher is useless if he doesn't crunch the right numbers, or give the right answers to the right questions. Having said that, Luhnow's hiring is a welcome admission from the front office that their player development system has been faulty, and this newest move seems like a step in the right direction.

JOE SHEEHAN reacts to Dusty Baker letting Mark Prior throw 116 pitches last night (42 after the Cubs went up by 11 runs in the fifth):

I've had it with Dusty Baker and his halo. He's a mediocrity who was blessed with Barry Bonds in his first job and somehow managed to make two division titles and a Wild Card in 10 years seem like an accomplishment. He showed up in Chicago just as two excellent young pitchers were prepared to start their first full seasons, managed a 90-win team all the way to 88 wins, and had the good fortune to be up against Jimy Williams and Tony La Russa. Baker cost the Cubs maybe 60 runs on offense this year because he cared more about forcing his preferred plate approach on good young hitters than on developing them, and 30 more by showing unwarranted loyalty to the worst starting pitcher in the league. He'll cost them more going forward as the star versions of Prior and Carlos Zambrano he managed this year turn into something less pleasant as a result of his heavy hand.

Baker made major mistakes with this team, and it made the playoffs not because he's a genius, but because he inherited enough talent that even he couldn't screw it up. The Teflon coating he carries around is ridiculous...

That's much too harsh, in my opinion. Baker did not simply inherit a 90-win team (hell, the Cubs lost 95 games last year and outside of some maturing players had no signficant additions to their team); he does not have a track record of ruining young pitchers' arms; his teams in San Fran were more than Barry Bonds and spare change; and it's unfair to put Prior (who has off-the-charts mechanics) and Zambrano (who doesn't) into the same basket when it comes to workloads. That being said, there was no compelling reason to keep Prior in last night's game so long, and yes, I think Baker is slightly overrated.

FROM THE OAKLAND TRIBUNE "Face it A's fans. Your team has gone from being the poor man's Yankees to being the poor man's Braves."

Posted 5:19 PM by Brian
GOLIATH VS. GOLIATH Aaron Gleeman hits the nail on the head regarding Sox/Yanks in the ALCS:

Of course, this isn't your typical underdog situation. It's not exactly a case of a school bully picking on some scrawny, helpless kid. It's more like the school bully picking on a slightly smaller and slightly less hated school bully. Like if David took a vacation and Goliath fought Goliath's little brother. It's like a fight between the Crips and the Bloods, except one is wearing pinstripes and the other hasn't won a World Series since 1918.

TRIVIAL Three of baseball’s final four teams — the Cubs, Red Sox and Yankees — have called the same city home since 1903, the year of the first World Series. When was the last time that two such teams were matched up in the Fall Classic? 1976, when the Reds swept the Yankees in four straight. Every World Series since has featured at least one relocated or expansion team. Weird.

Posted 9:44 AM by Brian
US VS. THEM Here's a perceptive article by Allen Barra, who suggests that the theme of this year's postseason is themes. We've had dozens of 'em so far: David vs. Goliath, rich vs. poor, blessed vs. cursed, lucky vs. unlucky, East vs. West, Cinderellas vs. evil stepsisters, unkillable warriors vs. perenniel choke artists. It's a golden age for sportswriters, who have more backstory to work with than the Brothers Karamazov. A few quick thoughts:

• Every year a team says it won on the strength of heart and character (with the unstated assumption that they have more of it than the other guy). Take this year's Red Sox. Peter Gammons has been gushing lately about how this isn't the "25 players, 25 cabs" Sox of the late '70s, how this year's BoSox are sociable and loving, how they hug each other and share beers with the fans, how they're big-hearted and forward-looking. On the other hand, it's hard to reconcile such graciousness with many of the bush-league tactics we saw from the Red Sox in the NLDS (like Derek Lowe grabbing his crotch at the Oakland dugout after his team's win on Monday night, or the Boston benchwarmers taping the word "Lilly" to their backs to try to unnerve Ted Lilly, or Byung-Hyun Kim giving the finger to his own fans, or Manny Ramirez after his three-run bomb trotting around the bases slower than C3PO).

So are the Red Sox jerks? As with all teams, the answer is this: some of their players are cool, some are assholes, and some are both. (In fact, that's true of most people.) Rest assured that every team has at least one ultra-self-absorbed jock, one date rapist, one cokehead, one Christian moralizer, and a couple of the nicest guys you'd ever want to meet. And whether or not we root for them probably has more to do with accidents of geography than anything else.

The bottom line is that the Red Sox won the series on the strength of talent, namely two of the prettiest pitches I've ever seen from the hand of Derek Lowe.

• Another thing about the Red Sox. Barra writes "Curse of the Bambino, my butt; the Red Sox passed on a chance to sign Willie Mays." This is true. The Sox passed on a chance to sign Mays in 1950 and Jackie Robinson in 1945. (And in fact, the Boston Bruins had a black player before the Red Sox did.) But more astonishing to me is this: in 1925 the Yankees, perhaps in compensation for the lopsided trade that brought Babe Ruth to New York, offered Lou Gehrig to the Red Sox for first baseman Phil Todt. The Sox stuck with Todt.

• This doesn't have much to do with anything, but it cracks me up. Did you know that if the A's had tied the game in the bottom of the ninth the other night, that Ken Macha would have employed a defense of Terrence Long at first base, backup catcher Adam Melhuse at third, shortstop Miguel Tejada at second and third baseman Eric Chavez at shortstop. If the game did go into extra innings, all the Sox would've had to do is lay down a bunt and they would have had an inside-the-park home run, Little League style.

Posted 5:48 PM by Brian
GLASS SLIPPERS Before tonight's Cubs/Marlins game, Steve Lyons called the Cubs "the Cinderella story of the postseason." Let's see...

In the preseason, Sports Illustrated had the Cubs ranked 14th, only two notches below the Giants. The Marlins were ranked 20th, below the Mets, Reds, and Rangers.

In SI's midseason power rankings, the Cubs were ranked 13th. The Marlins, 23rd.

At the end of the regular season, Vegas odds gave the Cubs a 5-1 chance to win the World Series. The Marlins came in at 12-1.

Of 18 postseason picks among ESPN's experts, 12 of them expected the Cubs to be here. Two of them picked the Marlins.

So who are the real Cinderellas of the postseason -- the Cubs? Or the team they're playing?

Posted 9:13 AM by Brian
WAITING Sports Illustrated's Phil Taylor hopes and prays the Red Sox or Cubs will win the World Series... so that their fans will shuttup:

The reason we should become a nation of Red Sox and/or Cubs fans for the next month isn't that we think their long-time supporters have suffered enough. It's because the rest of us have. A World Series win by one of them would mean we'd have one fewer group of self-pitying fans to listen to. No more fatalistic Chicago fans wondering out loud about what cruel way the Cubs will find to dash their hopes this time. No more psychically wounded Red Sox lovers blathering on about the Curse of the Bambino, Bucky F---in' Dent and the ball Buckner butchered.

It all gets a little tiresome for the rest of us. Maybe that's because there's always a subtext to the agonizing of Cubs and Sox fans that suggests they're somehow special, that because they've gone so long without experiencing a championship win, they have a deeper, more passionate connection to their teams. This isn't true, of course. It's just as tough to be a fan of, say, the Atlanta Hawks, who have never won a championship, but Hawks fans haven't turned their wait into theater.

In fact, does any team have it harder than the White Sox? As my brother the Judge points out, "their loserness doesn't even have any character." True. How many memorable games do the ChiSox have in the last 75 years? None come to mind. A guy runs a website that's obsessed with "ultimate games." Ultimate games are those that are a must-win for each team. A Game 7, or the Bucky Dent game, or O's/Brewers in the final game of the '82 regular season. Ultimate games are about as dramatic as it gets. The White Sox, as a franchise, have played in exactly one of them -- in 1908.

Even on paper their heartache goes back all the way to 1917. Although, to be fair, I don't like it when people use this rhetorical trick. Like last night, Tim McCarver said of the Cubs fans, "they've been waiting 95 years for this!" That may be true for one or two Centenarians in the Chicago area, or perhaps some collective Cubfan oversoul, but for the most part Cubs fans have been waiting for however long they've been baseball fans -- that is, they've waited no longer than your average Brewers or Padres fan. Or even your average Giants fan.

That's not to say that one's entire baseball life isn't a long, long time. Case in point: in Game 1 down in Atlanta, Kerry Wood smoked a two-run double to give the Cubs the lead for good. The Fox cameras picked up a Cubs fan in the crowd (how could you not?; they were everywhere) and a woman was openly weeping. Weeping! It was 3-1 Cubs in the sixth, series even at 0-0. And I thought, "Who's the bigger idiot here -- this lady, or me for rooting against her?"

Posted 9:28 AM by Brian
GIANT KILLERS Joe Sheehan on the NL playoffs so far:

I don't know anyone who had the Cubs and Marlins playing in the LCS. It's the baseball equivalent of those occasional funky second-round matchups in the NCAA basketball tournament, when both a #12 and a #13 seed upset teams in their mini-bracket and play for a trip to the Sweet Sixteen. We're maybe just a few hours away from Southwest Missouri St. against Wisconsin-Green Bay for the right to keep playing.

ODDS AND ENDS from Hadley-on-Sports:

Despite numerous rumors reporting Edmonds is heading to Los Angeles, my sources, stand firm, there is no deal, and there has been neither previous discussions nor intentions to deal him to the Dodgers. As I've written before and stated on several occasions (on KTRS), I was told that there is no way that Edmonds and J.D. Drew will return next season (one will be dealt)... that noted... the Edmonds-to-the-Dodgers deal has no legs.

Two stats that blow my mind, down the stretch, relate to Jim Edmonds and the Cardinals offensive woes at the top of the batting order.

Edmonds whiffed in 47 percent of his AB in September (22 Ks in 47 AB).

Despite finishing second in the NL and third in MLB in batting average, the Cardinals hitters batting first in the lineup were even worse than imagined.

The Cardinals leadoff hitters finished 21st in MLB in batting average, 25th in MLB in OBP and 30th (dead last) in walks.

Ironically, the Cardinals drew more walks out of the nine-hole. The Cardinals leadoff hitters drew 33 walks while those hitting in the ninth slot for the Cardinals drew 36 walks.

Posted 9:06 AM by Brian
THE BRAIN TRUST Would you ever scalp front-row tickets to a shareholders meeting at IBM? Or wear face paint to the boardrooms of Archer Daniels Midland? Probably not. But if you think about it, every time you root for the Cardinals you’re rooting for, among other things, a corporation, a management team and its employees, a business model. With that in mind, we present to you a few of our thoughts about what the Cardinals brass did wrong this year, what they did right, how they might improve heading into next season, plus a few other factoids thrown in for fun.

TOP 5 MOVES BY THE CARDINALS BRASS

1. Signing Kiko Calero. Don’t hold the non-signing of Chuck Finley against Jocketty. Finley was asking too much (at one point he demanded $3 million from the Angels for just half a season) and he never seemed all that interested in playing big-league ball again. But Kiko Calero, a refugee from the Royals system, was a real find. He finished with a 2.82 ERA, 51 strikeouts in 31 innings, and had established himself as a quality option for the rotation when he went down for the season with a ruptured tendon in his knee. In retrospect, that was perhaps the biggest blow to the Cardinals' season, even more than those bombs by Sosa, Alou, Ramirez, et al.

2. Picking up Cal Eldred. You know what Cal Eldred was this year? Average. But as it turns out, average was pretty good. As Baseball Prospectus pointed out recently, "There's a pretty good case that the poor performance of the bullpen ruined the Cardinals' season. According to [runs prevented], the St. Louis 'pen allowed 55 more runs than an average team would; had the bullpen been merely average, it might have been the Cardinals celebrating a Game One victory in Atlanta, and not the Cubs."

3. Re-signing Eduardo Perez. The man ended with good numbers, and he raked against lefties, which helped us a ton when Eli Marrero went down for the year.

4. Promoting Danny Haren. It wasn’t an ideal situation – Haren wasn’t quite ready, and his free agent clock started ticking a few months earlier than we had hoped. But he did just fine; in fact, for a time there Haren was our second or third best starter. He didn’t pile up too many innings (173.1 at three levels of play), and the experience he got as a 22-year-old was invaluable.

5. Letting Pujols play through his tender elbow. At the time Pujols was diagnosed with a fragile elbow, a lot of people thought La Russa and Co. should sit him for a few weeks until he was fully recovered. Said Bernie Miklasz at the time: "All it takes is one lapse in judgment, one rebellious throw, and La Russa could end up regretting his decision for the rest of his career." But the Cards brass wisely decided that 90% of Albert Pujols was more effective than 100% of Kerry Robinson, and they were rewarded with massive production from the Great One.

BOTTOM 5 MOVES BY THE CARDINALS BRASS

1. Releasing Al Levine. For whatever reason, the Cardinals assumed that Levine’s performance in spring training (7.20 ERA in 10 innings pitched) was more indicative of his real value than his performance in seven previous major league seasons (3.91 ERA in 423 innings pitched). Turns out it was a disastrous decision. Levine ended the year with a 2.79 ERA in a DH league.

How much would Levine have helped the Cards? Well, let’s do a little math: he gave up 29 runs in 71 innings; figure with the Cards defense behind him he’d give up more like 27. In the same number of innings, Yan and Fassero would give up around 50 runs, almost twice as much. So let’s conservatively guess that cutting Levine cost the Cardinals 20 runs. In our run environment, that’s equal to about two wins. The Cardinals lost the division by 3 wins. Think it might have been nice to keep the guy around? (And if you want a more vivid fantasy about what could have been, check out Al’s cap in this photo.)

2. Pushing Chris Carpenter Too Hard. The plan was this: the Cardinals would sign ex-Blue Jay Carpenter to an incentive-laden deal, allow him to miss the first three or four months of the season while he recovered from a torn labrum, then when he was good and ready – voila! – we’d have our midseason starting pitcher at a cut-rate price, without having to give up anything.

But the plan went awry when the Cardinals pushed Carpenter during some throwing sessions last April and May. La Russa, Duncan, and Jocketty were so impressed with his velocity that they accelerated his timetable, even talked about letting him face his former team in early June. That’s when Carpenter suffered a severe setback, found himself back in surgery in August, and missed the entire season. The Cardinals have shown this kind of over-eagerness with recovering pitchers before (see Woody Williams c. 2002), and it cost them dearly.

3. Choosing Yan over Crudale and/or Anyone Else. Why did the Cardinals persist with a clown like Esteban Yan when it was clear, week after week, that he was incapable of retiring major league hitters? If there were no viable alternatives, that’d be one thing. But the Cardinals kept Mike Crudale mired in AAA, even though he had a decent track record for us (a 2.38 ERA in 13 games this year, and a 1.88 ERA in 49 games for us last year). Apparently the Cardinals brass (namely La Russa and Duncan) didn’t like that Crudale was overweight and a bit flaky from appearance-to-appearance, but if Moneyball teaches us anything, it's that you can’t let personal prejudices outweigh the bottom line, and I find no reason why Crudale couldn’t have done a serviceable job for us (he finished the season with a 2.61 ERA, in a Brewers uniform). And if not Crudale, then why not give Memphis’ Jason Ryan (2.70 ERA), or even Jimmy Journell or Josh Pearce, more innings? Could they have been any worse than Yan’s 6.02 ERA in 39 games?

4. Conducting an amateurish Amateur Draft. Ever wonder why the Cardinals farm system is so barren? Look no further than this year’s amateur draft for an example of what goes wrong. We stocked up on high-risk selections and verifiable longshots: high schoolers (like #1 pick Daric Barton, whom no one considered a first-rounder) and relievers with arm problems and control issues who hypnotize scouts with radar-gun readings (bad, bad track record for guys like this), not to mention the occasional nepotism case (like 8th-round pick Matt Pagnozzi, son of ex-Cardinal Tom Pagnozzi). The Cardinals had fine drafts back in the late ‘90s (Ankiel ’97, Adam Kennedy ’97, J.D. Drew ’98, Bud Smith ’98, Pujols ’99), but they’ve been very weak since.

5. Sitting on Our Hands at the Trading Deadline. As it turned out, Hitchcock and DeJean did just fine, but the Cardinals needed at least one other league-average arm. We said this all season long, but Cardinals hitters were good enough, and our division was weak enough, that even a few mediocre (i.e., non-terrible) pitchers would have helped us tremendously. The early September series in Chicago was a case in point. Cubs GM Jim Hendry made a number of moves that were unimpressive on paper, but Lofton was still an upgrade in center and Aramis Ramirez was better than what they had at third. Hendry didn’t get great talent, but he got players who smoothed over his team’s biggest weaknesses, and those guys helped the Cubs vault into the playoffs. Jocketty, on the other hand, went into early September (including a stretch where'd we'd play 7 games in 6 days against division foes) knowing full good and well he’d have to rely on at least one thoroughly unreliable pitcher. In the final analysis we were probably one bullpen arm short.

10 SUGGESTIONS FOR WALT JOCKETTY THIS WINTER

1. Develop a gameplan. There are two ways to look at our season. The first is this: You could argue that the Cardinals are more like the 97-win team of 2002 than the 85-win team of 2003, that this year was a mere aberration, a bad year done in by bad luck and few bad players. If this is the case, then the gameplan for next season involves spackling a few holes (like our bullpen and our bench) and committing your resources into one last pennant run, longterm future be damned.

The other viewpoint is more pessimistic. It sees the Cardinals as an aging, overpaid team with little renewable talent; it looks at the upstart Cubs and the rebuilding Reds and Pirates and sees the Cardinals sliding inexorably into the second tier of the NL Central within a year or two. If this is the case, then the Cardinals should take more drastic measures; they should be prepared to significantly alter our team in order to remain competitive for 2004, 2005, and beyond.

So the question before us: Do we transform ourselves into a leaner, hungrier, younger team, or do we stick with aging players like Edmonds, Williams, Tino, and Vina? I tend to favor the former option. I look at the Astros and see a team that held onto its prize players one year too long, and they strike me now as too old and too inflexible to improve in 2004. What’s more, the Cardinals still have some great players who are young (Pujols, Renteria) or in their primes (Rolen, Drew, Morris), so we can still compete as a formidable ballclub while saying goodbye to a few cherished (and not so cherished) veterans. With that in mind, here are my further suggestions for Walt this winter...

2. Trade Jim Edmonds. Jedmonds had a fantastic year, even with the injuries. In my opinion he’s the second best centerfielder in baseball (after Carlos Beltran), and I’d hate to lose him. And yet... The Cardinals must make some changes to get younger, to acquire pitching, and to trim the massive salaries at the heart of our team. As Bernie Miklasz wrote recently:

Unless this team blends in more youth in 2004, several things are likely: (1) the rate of injuries may increase; (2) the payroll costs will continue to escalate; (3) older players are reluctant to change, and are more secure in their careers, which means La Russa could encounter more clubhouse problems.

Pujols is due about an extra $5 million this season; Edmonds, an extra million; Drew, an extra million; Woody, an extra two million; Morris, an extra two million. And our owners have said they want to freeze payroll. If the Cardinals are going to add quality talent this winter (or even have enough payroll flexibility to sign midseason players, as we did with Rolen and Finley in 2002), then we have to cut bait with one of our big sharks.

We know we’re not going to get rid of Pujols, Renteria, or Rolen. That leaves Edmonds. He's getting old (he’ll be 34 next year, and he’s been suffering through a variety of injuries), his trade value is sky high (he finished 5th in the league in OPS and still has a great reputation), and we could replace him in center with Drew. Moreover, we have a plausible suitor in the Los Angeles Dodgers. They’re rich; they need hitting; they have an excess of pitching; their current centerfielder is Dave Roberts; and, with Shawn Green possibly moving to first, they'll need another power outfielder. Think we could use Edwin Jackson?

3. Trade Woody Williams. I know we need pitching. But let's face facts. Woody will most likely never be as valuable as he is right now. Consider that he had a 5.40 ERA in the second half, and he seemed older and more tired than ever (he averaged 161 pitches per nine innings after the All-Star Break). What’s more, he had the highest run support in the league, which means his 18-9 record would be more like 14-11 with a league-average offense behind him.

I’m convinced that any pitcher who keeps his walks down and keeps the ball in the park (say, Kip Wells, Mark Buehrle, Steve Trachsel, Horacio Ramirez, Tomo Ohka) can do just as well as Woody with the Cardinals defense behind him. And none of those guys costs $8 million, as the Woodman does next year. (Although if you do replace Woodrow, make sure you replace him with an innings-eater who doesn’t strain the Cardinals bullpen.)

4. Dump Tino. The Cardinals are clearly prepping the unwelcome mat for him, and his shenanigans both on and off the field make this a smart move. That would allow us to move Pujols to first (who’s not a good leftfielder, but a very good firstbaseman), and then try to plug the hole in left. You could do that by re-signing Eduardo Perez and Orlando Palmeiro for about $1.5 million combined and have them platoon in left (as a platoon this year they had a passable .281/.365/.460 AVG/OBP/SLG). Or you could keep Pujols in left and try to trade our disgruntled first-sacker for some other disgruntled first-sacker in Chicago, like, say, Paul Konerko or, better yet, Hee Seop Choi. Dusty doesn’t seem to care much for Choi (but loves Randall Simon), so maybe we could work something out...

5. Don’t pick up Vina’s option. We’re not impressed with Bo Hart, but Vina is simply a waste of money. He’ll be 35 years old next year, and he's lost over 20 points off his on-base percentage each year for the past 3 years. He sees only 3.3 pitches per plate appearances, one of the worst figures in the league and atrocious for a leadoff hitter. $4.5 million is too much to pay a guy like that.

So who should we get to replace him? Well, I thought we should have nabbed D’Angelo Jimenez back in July, but that train has evidently left the station. And I think Bo Hart is only suitable as a benchman. The Marlins Luis Castillo is a free agent this off-season, and he's a close friend of Edgar Renteria’s, but it’s doubtful the Cardinals can pony up the cash for him. But fortunately you don’t need to find a guy who plays both second base and leads off. As we've mentioned before, the Cardinals already have the best leadoff hitter in the National League. His name is Edgar Renteria. Pencil him in #1 and leave him there every day of 2004.

6. Stockpile pitchers. Clearly the Cardinals aren’t going to be able to go out and sign marquee pitchers – the bankable free agents this offseason (Keith Foulke, Kevin Millwood, Sidney Ponson) are simply too expensive for our payroll. So you’ve got to get creative. You need to look at Rule 5 draftees (as the Blue Jays did with Aquilino Lopez), minor league free agents (as the Padres did with Rod Beck and the Royals did with Jose Lima), and second-tier free agents (as the Pirates did when they signed Jeff Suppan to a $500,000 deal last January). The idea is to spend a little on a lot of guys, with the awareness that not all your picks are going to pan out.

To be fair, this is sorta what Jocketty was trying to do last offseason when he signed so many discarded veterans. And there's no reason you can't assemble a passable bullpen out of spare parts, as the Braves' John Schuerholz has done for years with cheapos like Kerry Ligtenberg, Kevin Gryboski, Chris Hammond, and Darren Holmes. But you must have excellent scouting and talent evaluation for this strategy to work. You need to distinguish between high-risk/high-reward pick-ups like Cal Eldred and Kiko Calero, and high-risk/low-reward pick-ups like Borbon, Painter, Springer, Yan, Pearson, et al. If you increase your success rate just a little bit, you're one arm ahead instead of one arm short, which Jocketty must ensure this winter. Which brings us to our next point…

7. Build organizational depth. The Cardinals shouldn’t expect miracles overnight – we have one of the worst farm systems in baseball (if not the worst), so there’s no immediate help on the way. But they should take a flyer on some minor league free agents and delve into international markets, which they’ve failed to do in years past. They should also commit more rescources to player evaluation, minor league coaching, and overseas development, even if it means taking dollars and talent from other areas of the ballclub. It's our most crucial long-term need.

8. Get a catcher to complement Matheny. We touched on this task a few weeks ago, so read here if you want our thoughts, but the basic problem is this: Matheny is such a poor hitter against righties that most of the time it's like having two pitchers in our lineup. Matheny needs more rest anyway, as he really tired as the dog days wore on (he slugged .172 in August!). Our suggestion: do whatever it takes to pry Ramon Castro from the Marlins, especially since I-Rod seems intent on staying in Florida. The guy’s in his prime, he’s cheap, and he’s hit everywhere he’s gone.

9. Make darn certain J.D. Drew comes to spring training healthy and stays healthy. Assign him a round-the-clock personal trainer, a live-in nutritionist/aromatherapist, have him running hills like Walter Payton, whatever it takes. If you’re going to jettison Edmonds and/or move Pujols to first base, it becomes that much more crucial that Drew (who can be had for a reasonable $4 million) anchor our outfield.

10. Sign Pujols to a long-term contract. Sure, he’s coming off a monster season, so his asking price will be huge – but not nearly as huge as it will be at age 27, when he’s a free agent coming off back-to-back Triple Crown seasons and George Steinbrenner is moving in for some heavy petting. The one concern with Pujols, long-term, is his body type – he’s awfully bulky for his age, and injuries could be a problem down the road, especially the kinds of joint injuries that plague big men like Frank Thomas. But his comparables (based on age, productivity, and body type) are guys like Hank Aaron, Frank Robinson, and Eddie Murray, and last I checked each of those guys played pretty good baseball for awhile.

HOW LONG DO WE HAVE 'EM?

Free agents this year – Cairo, Drew (arbitration eligible), Eldred, Girardi, Kline, Palmeiro, Perez, Stephenson, Tomko

2004 – Marrero, Martinez, Matheny, Morris, Taguchi, Carpenter (team option), DeJean (team option), Fassero (team option), Hitchcock (team option), Vina (team option)

2005 – Isringhausen, Renteria (second of two team options), Williams (team option)

2006 – Pujols

2008 – Edmonds (team option)

2010 – Rolen

14 FRANCHISES TO WIN A WORLD SERIES MORE RECENTLY THAN THE CARDINALS

1. Anaheim
2. Arizona
3. Atlanta
4. Baltimore
5. Cincinnati
6. Detroit
7. Florida
8. Kansas City
9. Los Angeles
10. Minnesota
11. New York Mets
12. New York Yankees
13. Oakland
14. Toronto.

Posted 7:29 PM by Brian
BLOODBATHS What's baseball (or a baseball blog, for that matter) without a little controversy? Fortunately (as Jim Baker points out in this lively article), there wasn't much labor strife to bog us down this year. Instead, the hottest friction was caused by relatively minor issues, like Sosa's corked bat and Torre vs. Steinbrenner. But there were still some fun controversies and antagonisms in St. Louis. They're all part of our...

TOP TEN CONFLICTS OF THE YEAR

1. Matt Morris/Tony La Russa/Steve Kline vs. Dusty Baker & Mark Prior

In a Nutshell: Morris says he's rooting against the Cubs to win the division, Baker says he has no respect for Morris, and Prior chimes in with the hope that the Cardinals get their brains bashed in by the Astros. La Russa and Baker patch up matters until Kline gets in a few jabs, publicly hoping for great harm to Prior's forehead.

The Winners: Dusty & Prior. Until this week, Morris and La Russa had the upperhand and the moral high ground, which we made clear here, here, and here. But once Kline opened his wordhole, that tipped the scales in favor of the Cubbies. They're the bigger gentlemen, plus they're playing in October (although contrary to Prior's wishes, they got a little help from the Cardinals to get there).

2. Albert Pujols vs. Gary Bennett

In a Nutshell: Pujols hits a walk-off homer against the Padres on July 12th, admires his shot a little too long, and takes one in the back the next day from Padres starter Adam Eaton. He starts to trot down to first, but Pads catcher Gary Bennett won't let him, getting up in Bert's grill, jawing at him, chest-bumping him. Pujols responds by popping Bennett in the face.

The Winner: Pujols. He not only got the walk-off homer and the shot to Bennett's face, he also got to serve his suspension on days which he planned to sit out anyway, nursing a flu. Besides, he was blatantly baited by Bennett in the first place, which means (by our logic, anyway) he got what was coming to him.

3. Jerry Crawford vs. Matheny/Duncan/Morris/La Russa

In a Nutshell: Home-plate ump Jerry Crawford crowds Matheny as he steadies himself to catch for Matt Morris. Matheny says something about it; Crawford tells him to shuttup; Matheny doesn't; Matheny gets tossed. An inning later, Duncan complains about Crawford's strike zone -- he's tossed. Crawford then targets Morris, and almost tosses him when Morris yaps about it. La Russa questions Crawford's integrity, which earns him a suspension. Matheny and Duncan are suspended along with him.

The Winners: Matheny/Duncan/Morris/La Russa. Practically speaking, Crawford won. He shook up our team and suffered no consequenes (although the league claims it's still looking into disciplinary action). Nonetheless, Crawford is by far the bigger loser here, for obvious reasons.

4. Bernie Miklasz vs. Tino Martinez

In a Nutshell: Tino brings an allegedly bad attitude into the Cardinals clubhouse. Miklasz calls him out on it, and urges the Cardinals to dump him. Tino claims Bernie has no idea what he's talking about and other Cardinals (namely Mike Matheny) rush to his defense.

The Winner: Miklasz. He has more credibility than Tino, and no motive for a vendetta against one player, whereas Tino and Matheny have clear motives to defend themselves at all costs.

5. Tino vs. Miguel Batista

In a Nutshell: April 20th, Tino is hit by a pitch from Batista and goes to first. After he's retired on a force play, he and Batista exchange words. Tino charges the mound, socks Batista, then Batista backpedals away and whizzes the ball in Tino's direction. He misses. Both players are ejected and suspended.

The Winner: Tino. Batista not only got smacked by Tino, he also came up empty even though he brought a weapon (to wit, a baseball projectile) with him. Easy call.

6. Matt Morris vs. Kerry Wood

In a Nutshell: Wood proclaims he's going to come inside to Cardinal hitters, and keeps his word by buzzing Morris when Morris squares to bunt in his first at bat, September 2nd. When Wood comes to the plate in the 5th, Morris strikes him out on three pitches, and laughs into his glove. Wood gets so pissed off he knocks down Morris twice in his next at bat, both pitches aimed at Morris' head.

The Winner: Morris. The Cubs may have won the war, but this particular battle was won by Morris. Not only did he refrain from throwing at Wood, he also outdueled him that night, and dominated the Cubs on the season (3-0, 2.25 ERA vs. Chicago, compared to Wood's 0-2, 3.38 vs. the Cards).

7. Fernando Vina vs. Tony La Russa

In a Nutshell: Vina puts when his name surfaces in winter trade talks, and blames La Russa for pushing his availability. La Russa denies the accusation and seems to form a truce with Vina in spring training, but Vina continues to snipe about his standing with the club. At one point he declares he wouldn't mind playing for the Cubs next year, and appears lackadaisical in the field. After TLR benches him for three straight games, Vina and his manager share a heated discussion at the end of September.

The Winner: La Russa. Vina was petulant and mopey all season. Sometimes players names come up in trade talks; it's called Major League Baseball, not daycare.

8. Joe Posnanski vs. St. Louis

In a Nutshell: Kansas City Star sports columnist Posnanski takes issue with St. Louis' self-proclaimed status as the "best fans in baseball," at one point characterizing Cardinal fans as a bunch of cows. St. Louis answers with a lot of chatroom grumbling, as well as an official retort by the Post's Jeff Gordon.

The Winner: St. Louis. Posnanski's argument against St. Louis was filled with so many logical errors and statistical gimmicks that it's really beneath consideration (although we did consider the issue here).

9. Preston Wilson vs. Tony La Russa

In a Nutshell: April 9th, Wilson steals third base in the bottom of the 8th inning at Coors with his team up 9-4. La Russa accuses him of running up the score, and Wilson fires back that a five-run lead in Coors isn't so hefty, and he's just doing his job.

The Winner: Wilson. As Wilson himself explained so well, five runs is not such a big lead in Coors, and besides, the Cardinals weren't playing as if the game was over, so why should he?

10. Brett Tomko vs. Dave Duncan & Tony La Russa

In a Nutshell: In late June Tomko runs off a couple good starts in a row, and he credits his improved mechanics to a discussion with some long-time buddies. Duncan and La Russa gripe to the Post-Dispatch, claiming that they deserve praise for Tomko's recent success, not Tomko's pals.

The Winner: Tomko. Why get peevish about who deserves credit? Tony and Dunc should have settled for wins, not brownie points.

Honorable Mentions: Billy Wagner vs. the Cardinals; Brett Tomko vs. Jose Guillen; Woody Williams vs. Jeff Kent; and Redbird Nation vs. Pedro Martinez and every Sox fan in Boston.

Posted 5:12 PM by Brian
KRAZY KLINER Here's more on the Steve Kline flap, in which he wished death and doom on Mark Prior. The other day we scorned Kline's comments and guessed that "this wasn't a joke." But one of our kind readers writes in with new information:

You said that [Kline] wasn't joking. Well, looking at this longer transcript, it turns out that he specifically said he was. Whether the comment was TASTEFUL is a separate issue and should be kept separate. Just my opinion.

And indeed, Kline explained himself to the Post-Dispatch on Monday:

I'd like to see Prior get line-drived in the forehead, personally. I'm just joking around. I don't want to see anybody get hurt but I don't want to see the Cubs win.

I think there's a fine line between an unfunny, mean-spirited joke and actual, mean-spirited ill will, so I don't really think Kline's off the hook. But at least he has the composure to back off from his comments, ever so slightly.

Posted 12:54 PM by Brian
HOT OR NOT The Red Sox sure haven't chosen the right years to get hot. They've been to three World Series in the past 55 years -- 1967, 1975, and 1986. Here was their competition:

The '67 Cardinals won more games than any other National League team won in any single year in the 1960s.

The '75 Reds won more games than any other National League team won in any single year in the 1970s

The '86 Mets won more games than any other National League team won in any single year in the 1980s.

Posted 9:03 AM by Brian
FLASHBACKS Sure, titles and hardware are nice, but what you really take away from a season are moments: Jack Clark almost walking into the Cardinals dugout after his three-run bomb to seal the '85 pennant in Dodger Stadium, Tom Lawless flipping his bat aside two years later, Eric Davis diving to the turf in '99 to preserve Jose Jimenez's no-hitter at the BOB. 2003 offered a lot of frustrations, but it offered some indelible memories as well. Here they are, our

TOP FIVE MOMENTS OF THE YEAR

1. (tie) K-Rob Goes Yard (August 28) and Pujols Downs Smoltz (August 10). We covered these moments just the other day, so no need repeating them -- but they were both sweetly satisfying. My favorite detail from the Kerry Robinson homer: Jason Simontacchi out in the bullpen, gallantly catching the batted ball in his cap.

2. Orlando Palmeiro Snags the Ball Out of the ivy at Wrigley (September 2). So we ended up losing the game. For a brief moment, this was the play of the year. Two outs, bottom of the ninth, bases loaded for the Cubs, 2-2 game. Ramon Martinez belts one deep into the gap in left-center, and O-Pal sprints back, leaps, spins, comes down, holds up the ball, and runs off the field. We're going to extras...

What We Said Then: 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.

3. Jim Edmonds Leaps Over Tall Buildings in a Single Bound (8/30). Edmonds had already homered with man on and doubled home two runs. With the Cardinals up 5-3, what could he do for an encore? Try this: with a runner on first, Russ Branyan corked a massive drive to dead center. Jedmonds raced back, leaped over the 8-foot wall, and made a perfect backhanded nab. Oh yeah, and he did pretty much the same thing the night before.

What We Said Then: The only other person I can remember robbing home runs in back to back games was Eric Davis. He pulled 2 back from over the wall, I think in 1987, robbing Jack Clark of homers both times (although it may have even been in the same game – does anyone remember for sure?). But as pretty as Davis' plays were, they weren't nearly as magnificent as Jedmonds' beauties last night and tonight. They're two of the most astonishing over-the-wall catches I've ever seen; even watching SportsCenter every night, I think both are undoubtedly top 10 all-time. And tonight Jedmonds took over the game offensively, too. I think he's my favorite player. I love that lazy bastard. Always will.

4. A Star-Spangled Staredown (July 4). Top of the first at Wrigley. Jim Edmonds just went deep off of Kerry Wood. The next hitter was Albert Pujols, and here's what happened next:

What We Said Then: Wood buzzes Pujols up and in. The fan behind me begins bellowing “That’s right Kerry! Show him who’s boss! That’s right baby!” He wasn’t even finished with his moronic yelling when Al P. absolutely destroyed Wood’s very next pitch, depositing it at least 420 feet away in the center field shrubbery. I can tell you I have never had a more satisfying moment at Wrigley Field than right then.

5. Stephenson Punches Out Vlad (July 29). Two outs, bottom of the ninth, the Cardinals clinging to a 2-1 lead on the strength of a masterful pitching performance by Garrett Stephenson of all people. Vlad the Impaler steps to the plate. He'd already gone 0-3 against G-Steve and you figured he was due. Stephenson ran the count to 3-2, then simply froze Vlad with his next pitch, a wicked tailing fastball that painted the outside corner. Game over.

What We Said Then: Stephenson on the mound looked as carefree as a guy popping bubble wrap.

Honorable Mentions: Kline strikes out Thome with the bases loaded; Tino and Matheny hit back-to-back triples; Jedmonds throws out two runners at the plate to beat the Bucs; Pujols extends his hitting streak to 30 games... And here's an odd moment, or at least an odd fact. The Cardinals finished the season 8 games over .500. Did you know that that was their high-water mark for the entire year? There are worse ways to go out.

Posted 7:19 PM by Brian
WEEPERS How disappointing was our season? Put it this way: last year the Cardinals lost 65 games. This year we lost more than half that many by 1 or 2 runs. The clear culprit in most of our heartbreaking losses was, of course, our bullpen. Re-live the inglory with Redbird Nation's...

BOTTOM TEN GAMES OF THE YEAR

1. Fassero and Springer Lose Lead, Game, Dignity (9/3). Cards up 6-0 on J.D. Drew's grand slam in Wrigley, four innings away from evening the series and sending the Cubs 2 1/2 games out of first. Then TLR pulled Danny Haren, brought in Fassero, and the roof caved in. I'm not one who believes that this game cost us our season (after all, we were still in first place when it ended), but it sure didn't help matters.

What We Said Then: Tony LaRussa managed today's game as if he was on the Cubs' payroll. He 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...

2. Barry Larkin Deep Sixes Cardinals (5/6). This was the second of three walk-off homers surrendered by our bullpen in one week! Larkin's blast hurt the most, however, because it turned a 5-4 lead into a 6-5 loss, plus it was a repeat of the night before, plus it was hit by a 40-year-old man just coming off the DL. Embarrassing.

What We Said Then: Walt Jocketty asked for this game. He ordered it, tailor-made, this past winter, when he decided that a collection of retreads and has-beens somehow constituted a major-league bullpen.

3. Kent, Divot Down Morris, Cards (4/11). The Cardinals were winning 2-1, two outs, no on, bottom of the ninth, and I can still remember how Shannon called the pitch to Lance Berkman: "Groundball to Tino should end it... No! It goes into rightfield! The ball hit off a pebble of a divot, glanced off Tino's shoulder, and the Astros are still alive! Mm mm-mm-mm-mm." The next batter, Jeff Kent, put Matt Morris' 3-1 pitch in the leftfield seats. Game over.

What We Said Then: You'd like to say that freak moments like this even out over 162 games, that the law of averages will sandpaper the rough edges on our 0-4 record in one-run games. But consider this: in 2000, the Astros went 15-31 in one-run games, transforming a middling team into an embarrassing 90-loss team. In other words, sometimes these trends don't reverse themselves overnight.

4. The Most Lifeless Game of All Time (9/5). The Cards were only a half-game out of first when they came back home for some breathing room after the feeding frenzy in Wrigley. Who'd have thought we'd lose a 4-2 heartbreaker to the depleted Reds?

What We Said Then: Bleak. Depressing. Somber. Dismal. Dispiriting. Funereal. I honestly didn't think this team could fall this far this fast... 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.

5. Less Is Morris (6/14). The Yankees cranked four homers in romping all over the Cardinals 13-4. Even more depressing, Morris lasted only 2/3rds of an inning and it was clear that something was rotten in Redbird Nation. Woody Williams collapsed the next day too, walking 6 batters to finalize the Bronx sweep.

What We Said Then: Saddest Note of the Day: Morris, a native of Middletown, N.Y., fulfilled a lifelong dream by starting before a sellout crowd of 55,174 that included a suite filled with 30 friends and relatives.

6. 15 Innings of Shame in Wrigley (9/2). You all remember the pitch leaving Fassero's hand, then leaving Sosa's bat.

What We Said Then: 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. That game didn't count. This one does.

7. Dodgers Turn Cardinals Blue (7/10). The Dodgers hadn't scored 8 runs in over two months, but they scored that many on back-to-back nights vs. Tomko and Morris to sweep a two-game series in Busch.

What We Said Then: The Cardinals have officially hit their low point for the season. Whether it gets any lower, I don't know, but we're threatening to slip below .500 for the first time since May, and we haven't had a longer losing streak since April. We just got swept at home by the struggling Dodgers, who just got swept by the struggling Padres. We gave up 9 runs to a team that hadn't scored as many in over two months. And there's not a Finley, or a Calero, or an Ankiel in sight.

8. Bitch-Slapped by the Big Boys (4/24). The Braves scored two runs in the bottom of the ninth off Steve Kline, won the game 4-3, swept the series in Atlanta, and sparked a season-long trend in which the Cardinals kept falling to the team's elites.

What We Said Then (more or less): The Cardbirds are starting to play like the Blues. Tonight and last night they have looked completely flat, uninspired, dull.

9. Gnat Attack in Sudstown (6/16). It looked for all the world like a win. The Cards got a miracle start from Kiko Calero (5 IN, 1 ER, 9 K's) and were cruising against the lowly Brewers when the likes of Royce Clayton and Keith Osik pounded them for 7 runs in the 7th, and that was all she wrote.

What We Said Then: The Cardinals are now 22-12 at home, a woeful 13-21 on the road. To give you an idea how ominous things are getting, just yesterday I made a backup plan and picked a team to root for in October, in case the Cardinals didn't make the playoffs. Go Mariners.

10. Our Worst Win of the Year (8/2). When does a win feel like a loss? When your drama-queen bullpen gives up 5 runs in the bottom of the ninth to the Mets. By the time Pedro Borbon Jr. let our 10-3 lead whittle down to 10-9, you found yourself thinking, maybe it's not our year...

What We Said Then: How did Jocketty think that Borbon, who was playing pick-up games down at Heine Meine Field just a couple weeks ago, was capable of getting outs? Actually, that's becoming a theme with Jocketty, signing raggedy veterans who have been out of baseball. Jocketty might fancy himself some kind of "found art" craftsman, but he should know that found art is mostly just a way of taking trash and turning it into more trash.

Posted 9:15 AM by Brian
THRILLERS I'm typing this while watching Cubs-Braves in the background. *Sniff*... *Weep* [after eight-hour interval of screaming, crying, and cutting myself with a broken mirror] Okay, I'm ready to think about the Cardinals season again. We continue our year-end List Issue with these highlights:

TOP TEN GAMES OF THE YEAR

1. K-Rob Buries Cubs (8/28). An improbable walk-off jack by stick figure Kerry Robinson off of the Cubs Mike Remlinger. This was about the only time this year you thought, "hey, we might actually pull this thing off."

What We Said Then: Games like this are why I've been so hopelessly in love with baseball and the Cardinals since I can remember remembering.

2. Cards Outslug Red Sox in Fenway (6/12). This was our strangest, most intense game of the year, an odyssey out of Joseph Conrad. The Sawx tied the game with 3 in the bottom of the ninth, then 2 in the bottom of the 10th, then nearly tied it again with 2 in the bottom of the 13th, but the Birdos held on to win.

What We Said Then: You just knew 3 runs wasn't going to be enough. Not against this lineup, in this park, with our bullpen. But no one expected what happened from the ninth inning on. It was like we all fell down the rabbit hole.

3. Cards Outlast Marlins in 20 (4/27). This game was a war of attrition, the longest game in the majors since 1993, made possible, once again, by the arsonists in the Cardinals bullpen. But after our pen surrendered 5 runs in the ninth, they pitched 11 straight innings of shutout relief. Wild.

What We Said Then (but not technically then): 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.

4. Pujols Guns Down Smoltz (8/10). It was like an Old West duel -- our best against their best -- made possible by a dramatic home run by Eduardo Perez and an even more dramatic unassisted triple play by Rafael Furcal on national TV. Pujols won the gunfight by drilling Smoltz's 1-0 pitch into the visitor's bullpen in left center and sealing the 3-2 win for the Cards.

What We Said Then: You're forgiven if you thought tonight was another one of those surreal heartbreakers we seem to specialize in... That all changed in the 8th inning, with Eddie Perez going yard and breaking the hex that Horacio Ramirez had put on us, and then, the main event, bull vs. matador, wood vs. smoke, Pujols vs. Smoltz. You know the rest.

5. Cards Mount Furious Comeback to Top Pirates (5/23). Down 7-2 heading into the 8th, the Cardinals blitzed the Bucs with Tino's 3-run blast in the 8th, Rolen two-out two-strike three-run blast in the 9th, and Drew's game-winning triple in the 10th.

What We Said Then: Was tonight's win the greatest Birdnut win of the season thus far? Tiny Tino's jack-a-roo felt real good; Rolen's 9th inning bitch-slap went down like a tall glass of milk; Tomko's pinch hit was a shiver of pleasure (except for poor Chris Widger, whose bat got passed over by LaRu in favor of Tomko's); and that suicide squeeze was inspired. If it weren't for Simontacchi's ugly outing and Silent Cal blowing the save in the 9th, I'd be giddy. But I'll settle for slap-happy.

6. Redbirds Clamp Down Against Phils (8/24) A sunny Sunday afternoon -- Cards took two out of three from the Phillies at home, Scott Rolen collected three hits and made three great defensive plays against his old team, and the Cards bullpen doused every rally by the bad guys. One of our few gutsy, mature wins down the stretch.

What We Said Then: The Game of the Year. That's what Mike Shannon called it, and I'm inclined to agree with him. It felt like a playoff game, with plenty of gut-churning moments that could have gone to either team. But the Cardinals stepped up when it counted, took the series from a tough Philadelphia team, and kept pace with the Astros. It's Christmas in August, so Redbird Nation would like to hand out stocking-stuffers...

7. Woody 13, Toronto 5 (6/5). Woody Williams did his best Rick Wise imitation, driving in four runs (most on a bases-loaded triple), no-hitting a strong Blue Jays lineup into the eigth inning, and lowering his league-leading ERA to 1.99. Them were the days.

What We Said Then: Can you remember a more dominant single-game performance by a Cardinal? Bud Smith's no-hitter? Maybe Mark Whiten's 12-rib night? Just an unbelievable game (excluding, of course, the mustache Dustin Hermanson painted on the Mona Lisa at the end).

8. Morris Outduels Wood in Nightcap of Epic Doubleheader (9/2). Well, it was fun while it lasted. Matt Morris stifled the Cubbies for 7 innings in a game featuring beanballs from Kerry Wood and a hugely controversial call that went against Moises Alou. This was the last time the Cards beat the Cubs all year (and strangely, clinched our season series against 'em; we won 9 and lost 8).

What We Said Then: 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.

9. Mike Matheny Comes Up Large in Coors (4/8). This was only our sixth game of the year, but it was just flat-out fun, a typical Coorsfest. The Cards were down 11-7 heading into the 7th, scored 5 runs to go up by one, and went ahead for good in the 13th on a three-run bomb by -- who else? -- Mike Matheny.

What We Said Then: The Cards were in danger of dropping their third straight nail-biter. They'd already dodged several bullets -- they needed to score five times in the 7th to work around a disastrous start by Jason Simontacchi and abysmal relief work from Fassero and Calero; they needed a great throw by Eddie Perez to punch out Jay Payton at home and send the game into extra innings; and they needed a 1-2-3 double play with Larry Walker at the plate, one out, and the bases loaded, to escape the bottom of the 11th.

10. Cards Down O's/Browns in Barn Burner (6/8). A roller coaster game, with the Cards jumping on top 4-0 (thanks to two Jim Edmonds home runs), then falling behind 7-4 (thanks to the first of many bad performances by Matt Morris), then recapturing the lead 11-7 (thanks to a Scott Rolen grand slam), then giving up three more runs (thanks to Esteban Yan), then barely holding on 11-10 to win (thanks to Jesus).

What We Said Then: Remember that scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, where the Black Knight keeps fighting ("it's just a flesh wound!") even though his limbs are getting hacked off by King Arthur. Now imagine the Black Knight is fighting the Black Knight, and both are hacking off each other's limbs. That was today's baseball game.

We'll be back later on with our Bottom 10 Games of the Year, our Top 10 Favorites Moments, as well as some other year-end goodies. Stay tuned...