Posted 10:20 PM by Brian
THE PORTABLE REDBIRDS I spent the Memorial Day weekend at a wedding on the East Coast (by some odd coincidence it was the second wedding I've attended in Wilmington, Delaware), so I was mostly out of touch with Cardinal baseball. Between various meals, services, and other pomp-and-circumstantial activities, I had to keep updated the old-fashioned way -- by waiting for the ESPN sports ticker to roll around every few minutes or so and give me the latest scores from Houston. Most of the time the news was quite good.

I've said this before, but one reason I think we're in a Golden Era for baseball fandom is that it's now easier than ever to follow your team of choice, from wherever you are. Following the Cards via sports ticker in a Wilmington hotel room reminded me when I moved out of the house at age 18 to go to college. Back then there was only one way to get Cardinals scores before the morning paper -- I used to place a long-distance call to a service run by the Post-Dispatch that had the final score of the Cardinal game and, if you were lucky, maybe one sentence of highlights. (I can still remember hearing about Fernando Valenzuela's no-hitter that way, my rock-bottom experience of the waning days of Whiteyball.)

But a series of technological breakthroughs has made it easier and easier to be part of the Cardinals diaspora. After the call-in service, I was able to check the final scores by watching the sports ticker on CNN Headline News (although on Saturdays during college football season it might take a full half-hour just to get the score you wanted), then a couple years later I was able to go online and get not just a final score, but a recap and a box score too. After that I could have the scores piped into my beeper as soon as the game ended. After that I could get the scores via cell phone. Then I was able to actually listen to KMOX (and the profound Mike Shannon) over the internet. And now, finally, I can see most games on the MLB Extra Innings package.

This has made a huge difference in what it means to be a baseball fan. Just one or two generations ago, you were more or less chained to your local team -- if you were a Cardinals fan living in, say, Seattle, you were just plum out of luck. You'd have to satisfy your Cards craving with a sentence or two of game notes in your regional paper, maybe a box score, certainly no highlights on the evening news, and when all was said and done, your loyalty to the Cards might waver, and your kids would be dyed-in-the-wool Mariners fans.

Now teams are much more portable, which could have a huge impact on how people choose and maintain their allegiances. If you're a kid growing up in Minnesota, you'll probably root for the Twins, but it's just as easy to root for the Yanks, or the White Sox, or the Cardinals. And if your old man is a Cards fan, all the easier. As the years go by, fan loyalty might become less a product of regional ties, and more the result of various whims and "brand choices." Like when I was a kid in the late '70s, I was a big admirer of the "We Are Family" Pirates. Had I been, back then, able to see half their games on the Extra Innings package, perhaps I'd have more mixed feelings about the Cards whupping their ass today up at PNC Park.

Anyway, enough of my ramblings. I'll just mention three things that everyone probably knows already: (1) that Scotty Rolen can play a little baseball; (2) Phat Albert is starting to resemble Phat Albert (in fact, his .404 OBP and .622 SLG are pretty much right in line with his career totals of .411 and .613); and (3) the Astros, Cubs, and Cardinals each have the same 27-23 record. It's almost like it's Opening Day again, 112 games left to see which of those teams is leader of the pack (provided, that is, that Griffey and the Redlegs don't pull a 2002 Angels and pull the wool over everyone's eyes).

Posted 9:58 PM by Brian
THE KID Ever since he was promoted to High-A ball, Daric Barton has done nothing but hit. Barton, you may recall, was the Cards' #1 pick in the 2003 amateur draft, and he's gone hog-wild in the Midwest League: after 56 plate appearances, his line reads .455/.571/.818.

I'll admit, I was skeptical when the organization tapped Barton last June -- first off, he was drafted out of high school when it seemed the Cards needed more immediate organizational replenishments, and secondly he was a catcher, and Yadier Molina, who also plays catcher, is one of the few semi-bright lights in our system.

Well, the Cards have moved Barton out of the C slot (he's been playing DH mostly, which I don't get), but he's been raking the ball, collecting a couple hits seemingly every night and showing great discipline at the plate. Oh, and one more good thing about him: he doesn't turn 19 until the middle of August.

Posted 9:47 PM by Brian
HERE COMES THE GYROBALL! Will Carroll has a wild article on the gyroball, a new pitch from the Far East that seems like it was cooked up by Ming the Merciless. How nasty is it to hit? Well:

...the ball comes at the hitter looking like a hanging curve and then takes a hard, flat turn away from a right-handed batter. Whether you believe in DIPS or not, the effect is the same. First, the batter has a difficult time deciding whether or not to swing. He will have a hard time detecting not only the spin and plane, but since the ball is delivered with a fastball motion, the speed as well. Not only is there no mechanical clue (ideally, of course), but the ball comes in faster than a slider. Assuming the batter does make contact, it is difficult to hit the ball on the sweet spot. Contact usually leads to a weak hit to the opposite field.

That's enough to make me think I'll never make the bigs after all.

Posted 9:35 PM by Brian
DECISION '04 Joe Aiello and Dave Beyer are conducting a "World Series of Blogs" over at their website, A View From the Bleachers. They've taken fifty blogs, spread them out over 6 polls (representing the 6 MLB divisions), and pitted them against each other to see which baseblog is the worthiest. RBN is flattered to be nominated, so vote for us if you're so inclined (if the NL Central doesn't appear on the screen right away, just hit refresh until it shows up).

Posted 9:27 PM by Brian
MOLASSES So John Kruk thinks Albert Pujols is the slowest man in the entire NL Central. Please. Pujols doesn't have great wheels, I'll grant Kruk that, but if there were four outs in an inning Mike Matheny would ground into several quadruple plays a year.

Posted 5:11 PM by Alec
SHINING LIKE A NATIONAL GUITAR I'm stationed in Memphis for a few months because of work. Today I attended my first minor league game, as the Redbirds took on the Albuquerque Isotopes, the Florida Marlins' AAA affiliate. My thoughts:

Autozone Park is located right in downtown Memphis, and it's a nice little park. Every seat is pretty good, even the Bluff, the general admission lawn area above the left field wall, where there is a playground for the kids. There's also a "boardwalk" area with games and amusement park rides nearby. Very family friendly.

Rockey the Rockin' Redbird is more popular with children than Fredbird. Some of the kids started crying when Rockey left the stadium for good. Don't ask me why.

They actually serve beers other than Budweiser. I enjoyed a Killian's myself, and my traveling companion had a Sam Adams Summer Ale.

Bo Hart still comes to the plate to "Seven Nation Army." I wish I hadn't missed Bo Hart Bobblehead Night.

The Redbirds are in last place in their division and I can see why. They looked totally outmatched in every facet of the game today.

CHEERLEADERS!!!

Posted 2:40 PM by Flynn
WHO'S KING? Part 4 of 6

In this series, we explore the sports hierarchies in each MLB town and determine which team has the tightest grip on the local psyche and is “King.” This is the fourth of six parts.

AMERICAN LEAGUE EAST

Boston

The combination of history, passion, and sports culture in the Hub certainly make Boston one of America’s top sports towns. This isn’t about ranking towns against each other, though, so we must look within Nomahville and decide which team is King. Let’s see, you have a hockey team that has won five Stanley Cups and featured immortals like Bobby Orr, Phil Esposito, and Ray Bourque. The Bruins also skate in a city where the “participation rate” in their sport among the populace is surely the highest, or second highest, behind Minneapolis-St. Paul (among non-Canadian NHL cities). Then you also have a basketball team that has won a league-best 16 championships, including an incredible eight in a row. The Celtics unquestionably have the most storied “legacy” in the NBA and have several hoop demi-gods of their own: Russell, Cousy, Bird, Auerbach, to name just a few.

Oh, and let’s not forget the current Super Bowl champions (who also won the thing just two years ago) with hunky Tom Brady. Then, there’s also the various college teams in town, most notably BC football and the hockey teams of BC, BU, Northeastern, and Harvard, who battle for the coveted Beanpot each year in a tournament of full-on ITech hockey. Usually at least one of these teams makes it to the NCAA’s Frozen Four and skates for the college championship. Schoolboy hockey is also huge in Mass.

So, with all these winning teams and rich traditions it must be hard for Bostonians to pick a favorite team, right? Wrong. They like the guys who haven’t won since 1918. Hosiery rules in Beantown.

From my friend Mark, who moved to Boston five years ago...

My views have shifted on this since I first moved here. I always thought Boston was a basketball town (Bird, Red Auerbach et al) I was mistaken. Obviously the Patriots rate well given their recent successes but based on my local experience... here goes... 1-Red Sox (WITHOUT A DOUBT - if they left civilization would crumble) 2-Patriots - lots of local loyalty but they are a "New England" team and even non-chowds in CT, NH & Maine can lay claim to them. 3-Bruins - pretty loyal hockey followers here. 4-Celtics (2 years ago I got a 10 Game package for work, they made the playoffs and not a single person even asked about Celtics tickets...It was work to give them away.)

Then there was this response…

The Red Sox are so much the king of this city that only the Patriots even come close. Only in Boston could off-season trade talks blow the football team, in the middle of one of the most amazing Super Bowl-capped winning streaks in NFL history, off the front page of the news (the Sox did this consistently, and not just with the Schilling deal and the A-Rod blueballs, but with minor off-season deals as well.)

Now, I doubt that a minor off-season deal would “blow football off the front page” but I do believe it could share space. And I also know that there are a few other towns where any baseball transaction involving the home team rates as front-page stuff. But the above quote does illustrate the mania New England is currently experiencing for its Sox.

I wonder if there would be as much of a frenzy surrounding the Fenway Fighters if the Sox had just found a way to win a Series at some point last century? Each year that goes by without a championship for Boston seems to just turn the screw a bit tighter on the fans. Unlike Cub fans, who seem to have conditioned themselves to the inevitable, Sox fans apparently still feel safe investing all of their emotion in each year’s squad only to see it dashed again, and again, and again. If the Sox ever do win, and they could this year, I wonder if New England will then turn to the Bruins (who are currently #2 in the list of “years since the last championship” for Boston teams) to get their misery fix.

1. Boston Red Sox
2. New England Patriots
3. Boston Bruins
4. Boston Celtics
5. Boston College Football
6. BC/BU/NU/Harvard Hockey Teams

New York

In the interim since yesterday’s post about the NL East, I received the latest Sports Illustrated in which a survey of 403 New Yorkers indicated that the Mets are the second most popular pro team in the state. We had them #6 in our list. I have since contacted SI to plan a “sit down” and hammer out a compromise. Details will be announced as they develop.

OK, so the Yankees are Kings of New York. No question there. But, what about the King of the Yankees? No, not Ruth, not Jeter, not Freddie -- I’m talking about The Boss, George Steinbrenner. For a while now I’ve been intrigued by this notion: Does Steinbrenner belong in the Hall of Fame?

Here’s his credentials – 12 division titles, 10 pennants, 6 world championships, and the distinction of being, far and away, the most recognizable owner in all of pro sports for the past 30 years or so. He is, without a doubt, one of the great characters of the game. A recent article in Sports Illustrated showed the kinder, gentler Steinbrenner of the 21st century but also made it clear that the lion hasn’t lost all of his roar.

Steinbrenner has many enemies, but let’s take a closer look at what everyone’s so mad about. Opposing teams are mad at George for spending a lot of money on his team. Fans of other teams are mad at Steinbrenner. Well, if you look at it, are they really mad at him or are they mad at the fact that their owners won’t play the same game and keep up with the Yankees? This article here makes some excellent points about the many owners who have more money than George but refuse to dump it into their team just for the sake of winning. The Yanks make money because Steinbrenner invests in his business. Most other owners refuse to match George’s willingness to spend what it takes to win. Let’s face it, the luxury-tax rule is in place to try and stop George. George could care less.

The Yankees make a lot of money (understatement of the week). They have their own TV network. They sell tons of tickets at home and on the road and lead the league in merchandise sales. Here’s one reason why this is all happening – they’re awesome. Why are they awesome? Steinbrenner (by listening to Brian Cashman and Joe Torre) made them awesome.

Look at the stretch from 1989 to 1992 - the Yanks finished 8th, 9th, 11th, and 11th in attendance in the AL. Was anybody complaining about the money Steinbrenner wasted on Steve Sax, Steve Kemp, and Andy Hawkins? (Tidbit o’de day – Did you know the Yanks only made one postseason appearance in the 1980s but somehow managed to win more regular season games than any other team that decade?)

Now, I'm not dumb enough not to realize that the Yanks play in the biggest market in the nation. I know they can command top TV dollar merely because their audience is huge, whether they win or not. I do think that some sort of competitive balancing meausres are needed to a degree in the game. But, for an owner (or a commissioner) to complain that Steinbrenner is "buying" championshisps when he could do the same, if it was that important to you, is hypocritical.

To be fair, Steinbrenner is also legendary for treating most of his employees like absolute garbage. I heard that, last winter, on the day Gary Sheffield signed with New York, Steinbrenner discontinued dental coverage for all Yankee office personnel. There is also the Yogi Berra fiasco that left #8 estranged from the pinstripers for over a decade. The list of people who feel “wronged” by Steinbrenner is long and colorful. The bottom line for the Hall of Fame, though, is usually production and impact on the game. There’s no denying that George has had an impact, and his collection of championships cannot be disputed. Will he ever make it in? Maybe he should but I doubt he ever will.

This just in: The SI survey has been considered and the NYC ranking adjusted accordingly. Inflexible we are not. Those looking for something less Steinbrennerian and more in the vein of “who’s king” of NYC are referred to the NL East posting.

1. New York Yankees
2. New York Mets
3. New York Knicks
4. New York Giants
5. New York Rangers
6. New York Jets
7. St. John’s basketball
8. New Jersey Devils
9. New Jersey Nets
10. New York Islanders

Baltimore

The first baseball book I ever read that wasn’t geared towards kids was Why Time Begins on Opening Day by Thomas Boswell. Boswell was, and is, with the Washington Post and spent a lot of time covering the Baltimore Orioles. Through his writings I was given a tour of the Oriole clubhouse and introduced to something called “The Oriole Way.” (He was still talking about it two years ago...)

Most baseball fans know that "The Oriole Way" was a comprehensive breakdown of all fundamental aspects of the game of baseball and the correct way to execute them. Oriole farmhands had proper positioning, technique, and decision making drilled into them like so many Japanese factory workers. By the time they hit Memorial Stadium they were like interchangeable parts of a big orange and black machine. (Just parts of a machine... no wonder why this guy stayed there only one year.)

This style of indoctrination seemed to pay off big for Baltimore as it enjoyed a tremendous run of success from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s. The former St. Louisans, led by a former St. Louisan, captured 8 division championships, 6 pennants, and 3 World Series. (To be accurate, Hank Bauer managed the 1966 World Champions, not Earl.)

With all this success it would seem that the Orioles should be an easy pick for King. Well, they are. But it wouldn’t be so easy if this hadn’t happened. Conversations with citizens of Bal’mer and historical documents prove that the Colts ruled Maryland absolutely until they galloped out of town that snowy night. The indelible impact of the Colts can be seen, or rather heard, to this day in Baltimore.

Also big is basketball at the U of Maryland. Sure, they just won a few years ago, but the tradition stretches back beyond the Lefty Dreisel years to the phenomenal 1974 team that suffered a bitter loss to NC state in what most call the best college game ever.

The Ravens early success has surely won some fans in this town of Redskins-haters and football lovers. From what I’ve gathered, though, the team is accepted still as a bit of a newcomer who may need to do a bit more to fit in. The pioneering personalities of the Ravens, Ray Lewis and Brian Billick, aren’t exactly lovable guys. I’m sure there are a lot of Baltimoreans who love the fact that the Ravens win but aren’t too thrilled to pledge their allegiance to these churlish faces of the franchise.

1. Baltimore Orioles
2. University of Maryland Basketball
3. Baltimore Ravens
4. Johns Hopkins Lacrosse
5. Washington Bullets
6. Washington Capitals

Toronto

First off, for anyone who read my take on Montreal and thought that I was saying that Canadians call Americans “United States-ers,” I say, “Are you serious?” Canadians call Americans Americans. I was making a tongue-in-cheek joke. The conversations I had with the hippie backpackers and the customs agents (who I saw so frequently that they become friends) were real, though. It’s just one of those things like when some smart-ass pipes up and tells you that we live in a Republic, not a Democracy. Yeah, whatever. I’m not even sure if they’re right. I know where I live and I know what name we’re known by worldwide: Big Fat Americans, often Ugly.

Toronto is a fabulous city that was named the World’s Most Diverse by the UN. That diversity ends, though, when looking at what sports team the city cares about. The Queen is on their money, but the Maple Leafs are the Kings of Toronto.

The big-spending Leafs are an anomaly among the other, cash-strapped Canadian NHL teams. They can sort of be likened to the Yankees, except the Leafs haven’t won a Cup since 1967. Tons of NHLers come from the Toronto area and most have at one time or another expressed an interest to go play for their hometown team, but you wonder if they really would like it. I mean, the coverage of all things Leaf is as comprehensive as it comes. Toronto is home to The Hockey News and the Hockey Hall of Fame, which is really enjoyable to visit (you can touch the Stanley Cup, and, if you’re brave, Gordie Howe’s too). There are also several junior league teams in the Toronto suburbs that have their own deep histories and rabid fan bases.

The Blue Jays have had the misfortune of playing in the AL East the last several years. Were they in the Central we might have been listening to two anthems during a few playoff series in the recent past. The Jays play in a colossus of a park that actually lives up to the hype. Skydome was one of the last parks built before Camden Yards came along and changed everyone’s thinking about new baseball stadiums. I’ve seen two games there and I've also taken a behind the scenes tour, and must say that it is a marvel. And by the way, it’s Skydome, not The Skydome, as I learned on my tour from one of those non-United States-ers, who, I think, found happiness answering this...

Despite the dominance of the Maple Leafs, the Blue Jays do have a healthy fan base and prove that there is no “cultural divide” that is an absolute barrier to baseball succeeding in Canada. (I realize that the culture in Montreal is quite different, but then again, Quebec is different from the rest of Canada.) Such success makes me wonder why a city like Vancouver isn’t a candidate for the Expos or hasn’t been really considered in the last two rounds of expansion.

1. Toronto Maple Leafs
2. Other Canadian NHL teams
3. Toronto Blue Jays
4. Junior League hockey teams
5. Toronto Raptors
6. Toronto Argonauts

Tampa

Q - What do you think about the execution of your offense?
A - I’m all for it.
– Tama Bay Buccaneers coach Rich McKay, circa 1980

For years Tampa was home to only one professional sports team (unless you count these guys) and they set new levels of suckitude, to use a RBN term. Oh my, those teams were bad. I didn’t live there, but I would guess the interest in the Bucs was less than that in the New York Yankees back then. I mean, the Yankees train there and Tampa has no shortage of NYC transplants. I’m sure the Yankees are still very popular there on Florida’s west coast.

During my times in Tampa the locals I hung out with made it clear that “Tampa is part of the South first, and Florida second.” Now, I probably was hanging out with some weirdos (birds of a feather...) but I think what they meant was that Tampa has more in common with the Florida panhandle and the Gulf Coast of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana than it does with south Florida and that separate nation known as Miami. What does that mean for the “King” exercise? Well, while the resurgent Bucs can claim the crown right now, the Holy Trinity of Florida State, Florida, and Miami football is and will always be right there with them.

The sports scene in Tampa is still very new. The D-rays are only eleven years old and the Lightning are even younger. There is surely some enthusiasm for the Bolts right now as they take on the entire nation of Canada, but there is no way Tampa will revere the Stanley Cup, should they win it, more than they did the Lombardi trophy. This is a football town and the throne sits on the main deck of that big pirate ship in Raymond James Stadium.

1. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
2. Florida / Florida State football
3. Miami football
4. Tampa Bay Lightning
5. New York Yankees
6. Tampa Bay Devil Rays

Live in one of these towns? Agree? Disagree? I’m sure you do. What do you think and why? Please save any comments about towns not in this article. We’ll get to them in due time.

Next chapter: the AL Central – Cleveland, Detroit, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Chicago, Kansas City

Posted 8:58 AM by Brian
GONE FISHIN' Like the Birdnals, I'll be traveling again this weekend, but fortunately we've got great content from my esteemed colleague Flynn while I'm away. Good luck to the Cards in the Juicebox, and I'll see you all after Memorial Day.

Posted 8:37 AM by Brian
THE LANCE ARMSTRONGEST PLAYERS IN BASEBALL Last night I tried to figure out the guys most likely to hit for the cycle. So I designed a little Excel program, simply the chance of hitting a single times the chance of hitting a double times the chance of hitting a triple times the chance of hitting a homer, using each player's 2003 stats. The results:

1. Nomar Garciaparra
2. Corey Patterson
3. Trot Nixon
4. Dmitri Young
5. Steve Finley
6. Todd Helton
7. Eric Byrnes
8. Reggie Sanders
9. Vernon Wells
10. Alex Cintron

I would think Daryle Ward would enter that last somewhere around 650, 700. Painful.

Posted 8:31 AM by Brian
THE MARQUIS MOMENT Our bud Josh Schulz passes along the rumor that the Cards may be looking to sign Jason Marquis to a contract extension or else trade him (or, after last night's performance, slow roast him in a creamy tomato compote).

Posted 8:24 AM by Brian
PAPPAS' GREATEST HITS If you want a taste of what made the late Doug Pappas such a legend in his field, check out his exhaustive series on baseball finances, or, better yet, his antler-butting encounter with Our Beloved Commissioner.

Posted 8:17 AM by Brian
FAT HEAD FROM A FAT WALLET FOR PHAT ALBERT? Bernie Miklasz has a fine piece on Al Pujols that's tonic for anyone who thinks Alberticus has grown lazy and head-swollen since his big contract extension. Is Pujols cocky? You bet, says Bernie, but then again he's always been that way:

From his first day in the bigs, Pujols has been insulted by the notion that any pitcher is superior to him. He has always been offended by the suggestion that a pitcher got the best of him; in his mind, only Pujols can get Pujols out. Pujols never has given credit to a pitcher. In this regard Pujols is a direct baseball descendant of Ted Williams, who channeled his rage and arrogance into his daily matchups against pitchers.

I think that's exactly right. And if acting like Ted Williams is bound to make you, say, a bad roommate, it's also bound to make you one ferocious cuss on the field. Albert will be fine.

Posted 8:14 AM by Brian
ANOTHER CARDS BLOG They're sprouting up like mushrooms (the good kind) (and you can interpret that however you wish). This one is called Pure Cardinal Obsession, and it's written by Jeff Kissel, who you may know on these pages as the peerless MO Boiler. Check it out if you can.

Posted 8:09 AM by Brian
THE BEST 1B IN THE AL SO FAR Yep, it's our old friend, hitting like he did from '95-'98. And we're footing the bill. Hurts, don't it?

Posted 7:58 PM by Flynn
WHO'S KING? Part 3 of 6

In this series, we explore the sports hierarchies in each MLB town and determine which team has the tightest grip on the local psyche and is “King.” This is the third of six parts.

NATIONAL LEAGUE EAST

Montreal

I have been to Montreal twice and I can safely say that Les Expos are not in command there. Big surprise, I know. There is no question that the Canadiens are everything that matters and more in Montreal. For that matter, all things hockey matter more in Montreal. Just a few weeks ago, when the Birdnals were up there dropping two of three in the vacuum known as Olympic Stadium, the announcers remarked at the number of people showing up for the Sunday afternoon game that were carrying portable TVs to catch that day’s playoff hockey game. Here’s the telling fact: that day’s game was Calgary v. Detroit.

It’s hard for us United States-ers to understand the importance of hockey in Canada. (Note: I say “United States-ers” because Canadians are Americans, too. Both countries are in North America; thus we are all Americans. This was explained to me by several raggedy “Canadian-flag-sewn-on-the-backpack” travelers I met in hostels and bars around the world but it was only when several non-raggedy “Canadian-flag-sewn-on-the-uniform” Customs Agents in British Columbia confirmed its accuracy did I accept it as truth. So, keep that in mind the next time you head up to get your toenail-fungus prescription at the discounted rate.)

Fervor for hockey in Canada surpasses that for any single sport in the States. My best, weak, attempt at drawing a parallel to hockey in Canada forces me to turn back the clock. Think of the days, wistfully yearned for by baseball old-timers and Ken Burns nostalgiamaniacs, when every vacant lot was full of kids playing baseball. Think of the times when most towns had one “major league” team, always the baseball team. Think of the times when every great athlete applied himself to baseball. Think of a time when baseball was far and away the only team sport that mattered. Think when every little boy wanted to play baseball. Now, imagine if that had never changed, or only waned just a little. We wouldn’t even be doing this “King” series. There’d be no question which team was King in each town, unless there were two baseball teams. Well, to the best of my estimation, that’s hockey in Canada today.

Canadian hockey fans root for their local team first, then all other Canadian NHL teams second. There are some bitter rivalries, with Ottawa-Toronto being the latest and most vicious, but for the most part the entire country gets behind any Canadian team still alive in the death march known as the playoffs. For the current Stanley Cup finals the Calgary Flames might as well assume the moniker of Canada’s Flames.

What about those Expos, though? Well, their lack of attendance has been an issue so long that I think it has been officially retired as fodder for any type of joke. They’ve all been done. Honestly, though, if you look to the past they did quite well. In fact, from 1979 to 1983 they were ranked in the top four in attendance each year. Of course, the incredible list of talent that came up or came through Montreal only to leave and excel elsewhere has also been churned up many times. What’s amazing about that list is that almost every guy who was “ripe for the taking” in Montreal did in fact go on to greatness. I mean, I can’t really think of anyone who was supposed to be awesome but then left and flopped. Actually, the “tons of talent but came up short of his potential” guy was a guy who the Expos held on to – Ellis Valentine.

Random Montreal note: there are many hotels and apartment buildings in Montreal that connect to an underground tunnel system containing lots of stores and restaurant and access to most buildings in the city, including Olympic Stadium (via subway). In essence, you could leave your house, grab a bite to eat, catch a game, hit a few bars on the way home, and never go outside. Perfect set-up if you are this guy.

1. Montreal Canadiens
2. Canadian NHL teams
3. Montreal Alouettes
4. Montreal Expos

New York

Well, here it is. The behemoth. New York City. How in the world do you pick a King team out of so many? Easy. Just put the best baseball franchise of all time there. Hint: It’s not the Mets. The Yankees are of course the Kings of New York, if not of all American sport. They reside in the American League East, though, and will be discussed at length in that chapter

So where do the Let’s Go Mets fall in the scheme of New York sports royalty? Well, the responses I got from New Yorkers or those who felt qualified to speak on The City had them as high as second and as low as eighth among the nine pro teams in the area. This, I think, reflects the immense diversity that exists in the NYC fanbase, which is an interesting dynamic to explore.

I went to college in southwestern Connecticut less than an hour outside New York. My school was populated by metro-New Yorkers of all stripes: Staten Island Disco Kings, Northern New Jersey Volvo Wranglers, Boyz From Queens, Manhattan College Radio Nebbishes, Red Nosed Bronx Irishmen, Westchester Nondescripts, Long Island Lacrosse Pretty Boys, Fashion-forward Brooklynites, and all the rest. While there seemed to be a bit of geographic rationale behind fan allegiance there was also plenty of unexplainable disparity. Pledging yourself to one team seemed to be a decision left up to the individual as a child, with family and socio-economic undertones that would reverberate for the rest of a sports fans life. This was a foreign notion to me. I grew up with one option: the Cardinals.

The ability to pick and choose one’s rooting interest has always fascinated me. The ramifications of belonging to a class of fans vary according to the team you support and where you live but there are some constants that are worth investigating. For instance, a legion of fans is one of the few groups a person can belong to with no requirements for entry nor continued enrolment. Think about it; to get into a school you have to, at a minimum, live in the school district. For private schools you have to either make the grades to get in or have the cash or both. To stay in school you must avoid disciplinary problems or flunking out. A club will let you in but most have the power to kick you out for any number of reasons. Even a religion will excommunicate the worst of its kind every now and again (provided you can pass the tests to get in in the first place).

But what does it take to be a citizen of, say, Met Nation? Well, can you stand there and say “Go Mets”? Great, you’re in. Now, if you want to wear Mets apparel and go out and make a fool of yourself (which I think you do simply by wearing one of these traffic safety devices), you can. And guess what, you have now become “Stupid Mets Fan” and thus represent, in the eyes of some, “all those A-hole Mets fans.” And can you be stripped of your “Mets Fan” status for such buffoonery? I’ve yet to find the governing board that can do that.

I think about this phenomenon mostly when the Cardinals, my hometown team, come to Chicago, where I live now, to play the Cubs. The streets are filled with mostly normal Cardinal fans but there are, invariably, some certified boobs stumbling around Wrigleyville wearing the sacred Birds on the Bat and giving Redbird Nation a bad name. But what can you do? Revoke their citizenship? Turn in your own? It is a unique situation where one must tolerate the sins of team brethren and hope that outsiders can differentiate between the have-brains and the have-nots.

Back to New York. The Yankees are, as mentioned, King. Here’s one local’s take on the scene:

In the 90's when the Knicks made a few runs, they owned the town. And then you could say the same for the Mets in the 80's. Right now it is all Yankees, but in the 80's it was quite a different story. The Giants were more important in the 80's as well, when LT and gang were doing all the coke that the Mets hadn't already done.

The bottom line is that the rankings below #1 are going to fluctuate wildly depending on where you are in this gargantuan metro-area. For this project, though, it’s what’s on top that counts.

1. New York Yankees
2. New York Knicks
3. New York Giants
4. New York Rangers
5. New York Jets
6. New York Mets
7. St. John’s basketball
8. New Jersey Devils
9. New Jersey Nets
10. New York Islanders

Philadelphia

They booed Santa Claus.

When considering who is King in Philadelphia, special attention must be paid to the, shall we say, fickle nature of the local fans. Of course we all know they have a reputation for not hiding their displeasure. Heck, they booed their biggest star the second he was drafted. What may not be so obvious to many is just how different it is to go to a ballgame in Philly, or New York, or Boston, for that matter.

Now, this is completely my own opinion and it's based on just a few games each in the aforementioned cities, so please feel free to disagree, or boo, as the case may be. What I really noticed in the ballparks in those cities was a tremendously homogenous population in the stands. Men, men, and more men. Mostly young, mostly white, mostly drinking. Where were the women? I’ve been to hundreds of games at Busch Stadium and found the fanbase of women there to be fairly substantial. I’m not talking about gangs of bridge clubs rolling into the bleachers or anything. I’m referring to the thousands of families, young couples, girls out for the night, middle-aged couples, and older couples that come to every game in St. Louis. A similar crowd populates the non-bleacher parts of Wrigley Field, but not to the same degree.

In the northeastern towns, though, going to a ballgame seems to me to be much more of a boy’s night out. There is an intensity and an edge that comes from, among other things, competing groups of beered-up guys looking to out-jeer each other. Rowdy behavior and hair-trigger booing is expected, performed, and accepted. That’s not to say that the antics of these fans aren’t often creative and funny, like “Wolf Pack” in Philly and the never disappointing cheers from the bleachers in the Bronx. Take it from a guy who went to an all-boys high school (or take it from most of RBN’s staff, who did too), the absence of females lends an entirely different, often uninhibited, usually hilarious (to troglodytes like us, at least) element to most proceedings.

Philadelphia has suffered mightily as a sports town and I can’t blame the fans for being exasperated. Three straight NFC Championship Game losses? One baseball championship in 100 years? A Stanley Cup drought approaching 30 years? And they have to live in the same town as Allen Iverson? Somebody please send them some flowers. On second thought, I think they’d appreciate one of these a lot more.

Philly has a great football tradition created by guys like Chuck Bednarik, Norm Van Brocklin, Harold Carmichael, and now Donovan McNabb. There are also the unforgettable moments like the hit Concrete Charlie put on Frank Gifford, going to Super Bowl XV, and Howard Cosell taking to the airwaves for a 1970 Monday Night Football game in the old Baker Bowl while completely smashed. Redbird Nation’s Alec offered up his rankings for Philly:

1. Philadelphia Eagles
2. Philadelphia Flyers
3. Philadelphia Phillies
4. Philadelphia 76ers
5. St. Joseph’s basketball
6. Temple basketball
7. Penn State Football

Atlanta

Do they have sports in Atlanta? Who knew? I thought it was all-Outkast all the time.

Atlanta’s rapid ascent to business prominence in the last 25 years has resulted in an influx of young, affluent professionals who come to town, fly back home for period fixes of their hometown teams, and leave. As my friend Todd, a native Georgian who went to Georgia Tech explains...

The ATL is a land of professional, serial transplants. No one person has lived there long, from there originally, and all likely to move somewhere else soon. Not conducive to team or fan loyalty, so this is not too easy. That being said, The King: UGA football, a close second, high school football. If all the other sports disappeared, the only people that would notice would be the business suck-ups that can no longer expense the game. The Thrashers are well received, owing to the ATLs heavy NE transplant population. Falcons following: moody. Braves following: apathetic. Hawks following: bitter. GT following: studious.

I can’t really include high school football on these lists because there is no way any big city’s population can get behind one local high school in intra-city competition. So, with schoolboy football excluded, here’s the list for the Dirty South:

1. University of Georgia Football
2. Georgia Tech basketball
3. Atlanta Braves
4. Atlanta Thrashers
5. Atlanta Falcons
6. Atlanta Hawks

Miami

I’ve historically rooted against all teams from Florida. It has never seemed fair to me when those teams win. I mean, Florida has great weather, no state taxes, miles of beaches, many gorgeous places and people, and so much more going for it. To add sporting championships to the mix seems like giving a millionaire a winning lottery ticket. It’s more than one place deserves.

Well, maybe Miami doesn’t deserve it but it has a college football program rivaling the all-time greats. The University of Miami has won five National Championships in the last 21 years and has almost always ranked in the top ten. The ‘Canes play in the historic Orange Bowl and enjoy not only unbelievable success but a reputation for an attitude all their own. Remember the great Catholics vs. Convicts showdowns in the 1980s? That has to go down as one of the best non-conference rivalries of the last few decades.

The U. of Miami, though, can’t really claim sole possession of the hearts of south Florida’s football fanatics, though. The Florida-Florida State-Miami three-way rivalry covers the whole state, South Beach included. There are plenty of kids who migrate up to Gainesville and Tallahassee from the lower part of the state and bring that school spirit with them when they return. There are also countless fans who aren’t alums of anywhere but bleed Gator, Seminole, or Hurricane blood nonetheless. The level of hysteria reached in the state when two of these teams play each other is only explainable by comparison to other white-hot rivalries: Ohio State/Michigan, Red Sox/Yankees, Auburn/Alabama, Britney/Christina.

The Marlins, as was shown during last year’s playoffs when Cub fans invaded Miami and were able to get about 15,000 tickets (it seemed) to games in Pro Player Stadium, do not have such a rabid following. Despite two World Championships in only 11 years of existence the team has to know it will always be #4 in town, at best. The heavy New York accent found in so many places like Boca Raton and West Palm Beach is a giveaway as to why the Marlins will never really threaten the monarchy around here. An enormous percentage of the population did not grow up here but came here later in life and thus maintains loyalties to the teams the left back home, which for most is the northeast.

I’ve often wondered how the Marlins would fare if it just loaded up on Latin American players, hired a Latin manager, and marketed itself as the team for all Hispanics. They’d surely be a popular road team in places like New York, Chicago, Houston, LA, Denver, and everywhere else with an established or burgeoning Hispanic population, which is to say, everywhere else. And once this strategy was in place the Marlins could become THE team that all beisbol-playing kids in places like Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic (so that would be all kids) considered their team. Of course this will never happen but the thought of somehow angling a team to be the “home team” of all baseball-crazy fans in the Caribbean, Eastern Mexico, and places like Venezuela and Colombia seems to me to have some very beneficial aspects.

Kings of South Florida:

1. University of Miami Hurricanes
2. Miami Dolphins
3. Florida/Florida State Football
4. Miami Heat
5. Florida Marlins
6. Florida Panthers

Live in one of these towns? Agree? Disagree? I’m sure you do. What do you think and why? Please save any comments about towns not in this article. We’ll get to them in due time.

Tomorrow, the AL East: Boston, New York, Baltimore, Toronto, Tampa

Posted 7:17 PM by Flynn
WHO'S KING? Part 2 of 6

In this series, we explore the sports hierarchies in each MLB town and determine which team has the tightest grip on the local psyche and is “King.” This is the second of six parts.

AMERICAN LEAGUE WEST

Seattle
First off, I need to say that I love Seattle and the whole Pacific Northwest. I am tempted to launch into a fawning homage to the evergreen forests, the salmon (king), and the close proximity to backwoods militias in Montana, but I know this is a baseball blog and no one cares how much I love the Emerald City. With that out of the way I turn to a classic “King” battle being waged up there in King County. (Why’d ya think they called it the Kingdome, genius?)

Seattle is home to the University of Washington, or You-Dub, and its prolific sports teams, namely football. Husky Stadium, the most scenic stadium in college sports, is a boisterous place on the shore of Lake Washington that has been home to several top-notch teams, including a National Champion in 1991 and the supposed home to this. While the Seahawks have given the city a few thrills and they have a spiffy new PaulAllendium to play in, it seems to me that they don’t mesmerize the city like the Huskies.

So, the dogs are king, right? Well, here is a case where I think the ruling class has been usurped. For the first twelve years of their existence the Mariners seemed like one of those afterthought teams, like the current Devil Rays. Just a week ago I brought up this night, which drew more fans than Gaylord Perry’s 300th win. Sellouts were as common as... don’t say it, don’t say it... a dry day in Seattle. Oh man, that’s weak. But in 1987 the Mariners had the first pick in the amateur draft. Along came Junior.

Consider the Fishermen pre-Junior. Before Kenneth, the M’s biggest star was Harold Reynolds. Once Junior and his grin came to town the country had a reason to care about the M’s. Attendance jumped from 16,000 per game to 26,000 per game in Griffey’s first two years. In Griffey’s sixth year the Mariners won a dramatic 1995 Division Series over the storied Yankees and never looked back. Fifteen years later, after cultivating mega-stars like Edgar Martinez, Randy Johnson, and Alex Rodriguez, the Mariners are averaging over 40,000 per game and have wrested the scepter from any other pretenders to Seattle’s throne.

Another Mariner name worth mentioning is Mark Langston. Langston, as you may be aware, was in 1989 the absolute #1 hottest pitching commodity on the planet. Everybody wanted him. Who wanted him the worst? Well, the Montreal Expos gave up Gene Harris, Brian Holman and some tall dude named Randy Johnson to get him. I'd say that shrewd move, two years after signing Junior, paid off pretty well for Seattle. (Note on Langston: after that season Cardinals openly lusted for the lefthander to come and join the team. I remember reading a recap of the “free-agent wooing” that went down and it consisted, seriously, of Langston flying into St. Louis, being driven to a downtown hotel and meeting with Whitey Herzog in a room equipped with “a cooler full of cold Budweisers.” Langston signed with the California Angels. Whitey quit the next season.)

Back to Seattle. The Supersonics did have a championship season back in the 1970s despite an apparent aversion to being on the court and had some tough teams in the 1990s that made it to the Finals. There is definitely a fan base for hoops up there and I’m sure some Gonzaga-fever has seeped over from Spokane. For a place with so many days that force one inside for recreation I am a bit surprised that hockey has never caught on in Seattle. I think I’ll alert these guys and get them to lead an effort to bring hockey to Jet City.

The Kings of King County
1. Seattle Mariners
2. UW football
3. Seattle Supersonics
4. Seattle Seahawks
5. Other UW sports

Oakland
Oakland must be considered in light of what’s going on in San Francisco, but ultimately it is its own town and has a rich sports history unto itself. Actually, in terms of championships it beats out its gentrified cross-bay neighbor. World Series - been there/won: Oakland 6/4, SF 3/0. Super Bowls - been there/won: Oakland 4/2, SF 5/5.

As for recent success Oakland has it going on as well, with the Beaners making it to four straight postseasons and the Raiders winning the AFC in 2002. East Bay sports fans may have to watch their teams play in the “Oakland Mausoleum,” as some call it, but they do get to watch winners.

About that stadium. I was once fortunate enough to spend four Octobers in a row in the Bay Area, which is the best time of year to be there, weatherwise. On one occasion I was able to score tickets to see the Raiders play the Broncos on a Monday night. This was the first Monday night game for the Raiders since they moved back to Oakland. My tickets were up in what fans now call “Mount Davis,” the auxiliary, football-only seating that was added to the park to lure Al Davis back to the town he never should have left in the first place. (If you’re ever watching an A’s game, it’s that huge void of unused seats way above centerfield.) During the game, which was won by Denver with a ho-hum, 70-yard drive by John Elway in the last two minutes (how else could it end?), I witnessed security come up into my section no less than seven times to break up fights and escort face-painted lunatics towards the waiting arms of Alameda County officials. It’s been said that, during Raider games, that stadium turns into the world’s largest biker bar. Based on my one game there I’d have to agree. I’ve never seen a larger collection of skull-and-crossbones leatherwear, tattoos, facial hair, and missing teeth. And the men were even worse.

But this is about whom is King, and there is no question the Raiders rule Oakland. I heard a story once about a guy passing through O’Hare Airport in Chicago on a Friday afternoon. He walked by a bar and did a double take at the sight of about ten rowdy guys sitting at the bar in what he thought were Halloween costumes. On closer inspection he saw that the guys had on Oakland Raider warpaint, shoulder pads, feathers, etc. This was in June. In Chicago. His curiosity got the best of him – “What’s the deal with you guys?” Answer – “Oh, were on a layover. We’re going to Canton for brother Howie’s induction this weekend.” (That would be Howie Long going into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. Two days later.)

1. Oakland Raiders
2. Oakland A’s
3. Cal Bears

Anaheim
While Oakland (fairly or unfairly) is portrayed as existing in the shadow of San Francisco, Anaheim really cannot escape the fact that it is one of the little brothers of Los Angeles. Now, I freely admit that this is the first of only a few cities where I do not have a decent amount of firsthand exposure to the local sports scene. I’ve been to Anaheim many times, sure, but I didn’t pick up too much of the sports vibe. Perhaps the plastic mouse ears I was wearing at the time hindered my perception. That, or the fact that I was six, seven, eight, and nine years old for my four trips there.

I am dying to be contradicted here but I find it hard to believe most Anaheim residents don’t affiliate themselves with the LA area as a whole. Accepting that fact, then, I’d be surprised if the Laker dominance of the area stopped at Mousetown city limits. Anaheim has been hot lately, though, with a World Series winner and a Stanley Cup finalist. When you have only two teams and they reach the ultimate and penultimate levels of their leagues in the same year, you are doing well.

One thing that really struck me was how much Gene Autry was celebrated when the Angels won in 2002. Now, Autry carried the title of “Nicest Owner in all of Pro Sports" for pretty much the whole time he owned the Angels, so perhaps he didn’t get enough acclaim. But Disney, the owner back then, showed some class in allowing and encouraging the Cowboy’s memory to live on and to let his widow be front and center when the Halos brought hell to the Giants. Furthering the ownership huzzahs, I don’t know much about the new owner Artie Moreno, but I do know he shelled out the ducats for Vlad, Bartolo, Jose “Can you see I have no common sense?” Guillen, and Kelvim Escobar, and he did this, which delighted most fans and made these guys get Angel tattoos all over their bodies. You can’t ask for much more.

1. Los Angeles Lakers
2. Anaheim Angels
3. Los Angeles Dodgers
4. Mighty Ducks of Anaheim
5. The Goofy All-Stars

Dallas
Who’s King? Are you serious? This is Texas, son.

1. Dallas Cowboys
2. University of Texas Football
3. Texas A&M / Baylor / Texas Tech / Etc. Football
4. Dallas Stars
5. Dallas Mavericks
6. Texas Rangers

I really don’t think I need to write anything about football in Texas so I won’t. I will, however, relate the time I was on business somewhere in Alabama and found myself at a miserable Chili/Applebee/Outback/TGIClose Enough to Walk Back to my Awful Hotel Room Gulag place populated by Manufacturer’s Reps and District Managers from all over the South. It was May and the Stanley Cup playoffs were in full swing and I was much more interested in a good NHL game than the highlights from ‘Bama’s spring game (which were featured in a 90-minute special, leaving me to wonder who had the task of deciding what didn’t make the cut for the show). As I asked the bartender to see if he could turn just one of the 18 TVs in the place to the hockey game, the guy next to me piped up with “Oh, man, this is like when I’m back in Dallas. You just ain’t been in a hockey town until you’ve been in Dallas.” At this point I had to turn away from the guy and fake a sneeze to hide the fact that I was laughing my ass off at this notion. Thoughts of all my hockey-playing and hockey-worshipping college buddies from Boston and upper New England beating the red off this guy’s neck for a statement like that filled my head.

Now, I’m not knocking Dallas as a hockey town, because I know from experience that they love the Stars and hockey has really taken a hold there. They are very good fans and the Stars have rewarded them with top-notch talent like Modano, Niewenduyk, Hull, and Belfour, not to mention a Stanley Cup that Buffalo is still filing suit in several courts to claim. It’s just the notion this guy had that Dallas was some kind of cradle of hockey that had me struggling to keep my composure.

This is a baseball blog, though, so what about the Rangers? Well, I’d say most people enjoyed watching Nolan Ryan do his thing for them. And it seemed like Jim Sundberg turned up on an All-Star team or two. Then the late 90s I-Rod & Juan Gone Hit Factory slugged their way to three division titles but never won a series. Actually, their most interesting team might have been the 1977 squad that won 94 games and finished behind Herzog’s Royals despite having four, yes four, managers during the season including Brian’s all time favorite, Eddie Stanky.

Live in one of these towns? Agree? Disagree? I’m sure you do. What do you think and why? Please save any comments about towns not in this article. We’ll get to them in due time.

Next Chapter, the NL East: Montreal, New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Miami.

Posted 9:04 AM by Brian
TUESDAY MORNING NOTES It's a battle of exes tonight (former Bucs Sanders, Suppan, Tavarez, and Womack vs. former Cardhand Jack Wilson). And speaking of ex-Pirates, supposedly the Cardinals are interested in Raul Mondesi. He's a veteran with no plate discipline, so that should surprise no one.

Lastly, Brad Th000000000pson has suddenly morphed into Brad Th12103pson -- last night he gave up 7 runs and nine hits (including three bombs) in 4.1 innings. Reminds me of a pitcher who takes a no-hitter into late innings, gives up a bingle, then falls apart.

Posted 6:45 PM by Flynn
WHO'S KING? Part 1 of 6 A few weeks ago I decided to flex my Rolodex a little bit and call upon my nationwide collection of friends, or people who pose as my friends, to help with an idea that had been brewing inside my head for years. I wanted to know what sports team was “King” in each city that has an MLB team. I’ve been lucky enough to have spent time in almost every one of these towns (and I don’t consider a layover or a drive-through as spending time, I’m talking about quality chunks here) and get a handle on each place’s “team hierarchy.”

Another coup I had is the good fortune of knowing people, mentioned above, who were generous enough to provide their takes on the cities they grew up in, lived in, or live in today. The results of this unscientific survey are completely subjective (I know, that’s a novel thing here in the land of the statistics-supported argument,) and reflect my own impressions of each city as well as the input I received from locals.

Now, the notion of what team is “King” in a city was generally understood but there were several variances of how it was interpreted. One respondent said, “One thing about a lot of these cities is that who is ‘king’ changes over time, which is a nice way of saying the fans are big-time bandwagoners.” Well, every team has its share of fair-weather fans. This type of contingent can elevate any team in any city to lofty levels and give it a “regal bearing” for a while. (See – Marlins, Florida.) This type of ranking, though, is more indicative of a democracy or a republic. The people speak, a new leader is chosen, it is in power for a while, but then, when the new leader falters, the people speak again (by not showing up) and the once mighty falls back to earth. This isn’t really what I was looking for.

What I’m talking about here is a monarchy. A King rules no matter what. Which team’s stories get the bigger headlines? What do the sports radio people talk about, even in its off-season? I think the best question is: Which team does the city take the most pride in? Who is the city happiest to see win?

In some areas the ruler is clear-cut. Take eastern Tennessee (please). There’s no MLB there but the following tidbit was too good to leave out. Here’s what my good friend Todd from Knoxville had to say about that city’s sports interest:

“As for Knoxville goes, obviously, there is only one. UT football. That goes, and so does all of east TN. There would be really no other reason to live here. Trailer parks would turn to ghost towns. Orange would simply be a fruit again, not the color of lawns, shirts, cars, flags, buildings, kids, teeth, or blood. A "T" would be a letter, with a lower case. Seriously. People from here, that come here to go to school, do not leave, or if they do, they move back, just to go to the games. The stadium holds 110,000. 173,000 live here!

Now that’s a King. And, of course we all know what King lived in western Tennessee.

That said, I understand that college towns have “nothing else to focus on” but their school’s teams. I also understand that in some towns, there is no clear-cut royal family in place. (Except in Kansas City, which has a Royal family named Kauffman.) In these places a struggle for supremacy is perhaps still going on. For our purposes, though, each city needs a King, so one was chosen. Many of the “chosen kings” though, sit on wobbly thrones. Perhaps your comments can help reveal the true nobility.

On to the cities. We’ll start out West, where the brains behind Redbird Nation cook up our daily Cardinal fix.

NATIONAL LEAGUE WEST

San Francisco
Joe, Jerry, Willie, Barry.
Willie, Steve, it’s cold, let’s leave.

Levi’s-land is a close call. There’s been a rumor that there is a pro basketball team in San Francisco but you’d never know it. The 49ers and Giants dominate the city. There is also the terrific Cal-Stanford rivalry climaxing every year in The Big Game and apparently the USF Dons are making baby steps toward returning to their Bill Russell glory days. Look for them in 2038.

San Francisco is like a number of the cities in this list in that it exists within a “region” offering fans the chance to root for teams not specifically within their city, but close enough. I am talking, of course, about the teams from Oakland and San Jose. Despite the fact that “There's no there there,” Oakland has its own dynamic that will be discussed in the AL West section.

San Jose, a hour or so south of Frisco (a term which I know grates on locals in the way “Saint Louie” does on St. Louisans, so consider this merely a recognition of that fact rather than a display of ignorance, of which there will be plenty later), lays claim to a rabid base of Sharks fans who make the HP Pavilion the loudest arena in the NHL. Also worth mentioning is the soccer powerhouse of Santa Clara University. (Spare me any hilarious “I thought this was about sports!” comments. Soccer is a sport. I like it. Shut up.)

The recent successes of the Giants and their glittering new park have shot them to the top of the current hit parade. This seems to be a return to glory for the Large Ones as a local writes: “In the 60s, the Giants ruled San Francisco, and that carried over even into the 70s. As soon as the Niners got good, though, they were the only game in town and suddenly everyone realized what a crappy place Candlestick was to watch a baseball game. Then, in the mid-90s, Barry came to town, and then Pac Bell got built, and then the Niners started to suck, and all of a sudden it's all Giants, all the time.”

So, who is it? The 49ers have the Bill Walsh era of magnificence featuring lots of marquee names and five Super Bowl wins but really nothing before the 1980s. The Giants have no championships at all since they moved to SF but the legacy of McCovey, Mays, Marichal, and now Bonds. In a tight one...

1. San Francisco 49ers
2. San Francisco Giants
3. Stanford football
4. Cal football
5. Stanford basketball
6. Warriors (only when they wear the “The City” throwback jerseys with the cable car on the back)
7. Warriors (all other times)

Caveat – I know there are tons of people in SF who root for East Bay teams. Since I’m doing Oakland separately I had to exclude them from the list. Neither Oakland team is King of SF, though.

Los Angeles
Our first undisputed ruler.

“Out here in L.A., the Lakers are CLEARLY king (and not, ironically enough, the Kings). Although the Dodgers, with their starched, handsome blue-and-whites, and their jazzy 60's-style ballpark, embody a casual-hip brand of LA cool, the Lakers are the soul of the town: glitzy, sexy, blessed by Nicholson, rocked by scandal, and led by a coach who quotes Zen bromides while dating the boss' daughter. Great theater.” - Brian

I find it ironic that Southern California, the Fertile Crescent of American athletes, and reliable provider of good weather, is most crazy about a team that plays inside. The Lakers, though, have sustained such a high level of play and, from Wilt to Kareem to Magic to Shaq and Kobe, have had brilliant star power there almost from the time they moved from Minnesota. Of the five people who responded to me about LA, three of them ranked the Lakers #1, #2, #3, #4, and #5. The rest of the teams were then sprinkled in there with the Lakers popping up again around #8, #11, and so on.

Worth mentioning is the phenomenal success of all UCLA sports teams and the baseball juggernaut called Cal State-Fullerton. Really, in this land of embarrassing athletic riches, I am sure the list of deserving teams could be much longer.

1. Los Angeles Lakers
2. Los Angeles Dodgers
3. USC / UCLA football (to root for one is to despise the other)
4. Anaheim Angels
5. Los Angeles Galaxy – need proof? Look at this palace.
6. Los Angeles Kings
7. Mighty Ducks of Anaheim

Final Note about LA from RBN’s Brian: “One other thing: there's almost no better place to watch a football game on TV than in L.A. You go to a sports bar on Sunday mornings and EVERY team's fans, from every town in America, are duking it out for supremacy.”

San Diego
The passion here (or as much passion as can be mustered in this laid back corner of the country) seems pretty equally divided between the Fathers and the Credit-Users. Fittingly, I did not get much response from the San Diegans in my cadre of experts. So, having spent several weeks in fish-taco land myself, I will attempt to flesh out the bare-bones responses I got from those who call or called San Diego home. San Diego native Ted Williams has very recently expressed a new interest in hockey, curling, and speed skating, none of which made the cut for this list.

Response one – “I have three friends from San Diego and they are equally passionate about the Padres and the Chargers.” Mmmm, helpful.

Response two – “Chargers fans seem a little more intense, but it’s close.” OK, slight edge to the Bolts.

Response three – “Everyone here likes the Lakers.”

Very clear. The Padres have been to two World Series, have a local-boy legend named Tony Gwynn, and just got a new ballpark. The Chargers drafted Ryan Leaf.

To be fair, the Chargers have a pretty good history, with Lance Alworth, the Air Coryell glory days, and the Super Bowl team from the 1994 season among the highlights. I know most boys who were my age (11-14) during the Fouts-Lofton-Winslow era absolutely loved the high-octane Chargers, whose signature moment came, of course, in the 1982 playoffs against Miami. (We all know about that one...)

1. San Diego Chargers
2. San Diego Padres
3. Los Angeles Lakers
4. San Diego State football
5. San Diego State baseball

Phoenix
Phoenix surely falls into the category of cities that are home to massive numbers of “transplants” from colder towns. The sports history here isn’t that deep but it has had a few success stories. Most readers of this site, being baseball fans, or just fans of mullets, surely know of the Diamondbacks 2001 championship, which Senator John McCain called the best sports moment in state history.

There are also winning programs at Arizona (mostly basketball) and Arizona State (some great baseball teams, including squads featuring Reggie Jackson and Barry Bonds. But apparently there’s not a lot of concern for the trophies...) Louis XIV would have a home in the desert, though, as the Suns claim the throne.

Locals chime in: “The Diamondbacks championship wasn’t nearly as big a deal in Phoenix as the Suns’ run through the 1994 playoffs.” “The Diamondbacks are popular but most of the transplants here maintain loyalties to their hometown team. Also, many of the teams that have trained here for many springs have large followings, especially the Cubs.”

Indeed, the owner of the D-Backs (and Suns), Jerry Colangelo, is a Chicagoan and was in attendance at many of the Cub and White Sox spring training games in the years before the Snakes were born. When Arizona and Tampa were awarded franchises, in fact, Colangelo insisted that he have an NL team (that would host the Cubs at least once a year), which resulted in the Brewers switching leagues. Surely the Selig family was heartbroken at leaving the American League and entering division play that brought the Cubs, and their legions of fans, 90 miles north to fill County Stadium and the owner’s pockets several times a year. But, I digress...

1. Phoenix Suns
2. Arizona State / University of Arizona football
3. Arizona Diamondbacks
4. U of A basketball
5. ASU baseball
6. Phoenix Coyotes – The Great One was a King in LA, but not here
7. Arizona Cardinals – possibly the least-rooted-for team of all time, just ahead of the Washington Generals

An interesting ‘zona tidbit from a friend: “In the 70's and early 80's Dodger games were broadcast in Phoenix so you’ll find a lot of people who have lived here a long time are Dodger fans.”

I love that people who have been in Arizona since the early 80s are considered to have been there “a long time.”

Denver
I turn this city over to my mild-mannered friend Hugh, who was born and raised a mile high:

Let's get something straight, you surly bastard. This is a Bronco town. Always has been, always will be. Sure, when the Broncos were floundering with that mule Griese, people here flirted with taking the Avalanche as their number one, but everyone knew where the heart of the city lies... with the Broncos. I would shag 5 Nuggets cheerleaders for every 1 Broncos cheerleader. You know how it is.

The Avalanche have some issues right now with there being no season next year and having a large payroll that will almost certainly have to be trimmed. They have the best skill players in the world but hockey is changing for the worse and the Cup can now be taken with a good coach, lots of checking, and a hot goalie. It's as exciting as watching a dog scratch its ass across pavement. Until the league gets its act together, the Avs won't even come close to challenging the Broncos again.

Now, in the early '90's the second-best-liked team was the Rockies. Setting major league attendance records was a piece of cake and we would regularly get 50,000 fans for a weekday game. This has largely gone away and it's now just an average baseball town. Until we get owners with deeper pockets than Count du Monet, we can pretty much count on them fielding a crap team every year.

The Nuggets are what's really interesting around here. They came from a decade long absence of being the 4th team in town and wallowing in their own urine to getting into the playoffs and talking trash with the T-Wolves. This drove Denver into basketball frenzy, if only for 5 games. Denver has got a serious affinity for sports, but it's a real sleeper city for basketball. So, my list is as follows:

1. Denver Broncos (Solid as ever/eternal optimism reigns)
2. Colorado Avalanche (Slight downswing)
3. Denver Nuggets (Upswing Momentum)
4. Colorado Rockies (Downswing)

Live in one of these towns? Agree? Disagree? I’m sure you do. What do you think and why? Please save any comments about towns not in this article. We’ll get to them in due time.

Tomorrow, the AL West: Seattle, Oakland, Anaheim, and Dallas

Posted 8:59 AM by Brian
THE UNFRIENDLY CONFINES In a start eerily reminiscent of his outing up in Montreal, Matt Morris came down with yet another case of first-inning jitters and home run fever as the Cards fell to the Cubs 4-3.

You almost wonder if Tony La Russa should just have Ray King start every fifth day, then bring in Morris for the second inning. Opponents are now batting .415 off Matty in Inning 1, with an .854 slugging percentage. Once Double M clears the cobwebs, though, he's fine -- check out these numbers:

Opposition OPS
Innings 1-3: .850
Innings 4-6: .693
Innings 7-9: .424

Put another way: Morris' ERA is 6.16 from pitches 1 to 30, but a commendable 2.98 the rest of the way. Whether this is lack of preparation or proper warm-up, or some mental glitch, or simply bad luck, I have no idea. (Over his career, Morris' ERA is 4.61 through pitch 30; 2.78 thereafter.) Whatever it is, it's frustrating.

But there's no shame losing to Matt Clement, and frankly Morris' performance wasn't nearly the most frustrating part of our weekend in Chicago. Saturday was the real killer. After Friday the Cardinals were set up beautifully:

• They won the first game of the series, despite a Fassero-like brush with the dark side Friday afternoon (tell me that three-run bomb by Alou didn't give you flashbacks to September '03). A win on either Saturday or Sunday would give them the series.

• They would have to face neither Kerry Wood nor Mark Prior. Nor, for that matter, Sammy Sosa, Mark Grudzielanek, Alex Gonzalez, Carlos Zambrano, Greg Maddux, Mike Remlinger, or Kent Mercker. It was Cards at full-strength vs. Cubs at half-strength, surely an advantage for the good guys.

• The Astros were floundering. They lost on Thursday and Friday and would go on to drop Saturday and Sunday's contests as well. Prime time to make a move.

• The Cubs' starting pitcher on Saturday: Glendon Rusch. You hardly could have picked a more attractive matchup. He's a lefthander and the Cards are the best team in the NL vs. lefties. That was good. He had a 5.25 ERA entering the game, and he was likely the worst starter in baseball last year. That was good. He had an 11.85 ERA vs. the Cardinals last season. That was good. He was released by both the pitching-poor Brewers and Rangers within the last year. That was good. And his manager had so little faith in him that he let Sergio Mitre toil through 5 innings and 7 earned runs on Friday, just because Rusch didn't figure to go very deep into the game on Saturday. That was good.

And everything after that was bad. One run in 7.2 innings off of Rusch? Nine strikeouts and only one walk? On a day when the wind was gusting out toward Waveland Avenue? On national TV? If that's not the most embarrassing loss of the last 18 months, then I don't know what is.

Once again the Cardinals are finding themselves like Rocky or the Bad News Bears in reverse: they simply cannot deal with prosperity. Every time this year they've had a chance to make a run, they've faltered. Sweep the Astros in Minute Maid -- drop two of three to the Brewers. Take two of three from the Phils on the road -- lose two in a row to the Expos. Win in Wrigley on Friday -- fall on Saturday and Sunday. In fact, the Cards haven't had a single four-game win streak all year. Even the Mariners, even the Expos, even the Devil Rays, for God's sake, have had four-game win streaks.

It's about this time of the year that you stop looking at what teams can do and start paying attention to what they did do. Players are starting to accumulate a couple hundred plate appearances, pitchers are starting to get about a thousand pitches under their belts. You stop looking at PECOTA projections and preseason assumptions and start getting a sense of what teams are. This doesn't mean there aren't some flukes out there (I have a hard time, for example, believing the Reds are a first-place team), but it does mean that teams will have fewer and fewer opportunities to correct what ails them. And it's quite possible that the Cardinals will never have as good an opportunity as they did against the Cubs this weekend.

Posted 8:08 AM by Brian
MIDWEST ARM REPORT Dayn Perry, rabid Cards fan and official good guy, has a nice rundown of the Cardinals pitching prospects. Perry likes Danny Haren as a possible front-end starter in the bigs, and he projects Adam Wainwright as more of a "highly capable third starter" of the future.

And what about Brad Th000000000pson, the guy who put up all those zeroes for our AA farm team? Is he for real? Scouting guru John Sickels says yes --

"I think Thompson is a legitimate prospect. His stuff is above average, and as he's shown so far this year, his command is exceptional. At some point he'll give up some runs, of course, but I think there's a decent chance he could end up pulling a Brandon Webb."

Lastly, I think it's safe to move Jimmy Journell into the category of ex-prospect. Journell had surgery a week ago to repair a labrum tear in his right shoulder, and if you read this piece on torn labra by medhead Will Carroll, you won't be feeling too sanguine about his chances for a full recovery.

Posted 7:49 AM by Brian
A CASE OF RENTARRHEA Here's the latest on our two biggest pending free agents:

General manager Walt Jocketty said Saturday nothing has changed since spring training regarding the club's stance toward pending free agents Matt Morris and Edgar Renteria. As of now, Jocketty expects negotiations to remain on hold until after the season or until either player approaches the club about jump-starting talks. "Both of them let it be known they wanted to wait," Jocketty said.

Renteria is one of the trickiest players to assess in terms of value going forward. He's young and he's got a great track record, but he's been fairly putrid this year. His power numbers are down (he's slugging 100 points lower than last year), he hasn't walked once for the entire month of May (yes, you read that right), and questions remain about the health of his back. Putting a dollar value on Renteria is like hitting a moving target. So far he's having a worse year than fellow NL shortstops Royce Clayton, Cesar Izturis, Barry Larkin, Bill Hall, and Khalil Greene.

Posted 7:32 AM by Brian
SAD NEWS Doug Pappas, a co-author of Baseball Prospectus and the foremost expert on finances in baseball, died of heat prostration on Thursday at the age of 43. Countless times over the past year Redbird Nation linked to Doug's writings, which were as crisp and learned and unblinkered as anything floating around the web. And in my scant dealings with Doug (we exchanged some brief emails), I found him to be an extremely generous man. He will be missed.

Posted 3:34 PM by Brian
A BIRD IN CUBTOWN I'll be out of town the next few days attending a wedding in Chicago, right in the heart of Cub country (but sadly, I won't get to see any of the games at Wrigley). So no posts from me until Monday at the earliest, but I'll be sending a few happy vibes to our ballclub in the general direction of the Friendly Confines...

Posted 2:56 PM by Brian
PENMANSHIP Bullpen usage: probably the one aspect of managerial strategy that's dissected more than any other. The Cards bullpen figured prominently in all three games of the Mets series -- on Tuesday night Jason Isringhausen blew the game with 2 outs in the ninth, and then a number of relievers were asked to hold onto leads last night and this afternoon.

So I thought it made sense to take a look now, a quarter of the way into the season, at how Tony La Russa manages his relievers. I made a chart of every pitching change TLR has made through Wednesday night -- the base/out situation, the score, the hitter faced, etc. -- and tried to glean some useful information. Here are a few of my findings:

• For all intents and purposes, Steve Kline is the ace of the Cardinals bullpen. That's not because of his microscopic 1.20 ERA, it's more about the way he's been used by his skipper. Now, I'm sure La Russa would say that Isringhausen is his ace, but I ask, who on the Cardinals has been used most in close games (tied, or within one or two runs)? Kline. Who's been used the most with runners in scoring position in close games? Kline. Who's been used the most to face the heart of the order? Kline. And who's been brought into the most perilous situations? Again, Kline.

• In his most recent Historical Abstract, Bill James argues that you would use your ace reliever most effectively if you brought him in, first, when the game was tied or your team was ahead by a run, and secondly, when your team was up by two or down by one. That would be far more productive than, say, bringing your best bullpen arm into a 5-2 game in the bottom of the ninth, as TLR did with Izzy a couple Sundays ago.

• So how often does La Russa call on his best pitchers with the game on the line? Again, Kline tops the list --

Appearances with score tied or Cards up by 1 run:
1. Kline, 7
2. Isringhausen, 5
...Lincoln, 5
...Tavarez, 5
5. Eldred, 4
6. King, 3

Appearances with Cards up by 2 or down by 1:
1. Kline, 6
2. Eldred, 4
...Isringhausen, 4
...King, 4
...Tavarez, 4
6. Lincoln, 3

That pattern isn't so bad, particularly since Kline, King, and Lincoln have pitched better this year than Izzy. And to be fair, TLR has used Izzy in some less traditional settings (at least by his standards), including twice with the game tied in the 10th, and twice in the middle of the 8th inning.

• However, those mid-inning appearances by Izzy are still quite rare. For the most part, King and Kline have been La Russa's asbestos blankets, asked to put out the fire 7 times each with runners in scoring position and the game tight. Isringhausen, on the other hand, has been brought into such situations only 3 times in 14 appearances, and Eldred is even more extreme -- he's come into the middle of an inning only once, and it was with a runner on first and one out.

• You can gauge how often a pitcher is asked to get out of a jam by consulting the Run Expectation Chart. If a guy comes into a game with a runner on first and one out, the other team is expected to score .478 runs on average. So you give the guy .478 worth of "base/out trouble." Second and third, nobody out = 1.946. And so on. If you do this for each situation for the whole season, you get the following totals for each reliever:

1. Kline, 12.56
2. King, 9.57
3. Tavarez, 8.42
4. Izzy, 7.18
5. Eldred, 5.87
6. Lincoln, 5.47
7. Simontacchi, 2.40
8. Calero, 1.74
9. Pearce, 1.59
10. McKay, 0.53

These situations are independent of score (Ray King, e.g., was brought into a game with runners on first and third, one out, but the Cards were up 12-6 at the time), but you still get a sense of how critical the situation is when each reliever is used. And in general Steve Kline has been asked to get us out of the trickiest jams.

• By the way, Kline has done quite well when he's brought into those crises. In the four times he's been called on with a runner on third and one out (twice with the bases loaded), he's induced a pop up, a strikeout, a double play, and a fielder's choice out at home. His one misstep: a two-out, two-run single he allowed to Jim Thome after striking out Abreu.

• La Russa's slavish dedication to the save hasn't hurt him as much as last year (when he'd frequently bring Yan or Fassero into close games in the 7th or 8th innings), but it's still sub-optimal. Case in point: April 13th, Cards down 2-1 to the Astros heading into the top of the 8th, an ideal time to bring in one of your top pitchers. Instead TLR called on the struggling Cal Eldred and the game was 4-1 before he left the game, which became all the more frustrating when Edmonds and Rolen hit back-to-back useless homers in the ninth (and more frustrating still when Izzy was used the following game in an 11-1 blowout).

• Another example: April 30th, a 3-3 game in the ninth inning against the Cubs. Again, a perfect spot to use your best pitcher, but since the Cards weren't clinging to a lead, La Russa went to Eldred. Before the ninth is through the Cards would surrender a walk and two singles, and only a bad sac-bunt DP spared the Cards from serious damage.

• Because La Russa doesn't seize the moment with Isringhausen, he must frequently use him in useless games to keep him fresh: a 13-4 game, a 5-1 game, an 8-1 game, an 11-3 game, and a 13-6 game. In each of those games Izzy could have been used more effectively the day before if only La Russa were willing to use him in more aggressively, in non-save situations. (Although Izzy's shoddy performance this year might argue against that.)

• Steve Kline has been used most consistently against the heart of the order, a staff-leading 18 times against hitters 1-5. Here are the appearances by our other top pitchers against the top half of the lineup:

1. Kline, 18
2. Tavarez, 14
3. King, 11
4. Lincoln, 10
5. Izzy, 8

As you can see, if Isringhausen is our ace, then he's been under-utilized against the toughest opponents. He's faced the 1-5 hitters in only 8 of his 18 appearances, or 44%, compared to Lincoln (77%), Kline (75%), Tavarez (70%), and King (58%).

• However, TLR almost never brings up his last option out of the pen to face the opposing team's best hitters. Simontacchi, Pearce, Calero, and McKay have come in to face the meat of the order only once in 11 games.

• For whatever reason, La Russa hasn't used Ray King much recently. He was his go-to guy early on, including one stretch at the end of April/beginning of May when TLR called on him 7 times in 8 days. After that King languished for 7 straight days without pitching, awfully odd given that all but one of those games was close, and King has been our best pitcher in terms of adjusted runs prevented.

• La Russa's use of Julian Tavarez, on the other hand, is much easier to explain. Early in the season he was pitching horribly, with an ERA over 10, and he was used in only one meaningful game over a stretch of two and a half weeks. Ever since then Tavarez has found his groove, and La Russa has used him in several critical spots. His ERA over the last four weeks: 0.69 covering 14 appearances.

• La Russa is often hyper-obsessed with the platoon advantage, but he hasn't been quite as married to it this year. Kline, of course, is his #1 option vs. lefties, but Ray King, his second LHP arm out of the pen, has been brought in 9 times to face lefties, and 10 times to face righties.

• The modern use of the closer (developed, in part, by Tony La Russa) states that your ace reliever may be used only in the 9th inning of a save situation, but a little-known corollary to these precepts is that "thou shalt finish what thou started." Jason Isringhausen, for example, has never been pulled from the middle of an inning this year. Usually that's not a big deal, but as Josh Schulz pointed out recently, it can burn you. Izzy clearly showed up with subpar stuff on Tuesday night, but TLR let him roast in his own juices, eventually losing the lead and the game because, you know, each closer shall finish what he started.

• Our relievers have a collective ERA of 4.11, which ranks 10th out of 16 teams in the league. But this figure is somewhat illusory, as many of the runs surrendered came during garbage time of blowouts (also known as Simontacchi Time). If you take only appearances where the game is tied or within one or two runs, our bullpen ERA improves to 3.07 (and it's even better, 2.68, over the past month). All of this indicates to me that, for the most part, La Russa has been pulling the right levers this year, and that our relievers are an asset like they never were last year.

Posted 2:02 PM by Brian
SO TAGUCHI 11, METS 4 The game was closer than the scoreboard indicates -- in fact, the Mets had the lead most of the game, and the Cards were winning only 4-3 with two outs in the top of the 8th. But some timely hitting (and some gifts from the Mets cheesecloth glovework) gave us our most runs since April 21st, and the win. A few thoughts:

• Did So Taguchi really reach base five times? He raised his batting average 50 points, to .295, and just like that turned an awful season into a semi-acceptable one. I mean, sure, two of the hits were Mets-inflated doubles (the first a line shot over Piazza's head that Pujols would have had, the second dropped in front of Mike Cameron when he lost it in the sun). But the box score still reads --

S Taguchi, LF 4 2 4 2

I'll take it.

• Rolen had an interesting afternoon. He cranked one the other way in the 5th, but Karim Garcia leaped over the wall to rob him of a home run. The next AB he yanked a flyball to right that looked gone off the bat, but Cliff Floyd raced back, caught it over his head, robbed him of a double, and doubled Pujols off first. The next at bat Rolen left no doubt: line shot over the wall in center.

• Jason Marquis' day was even more interesting than Rolen's. He entered the bottom of the 4th with a tie game, then proceeded to give up a double to the #6 hitter, a single to the #7 hitter, a walk to the #8 pitcher, before hitting the pitcher (on an 0-2 pitch!). Bases loaded, no one out, top of the order up, and what does he do? Pop out, strikeout, fly out. Wild.

• Is Mike Piazza the worst-fielding firstbaseman of all time? He has the range of Mo Vaughn, the footwork of Dick Stuart, and the hands of Ryan Klesko. It's really astonishing to see a 1B have such a big impact on the game with his glove, but without Piazza some of these games would look a lot different.

• Our 6, 7, and 8 hitters today: 9 for 13 with four doubles, five runs, and five ribbies.

Posted 1:51 PM by Brian
PERFECTOS ESPN.com has an interesting list of the greatest pitching performances of the last 25 years. Pretty good selections, although I'd scratch Pedro's 17 walk/no strikeout game against the Yanks (the dude gave up a home run and it's the 5th best game of the last 25 years?), and I'd put it its place Tom Browning's perfect game against the eventual World Champion Dodgers. Browning didn't reach 3 balls on a single hitter, and there were no great plays required from the Reds' defense. What's more, the opposing pitcher only gave up 3 hits and one run of his own, so Browning had almost no room for error. Throw in extra credit for a 2 1/2 hour rain delay at the start of the game.

Posted 11:10 AM by Brian
PITCHER IN CHIEF Dave Pinto points out that tonight's matchup between Joe Kennedy of the Rockies and Paul Wilson of the Reds is a rare meeting of presidential pitchers. The all-time wins leaders among the presidentially named:

1. Walter Johnson, 417
2. Whitey Ford, 236
3. Randy Johnson, 230
4. Billy Pierce, 211
5. Joe Bush, 195
6. Babe Adams, 194
....Larry Jackson, 194
8. Guy Bush, 176
9. Mudcat Grant, 145
10. Jack Taylor, 129

Posted 9:39 PM by Brian
ONE-ZIP Excellent win by the Birds tonight -- great pitching by Suppan, Eldred, and Kline. They actually made a tense, nip-and-tuck game seem sorta easy.

With 6 shutout innings tonight, Suppan got his ERA under 4.00, making that four Cardinals starters to limbo under four:

Marquis 3.44
Morris 3.69
Suppan 3.75
Carpenter 3.86

Not bad, especially considering the league ERA is 4.27. (Woody is the odd man out in our rotation, with an earned run average of 4.69.)

The recipe for the starters' success is awfully unusual. They're not overpowering anybody -- in fact, they're second last in the league in K/9 IP, and they've given up more homers than any rotation in baseball. Their control is nothing special -- 5th fewest walks among league starters, which is fine, but not superlative.

No, the starters are succeeding because they're letting their fielders make plays. The Cardinals rotation has allowed more balls in play than any other team, with 642. But fortunately the Cardinals defenders lead the major leagues at converting balls in play into outs -- 72.9% after tonight's game, easily the best figure in baseball.

This really surprises me. Everyone talks about the Cardinals defensive rep, but I had suspected the team would degrade a bit in the field. After all, all three of our starting outfielders are getting old, Womack and Anderson are nothing to write home about, Pujols is learning a new position, Renteria doesn't have the range he used to, and even Rolen's stats from last year weren't as good as they were two years ago.

But lo and behold our defenders are gobbling up everything in sight. You wouldn't know it just by watching the games (where our fielders often come across as sloppy), but the stats show good defensive numbers for Pujols, and great numbers for Matheny, Edmonds, and Rolen.

Ah, Rolen... the one bonafide superstar on the 2004 Cardinals. After Tuesday night's game, when Rolen tore it up at the dish and in the field (a diving play to his right, then a diving play to his left), one of our New York pals asked, essentially, "does he do that every night?"

Well, no. But he does it enough nights, including a clutch RBI double for the lone run in tonight's game.

Posted 8:58 PM by Flynn
MATSUI Spiffy little shortstop the Mets have there. Here's a peek at his earlier days when he wore #26.

SPECTACLESULAR One of the greatest promotions in baseball took place 21 years ago this month. I guess Jason Phillips was there and held onto his pair.

Great Quote from a Great Woman "During those long summer tours, there's nothing on television that doesn't rot your brain except for basbeall. And I love the game. I love the history of the game. I love that fact that anything can happen but probably won't. But sometimes does. I love that you don't have to be a perfect human specimen to be a good player; you can be overweight, you can be too short, too skinny. Let's just say I'm a National League girl, because I don't belive in the designated hitter. And you can quote me on that." - Emmylou Harris, in this month's Esquire

Posted 2:03 PM by Brian
THE UNFOOLED Chris Kahrl over at Baseball Prospectus has the following take in his Transaction Analysis:

Activated OF-B Roger Cedeno from the 15-day DL; optioned RHP Josh Pearce to Memphis. [5/13]

I know, like me, you think Marlon Anderson or Tony Womack or Cedeno, and you think 'contender.' I don't know what's worse, the idea that this is the organization that wasted the tail end of Mark McGwire's career, or that they seemed to have learned nothing from it, and seem content to follow a similar ambition during Albert Pujols' prime. Is there a word for an ant lion that settles for dust bunnies, and defines its sense of happiness in terms of the universe providing just a few more dust bunnies? I mean, beyond 'exasperating' or 'hopefully unlikely to reproduce' or 'sea monkey charlatanry?'

If you can get past the tortured metaphor and the hopelessly unhip sea monkey reference (most likely borrowed from a Letterman Top Ten List c. 1993), then it's not difficult to grasp Kahrl's point: Anderson, Womack, and Cedeno make for a terrible supporting cast.

In general I agree with this sentiment -- hell, I myself compared those guys to a fungal mass not too long ago -- but what I don't quite get is the tone. After all, Kahrl is supposedly analyzing Roger Cedeno's return from the DL. Forget for a moment that Kahrl called Cedeno "a risk worth taking" just six weeks ago, and leave aside the obvious point that Cedeno is not and has never been a central cog on this Cardinals team (he's a fifth or sixth outfielder that we landed for Chris Widger, Wilson Deldago, and a coupon for Hardee's). The question remainds: why would Kahrl use this occasion to take a potshot at Tony Womack?

Well, because lately, that's what they do over at Baseball Prospectus. They jabbed at Womack here, poked at him here, tweaked him over here, and that was just in the last few weeks. Which is fine -- we take shots at Womack too.

But it's another thing to bask in your own superiority at every turn, as Steven Goldman did when discussing the Cards last week over at Baseball Prospectus:

Imagine if Whistler had painted a moustache on his mother, or the Empire State Building had a giant Groucho nose and glasses attached to the façade just below the observation deck. That's this year's Cards club, which has good pitching, a great core of talent on offense, and Hoovers up more balls than an elephant with--well, we'll just let that hang (bear with me, folks--the first metaphor that came to mind was inappropriate for a family site), but just misses greatness. They're only hanging around the .500 mark and just lost two of three to the Euthanasia Expos. This is the direct result of marking two positions, left field and second base as "staff" rather than actually filling the two positions. Pure negligence.

Is that really why the Cards are hovering around .500? Here's the Cardinals' league rank in OPS at each position:

C: 8th
1B: 5th
2B: 7th
3B: 4th
SS: 3rd
LF: 11th
CF: 1st
RF: 11th

Now, would you really look at this breakdown, circle LF and 2B with a red magic marker, and say -- see, there's the culprit! I don't think you would, unless you already had an agenda, or unless you were just recycling whatever prejudices you had in the preseason. Marlon Anderson has been better this season than, say, Reggie Sanders (or Edgar Renteria, for that matter), and for a much lower cost. Womack hasn't been very good, but there are a whole bunch of second baseman in the NL this year who have been worse. And Lankford, while no great shakes, has been acceptable in left. Nonetheless, I'm sure we'll hear more from Baseball Prospectus about Womack and Co. -- more potshots, more self-congratulatory "I told you so"s, all that easy stuff.

Baseball Prospectus, at its best, is a loose confederation of scientists -- skeptical, uncertain, inquisitive, nimble-minded. And at its worst it just churns out the same old lazy preconceptions. I think Chris Kahrl may do well to remember Greil Marcus' quote about the critic Robert Warshow: "I am not fooled, this man says, and critics have to be willing to be fooled."

Of course, Kahrl has been fooled, just like the rest of us. He eulogized Javy Lopez right before he put up one of the great years ever by a catcher; he criticized Jack McKeon for plugging Dontrelle Willis into the rotation last year because, as he said mockingly, "the team thinks it's a contender;" and, most egregiously, he chided the Cardinals and Tony La Russa for daring to assign Albert Pujols to the major-league roster out of spring training in 2001 (the link for this article is missing from BP's site, but trust me, it was the 4/5/01 Transaction Analysis).

But Chris Kahrl doesn't need to live with these decisions the way that, say, Walt Jocketty does. Chuck Noll, the old head coach of the Steelers, once defined an expert as "someone who doesn't have to back up his opinions with money." That's what Chris Kahrl is -- an expert who can publish his opinions knowing full good and well that the game will never make a sea monkey out of him. It's a nice gig.

Posted 1:49 PM by Brian
RICK ANKIEL, who I root for more than any player in baseball, will most likely be in a Cardinals uniform come September. Ankiel, as you recall, tore a ligament in his left elbow last July and has been rehabbing from surgery for the past year. But he should be ready to pitch by August, at which point the Cardinals need to call him up or risk losing him.

Ankiel is technically on optional assignment, meaning he's on the Cards' 40-man roster but not their 25-man roster. And since he's been on the 40-man roster during three different seasons, he'll have to clear waivers if we send him back down. And there's no question in my mind someone would take a chance on him if he were exposed to the Rule 5 draft.

As frustrating as Ankiel has been, he's still only 24 years old, and there are some indications that he was making strides in AA (his last game he pitched 7 innings, gave up 2 hits and no runs, punched out 12 and walked only 3). Will he ever be the pitcher he once was? Extremely unlikely. But the Cardinals have invested too much time and hope in him to cut bait as soon as he gets off the DL.

Posted 1:22 PM by Brian
SCHNUCKS MEMORIAL STADIUM So the name for the new stadium due south of Busch is up for grabs. I guess we had all assumed that the Cardinals would send Anheuser-Busch a bill, they'd pony up $75 - $100 million, and we'd all be christening the new-and-improved Busch Stadium in 2006.

As Doug Pappas points out, the brewery most likely will win naming rights to the new stadium:

Anheuser-Busch, which already has agreed to a multi-year marketing campaign in the new ballpark, remains the most obvious candidate. Anyone else would not only have to outbid the country's largest brewer for the ballpark in its hometown, but would have to overcome the near-automatic association of the Cardinals with the Busch name.

My guess is that no other corporation has the local identity, the marketing muscle, the will, or the bank account that Anheuser-Busch does, and of course they'll make the highest bid. I also think that the Cardinals want to stay in business with the Busches -- AB is a stable, venerated company, and they help the ballclub maintain a sense of historical lineage.

But Anheuser-Busch can't come out and say they'll pay for the naming rights at all costs, just as the Cardinals can't come out and say they'll give Anheuser-Busch a hometown discount. The deal will get done eventually and in the meantime the Cards will entertain a few unrealistic suitors.

Posted 6:49 PM by Brian
IMPERFECTION At 9:49 EST, Randy Johnson blew a fastball past Eddie Perez for only the fifth perfect game in modern National League history. Approximately 7 seconds later, Jason Isringhausen served up a fastball to Cliff Floyd, blew the save and the game, and the Cards lost 5-4.

Normally I try to say kind things to our opponents, not only because they're major league outfits that deserve respect, but because there's no use bitching about who "should" have won the game. Flukes, flops, and unlucky breaks are part of baseball, and over the course of 162 games they seem to infect all sides equally.

But damn the Mets picked up a cheap win tonight. It all started in the 6th inning, after the Cards had Tommy Glavine on the ropes all night (113 pitches in six innings!) and Matt Morris was cruising along heading into the bottom half of the frame. Then Kaz Matsui (making the first of two guest appearances in this gameblog) hit a dying quail into left centerfield. Easy play for Lankford... until Jim Edmonds came loping in, called off Sugar Ray, snapped at the ball, and had it tip off his glove and onto the ground. The New York scorer gave Matsui a double, the biggest gift since the Roman orgython Dennis Kozlowski threw for his wife.

And, as so often happens in games rigged by God, the next batter, Cliff Floyd (also making the first of two guest appearances here), cranked a home run to left center. A 4-1 stroll became a 4-3 nail-biter, just like that.

The next inning Eric Valent hit a pop fly into the Bermuda triangular region of leftfield, and Ray Lankford, doing his best Jim Edmonds imitation, dropped the ball. Just dropped it. It didn't come back to hurt the Cards, except it did push up each batter in the Mets lineup, and it did set up a fateful denouement in the bottom of the ninth, if you believe in that sorta thing.

In that ninth inning, Jason Isringhausen walked the leadoff hitter, Mike Cameron, on five pitches. Actually strike one was probably ball four, so it was an untidy little five-ball walk. After McEwing bunted over Cameron, Izzy walked Karim Garcia.

Now, I know this is where I'm supposed to be fair to the Mets -- after all, a walk isn't a mere free pass; it's a dynamic between hitter and pitcher, as much plate patience as mound wildness. But this is Karim Garcia -- no-good, .281 OBP, journeyman crud Karim Garcia, who hits bullpen boys better than baseballs. And Izzy pitched him like he was Barry Bonds with an aluminum bat. Walked him on five pitches, put the winning run on.

(As a side note: are you as worried as I am about Jason Isringhausen? He's given up runs in almost 40% of his appearances and he's walked over 4 guys per nine innings. He's blown only one fewer save this year than he did all of last year. Where's his light's-out fastball? Where's his drop curve? If someone finds them, please contact redbirdnation@yahoo.com.)

Anyway, back to the game. So Izzy recovered to punch out Valent, meaning the only thing standing between the Cardinals and a win was Kaz Matsui. Or rather, Kaz Matsui's broken bat. As much as I'm frustrated with Izzy lately, the fact is he beat Matsui. He sawed him off real good -- busted his bat, got him to hit a weak little pop blooper. Unfortunately it was so weak that it didn't have any hangtime for any of our fielders. The ball dropped between Anderson and Sanders and the teams were all knotted up at 4. Three pitches later Floyd ended the game.

Tommy Lasorda once said that every year you know you're going to win 54 games and you know you're going to lose 54 games. It's those 54 in between that make the difference. Tonight's game was one of those in-betweeners, ripe for the taking. And if we fall short this year, as we did last year, it'll be games like this that keep us up at night.

Posted 10:39 PM by Brian
FROM THE MAILBAG, VOL. II David Rugge writes in:

Quote from a recent STLToday article:

"Jack [McKeon] has opened a few doors for us older guys," Herzog said. "I think my health is good enough and the fire is there. But I don't want to go to the East Coast or the West Coast. I'm a Midwestern boy - fishing and all that stuff."

So with La Russa's contract ending this year, is it possible that the Cards would bring back Whitey? Food for thought. I'd sure hate for him to be on the other team.

I think I can say with almost 100% confidence that Whitey Herzog will not be the next manager of the St. Louis Cardinals. Herzog is a notoriously stubborn and strong-willed guy, and I don't think he has nearly as many friends in high places as he used to. In fact, he seems to delight in pissing off the powers that be, which makes him less like Joe Torre (a puppy dog) or Jack McKeon (a cussed guy, but fairly agreeable when you get down to it) and more like, say, Davey Johnson (a great manager who's basically been blackballed from the game).

What's more, if the Cards' current ownership is a fan of Herzog's, then they're doing a good job of hiding it. Not once have they honored him or officially invited him back to Busch Stadium. Perhaps they're simply being loyal to their current manager (who supposedly bridles at the Herzog worship that crops up in St. Louis), but even that should tell you something.

I'd be curious to see how Whitey would do back in a major-league dugout, but my sense is that he'd have a harder time relating to players than he did 20 years ago. I'd prefer to see him working in player development (as he did for the late-'60s Mets, the '80s Cardinals, and the late '90s Angels), where he's a certified genius.

Posted 9:21 PM by Brian
FROM THE MAILBAG, VOL. I Our friend Will Horton passes along the following letter:

I saw an article today in The Hardball Times, wondered what your take on it was. It’s a statistical examination of what kinds of teams succeed in the playoffs, and there are some very interesting results. Offensive strikeouts, fielding percentage, and pitchers’ ability to not allow hits – three areas where our team has struggled this year – rank among the most important predicators of success, while the ability to hit home runs – the one thing we are good at – appears almost negligible.

The article in question is by Vinay Kumar. It's not meant to be definitive -- as Kumar admits -- but it does do a good job of showing which statistics correlate with postseason success.

The results are fairly suprising, and they provide grist to the champions of small ball. As Kumar demonstrates, good pitching tends to beat good hitting in the playoffs, and "sound fundamentals" (good hands, solid baserunning, etc.) often tip the scales more than sheer power.

So how do the Cardinals do in each category? Here are Kumar's top ten indicators of postseason success, with the Cards' current league rank in parantheses:

1. Hits allowed (6th)
2. Errors committed (5th)
3. Batters strikeouts (t-11th)
4. Pitchers shutouts (t-7th, with 0)
5. Runs allowed (11th)
6. Home runs allowed (15th)
7. Stolen bases (1st)
8. Complete games (3rd, with 1)
9. ERA (9th)
10. Defensive efficiency (1st)

Sort of a mixed bag. We do quite well at swiping bases and tracking down balls in play, and we're okay at preventing hits. Where we get burned are home runs allowed and strikeouts from our hitters. But overall I can't see any trend that says we're a "bad" playoff team.

What about the bottom 10 indices, the ones that seem to have almost an inverse effect on winning postseason series? I should admit that I'm leery of some of these numbers. Teams that out-homer their opponents to a significant degree are 13-21 in playoff series since 1995. What of it? Does that mean that home runs are no good? Or, more likely, does it mean that some teams rely on home runs effectively and some rely on home runs almost exclusively? I can see how the former would make for fit playoff teams and the latter would not.

Nonetheless, I'll run the rankings anyway, just for fun:

21. Batting average (6th)
22. Saves (t-10th)
23. Fielding double plays (???)
24. Net stolen bases (SB-2*CS) (t-2nd)
25. Slugging percentage (3rd)
26. Doubles (t-1st)
27. Stolen base percentage (4th)
28. Runs scored (4th)
29. Home runs (3rd)
30. Caught stealing (fewer) (t-14th)

It seems we excel in these so-called "bad" postseason indicators. And indeed, it's not too difficult to see the Cardinals making the playoffs as a wild card, then swinging for the fences and whiffing against the likes of Roger Clemens, Kerry Wood, or Eric Gagne.

But beyond those scary scenarios, I don't think you can do much with these correlations. The Cardinals didn't make the postseason last year basically because our bullpen sucked; simple as that. We won the first round of the playoffs in 2002 because of timely hitting, then lost the next round because our bats went cold with runners on base. It was really no more complicated than that.

So while these games -- are we a playoff team or aren't we? -- can be fun, right now we should be more concerned with winning some ballgames and debating these issues again come October.

Posted 9:19 PM by Brian
NEW KID ON THE BLOCK There's a new Cardinals blog out there called The Psychotic Cardinal, run by a smart guy named Beau Chapman. Stop by and say hello if you get a chance.

Posted 1:27 PM by Brian
THINKING SMALL So for the second straight series, the Cardinals fumble their chance at a sweep, but they still finish the homestand 4-2. Not bad, especially against the defending World Champs (the Marlins, of course) and the team that has beaten them more frequently than any other over the past 10 years (the Braves).

How did we do it? According to Bryan Burwell of the Post-Dispatch, it's because of the newfound emphasis on small ball. Everyone knows the Cardinals can mash, but they've been getting it done lately with speed too, currently leading the league in stolen bases. Burwell points to a fine Whiteyballish 4th inning on Saturday, when the Cardinals scored four runs thanks to an infield single, some disruptive baserunning, a couple clutch hits, and a double steal.

Apparently this is all part of an organizational strategy to adopt the winning formula of our opponents, the Florida Marlins. Florida, you may recall, won the 2003 NL wild card by finishing 1st in the league in steals and only 11th in home runs. One guy who took notice was GM Walt Jocketty:

"We knew in the offseason that we had to get some speed," Jockety said as he stood in the middle of the clubhouse after Saturday's game. "That's what I told our scouts. We wanted to get some speed into the top of the order. After watching the way the Marlins played last year when they won the World Series, we knew we needed a Juan Pierre type of guy in our lineup. Find me a guy like Juan Pierre, someone who can put pressure on you, and we found Tony Womack, Reggie and Ray, too. Now you add them to Edgar and Edmonds, and there is some real energy out there... I was talking to Jack McKeon before the game, and we were both saying how guys like that create havoc in a game."

True, we have some leggers on our team, and they're fun to watch. But are they adding many runs?

There's a pretty easy way to answer that question. The basic Bill James Runs Created formula is as follows:

(H + BB - CS) (TB + .55SB) / (AB + BB)

Works well for individuals; works even better for teams. If you plug in the Cardinals team numbers entering Sunday's game, you get this:

(347 + 113 - 10) (586 + 15.95) / (1278 + 113) = 194.74 runs created

That's nine runs more than we've actually scored (185), although part of this must be due to our poor performance with runners in scoring position (.246 batting average).

Now let's run the same formula assuming the Cardinals had never tried to steal a base all season. The numbers would look something like this:

(347 + 113 - 0) (586 + 0) / (1278 + 113) = 193.79 runs created

Hmm. Seems as if those stolen bases are worth about one extra run this year (or, if you prefer, 1/10th of a win).

Now, I'm sure if Bryan Burwell saw these numbers he'd say that the formula doesn't take into account the sheer disruptiveness of a baserunning team. Take Reggie Sanders' AB on Saturday, with Womack dancing off of first base. Here's Burwell's account:

Now there was Womack pawing at the dirt a few strides off first base, basically driving Florida starting pitcher Darren Oliver mad with anxiety. Womack never flinched as if he were going to steal, but Oliver kept throwing over to the bag anyway. And when he wasn't throwing to first, Oliver was still looking over his shoulder. He was so preoccupied with Womack that he ended up walking Sanders.

So, according to Burwell, more speed equals more walks. But if that were true wouldn't the Cardinals be walking more often with runners on base? It's difficult to make that case:

2004 BB/PA
No One On: 7.2%
Runners On: 9.3%

2003 BB/PA
No One On: 8.2%
Runners On: 10.6%

Seems pretty much the same ratio as last season. And what about those runs created? If we have such a fast, disruptive team that take extra bases and messes with pitchers' minds, wouldn't we score more than the basic Runs Created formula suggests? Where's all that "havoc" Burwell alludes to?

I mean, look, I don't want to be too harsh on Burwell. I like that the Cardinals have some base-burners on their roster. It's always good to be versatile, especially when a tricky pitcher (like Brad Penny today) forces you to be more creative manufacturing runs. Besides, stolen bases and hit-and-runs are more fun than station-to-station baseball, regardless of productivity.

But the fact is, the track stars in the Cardinals lineup aren't adding much to our offense. It's easy for Burwell to cherry-pick the innings that support his thesis -- the 4th inning on Saturday, or the 8th inning today, when Womack walked, stole second, and scored on Sanders' base hit.

But I could just as easily cull examples that contradict the idea that speed thrills. Take the 6th inning of today's game. Rolen led things off with an HBP; Jimmy Edmonds at the dish; Cards down 3-1. La Russa has gotta be thinking longball, right? Wrong. On the first pitch he sends Rolen on a hit and run.

Now, this is a terrible time to send the runner. Jedmonds is not a good contact hitter. In fact, he's 3rd in the National League in strikeouts. And if Jed swings and misses, Rolen is not a great bet to beat the throw. Besides, Edmonds homered in his previous at bat, the Cards were down by two -- a two-run homer would have been just what the doctor ordered.

Instead Rolen goes, Edmonds swings and misses, Rolen is caught stealing, and the threat is over. Somehow I doubt Burwell will be praising that moment in his next column.

Posted 1:26 PM by Brian
SUNDAY was Jack McKeon's 161st game as the Marlins skipper. His record: 96-65.

Posted 1:25 PM by Brian
BUSCH LEAGUERS The good news from our six-game homestand: Cards pitchers are on a roll, giving up only 15 runs in 54 innings. The bad news: we really could have done even better. Only two games were close, and the Cards lost both of them. Today's starting lineup for the Florida Marlins included Lenny Harris (arguably the worst player in baseball) batting 2nd, Wil Cordero (one of the worst first basemen vs. RHP) batting 5th, Mike Mordecai (again, putrid) batting 7th, and Ramon Castro (the worst catcher in the NL, and one of the biggest disappointments of the year) batting 8th.

Posted 11:58 AM by Brian
MMMMM, DONUTS As you may have heard, Cards farmhand Brad Thompson pitched six more shutout innings on Friday night, leaving him with 52 straight scoreless inning, two short of the minor league record. The best part of all of this? The Krispy Kreme shop in Sevierville, Tennessee has promised to give Thompson donuts for life if he breaks the record. That's pretty good incentive. In fact, I might get out my glove and a pitch-back net and see if I can make any headway on that record.

Posted 11:28 AM by Brian
HITTING CLINIC The Post-Dispatch has a description of what ails Albert Pujols, and it jibes perfectly with my own amateur observations:

Pujols has long credited lightning-quick hands for his hitting success. His willingness to wait on a pitch combined with bat speed and unrivaled plate coverage allows him to drive pitches to right field with the same force as a lefthanded pull hitter. In contrast, Pujols in recent weeks often has been on his front foot, his left shoulder and hips have been prematurely open, and his bat has been dragging through the hitting zone.

Essentially Pujols needs to draw on his vaunted patience and wait back on pitches. Through the first three weeks of the season, Pujols was extremely restrained in the batter's box, taking 16 walks in his first 79 plate appearances. But over the next three weeks, Pujols took only 4 walks in 72 plate appearances. This trend certainly fits with the idea that Pujols is pressing. Fortunately, with three walks on Friday and Saturday, Pujols might be getting back to basics.

Posted 10:44 AM by Brian
WHAT'S STRANGER? Steve Finley leading the majors in home runs, or Jim Edmonds leading the majors in games played?

Posted 9:48 AM by Brian
UNDER AND OVER THEIR HEADS For all the absurdities of our division in the early going -- namely the Reds, Brewers, and Pirates all playing quality baseball -- the NL Central standings this morning look pretty much exactly as people had predicted:

Astros
Cubs
Cardinals
Reds
Brewers
Pirates

The Cards have an excursion into the Big Apple starting on Tuesday, and then after that it's all division rivals for three straight weeks.

I thought it might be interesting to see who among the Cardinals, Astros, and Cubs starters is playing over their heads, and who is likely to improve. What I did is I took BP's preseason PECOTA projections for Equivalent Average and compared that to each lineup's current EqA. If a player is playing better than his 90% PECOTA projection, I consider that Much Better than Expected. If his numbers are in the 60-75% range, that's Better than Expected, and so on.

So here's what I came up with for each team:

The Cardinals
Playing Much Better than Expected: Anderson, Womack
Playing Better than Expected: Lankord, Rolen, Matheny
Playing About the Same as Expected: Edmonds
Playing Worse than Expected: Sanders
Playing Much Worse than Expected: Pujols, Renteria

The Astros
Playing Better than Expected: Biggio, Berkman, Lamb, Bagwell, Everett
Playing About the Same as Expected: Ausmus
Playing Worse than Expected: Kent, Hidalgo
Playing Much Worse than Expected: Ensberg

The Cubs
Playing Much Better than Expected: Alou, Walker
Playing Better than Expected: Barrett, Ramirez, Sosa
Playing Worse than Expected: Patterson, Lee

As you can see, the Cardinals probably have the most upside. While guys like Lankford, Womack, and Marlon Anderson are due for a drop, it's the big boppers -- namely Pujols and Renteria -- who should have their best hitting ahead of them.

The Astros are no big surprise, but most of their lineup should level off some. The Cubs' hitters are playing over their heads (I'll be shocked if Moises Alou ends the season with a .331/.361/.612 line), but in some ways they can most afford a dip in the hitting department. Why? Well, mostly because of this guy.

Posted 11:17 AM by Brian
STREAKLESS It was a day for streaks to die. First, and most importantly, the Cardinals' three-game winning streak came to a close (which moved the Cards from third place, a half-game behind the Cubs, all the way to fifth place).

Secondly, our starters had a nice little streak going where they pitched six or more innings for 7 games in a row (and 20 of the last 21). Did you know that the Cardinals -- you know, those guys with the ragtag staff that everybody questioned before the season began -- are actually leading the league in innings pitched per game by their starters? Here are the top five:

1. St. Louis, 6.41
2. Florida, 6.30
3. Chicago, 6.24
4. Montreal, 6.03
5. Philadelphia, 6.00

I never would have guessed that.

Another odd streak came to an end today too. Albert Pujols -- you know, big guy, perenniel MVP contender, Albert Pujols -- had his very first three-hit game of the year. I know. Incredible.

And lastly, our relievers had worked 16 1/3 straight scoreless innings before Johnny Estrada doubled home a run off of Kiko Calero in the fifth. For the month, the Cards bullpen has an ERA of 2.19.

Posted 12:17 AM by Brian
WHAT MAKES A FLAKE? Matt Morris continued his yo-yo'ing pitching performances with 8 strong innings last night against the Braves. In seven starts, Matty's game scores read:

36 - 69 - 52 - 60 - 38 - 82 - 44 - 66

To put that in layman's terms we can use a chart I made up in about two seconds (>75 = awesome; 60-75 = very good; 50-59 = okay; 40-50 = blah; 20-40 = lousy; <20 = unspeakably awful). For Morris' seven starts we have:

1. lousy
2. very good
3. okay
4. very good
5. lousy
6. awesome
7. blah
8. very good

How typical is that? After all, pitchers with 3.63 ERAs are bound to have off nights. According to Michael Wolverton over at Baseball Prospectus, Morris is the 7th "flakiest" pitcher in the majors (meaning his good and bad performances tend to be more scattered than most).

R.A. Dickey of Texas has been even less predictable than Morris. His six starts in chronological order:

1. very good
2. unspeakably bad
3. very good
4. okay
5. very good
6. lousy

Anaheim's John Lackey, on the other hand, is flaky in the aggregate, but he keeps getting better and better from start to start:

1. unspeakably bad
2. lousy
3. blah
4. okay
5. very good
6. awesome

At this rate Lackey will be pitching 27-K perfect games by the end of the year.

All of this leads me to wonder: Just what makes a flaky pitcher? Do the leaders share anything in common? Last year's flakiest starters were, in order:

1. Shawn Chacon
2. Victor Zambrano
3. Brian Anderson
4. Matt Morris
5. Odalis Perez
6. Rodrigo Lopez
7. Ismael Valdes
8. Zach Day
9. Freddy Garcia
10. Ryan Dempster

We can make some generalities about these pitchers. They tend to be youngish (Chacon, Zambrano, Lopez, Day), and usually have poor control (Zambrano, Chacon, Day) and/or uninspiring stuff (Anderson, Lopez, Valdes, Day, Dempster). They're apt to play in good hitter's parks rather than bad (Chacon, Anderson, Valdes), and they often struggle with injuries or poor mechanics (Chacon, Morris, Valdes, Garcia, Dempster, Day).

Then again, that's a pretty wide set of character traits, and most pitchers are bound to fit one of them. For example, Tim Hudson was the flakiest starter in the majors in 2000. I guess you could chalk it up to his youth, but the top ten list that year also includes graybeards like Terry Mulholland and David Wells -- different guys, different set of problems. And then there are pitchers like Mike Mussina (sixth flakiest starter of 2001) and Al Leiter (2nd flakiest in 2002), who don't fit any of the above criteria.

So no, I don't think there's any one trait, or even a set of traits, that defines a flaky starter. And in fact, it appears Matt Morris is on these lists not so much because he has poor control or bad mechanics, but because he's, well, Matt Morris.

Let me explain: flakiness doesn't seem to be an attribute like speed or control that persists from year to year. It could even be random variation more than anything else. Except when it comes to Matt Morris. I have lists of the flakiest starters for the last 5 years, and only one guy makes even two of the leaderboards -- Andy Pettitte, in 2000 and 2002. Matt Morris, on the other hand, makes the list four times (2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004).

In other words, Matty Mo's dizzy approach to pitching may have little to do with a decline in velocity or poor mechanics or any of the other theories that have been tossed around lately. Instead, he seems to have been a pretty unpredictable pitcher for years now. And he'll probably confound us a lot more before it's all said and done.

Posted 7:05 PM by Brian
BRONX DREEEWWWWW J.D. Drew looked silly trying to catch a line drive in the 5th inning. The ball rocketed off of Jim Edmonds' bat, but Drew had him played perfectly out in right center. Unfortunately for him, he slipped on the turf, fell to one knee, tried to flag down the ball at hip-level, and watched it scoot past him for a two-out RBI double.

Just then the fans -- who to this point in the series had treated Drew's homecoming with a relative shrug -- showered him with mock cheers of "Dreeeewwwwww!" Now come on, Busch fans. I know a lot of people out there were frustrated with Drew's cozy relationship with the disabled list, but I've never heard or read any indication that he's anything less than a good, decent man. Plus he admitted that he was heartbroken after his trade from St. Louis, even though he'd be moving back to his home state.

I can't say I was satisfied when Drew retaliated by launching a home run in the top of the 6th, but in retrospect it was rather amusing.

Posted 6:18 PM by Brian
DOWN FOR THE COUNT So, So Taguchi homers in his second AB tonight off of Mike Hampton. Shocker, I know. His next at bat he fouls off a drag bunt down the third base line, bringing on this exchange between Jeff Brantley and Chris Berman:

Jeff Brantley: Now that would upset me, right there. If I'm the pitcher, and you take me deep, and then next time you come up you try to drag bunt on me, I'm gonna knock you down.

Chris Berman: What do you mean?

JB: I'm gonna knock you down.

CB: Why?

JB: Because you made me mad. I know he's trying to get on base, but it wouldn't surprise me one bit if this next pitch was right at his chin.

CB: Just because... what? You're a power hitter and you shouldn't... what?

JB: (silence)

CB: No, I'm interested in your --

JB: I'm just telling you what I would do.

CB: But I'm interested to hear your thought process.

JB: I don't like that. If you take me deep and try to drag bunt on me, I'm gonna knock you in the dirt. You don't like it, there's no fence there between home plate and the mound.

Do you think it'd be worth it to live out your dream as a major league baseball player if it meant having to share a locker room with guys like Brantley?

Posted 8:53 PM by Brian
THE NL LEAST I didn't catch tonight's game, but it sounds like it was pretty undramatic -- or I should say, gloriously undramatic. After the Cards jumped out to a 2-1 lead, Woody Williams was never really threatened (the Braves had only one runner reach second through the last 7 innings), and the Cards coasted to an easy victory.

This is a good time to face the Braves, as they're pretty banged-up right now. Chipper has a tender hamstring, Rafael Furcal is coming back from a finger injury, and Marcus Giles has a balky elbow. I know someone has said this every year for the past decade or so, but this really may be it for the Braves dynasty. Although their lineup still has a fairly large upside, they're only 9th in the league in runs, and their pitching staff...? Well, our three mound foes this series (Jaret Wright, Mike Hampton, and John Thomson) aren't going to make anyone forget Maddux, Glavine, and Smoltz.

I could be overstating this, but it seems to me there's a shift going on in the National League right now. The last several years the NL Central seemed like the black sheep of the league -- sure, we had the whole McGwire-Sosa pageantry a few years back, but for the most part the East and West seemed not only better than our division, but sexier too. The last 12 World Series have featured teams from either the NL East or NL West, and the game's brightest star resides out in San Francisco.

But make no mistake: the NL Central is where it's at nowadays. In years past I'd look at the scoreboard, check in on the Astros, maybe the Cubs, and then shrug past the Brewers, Reds, and Pirates. But this year each of those teams excites me (okay, maybe not the Pirates). The Astros are the frontrunners, of course, and they have just about the year's best story in Roger Clemens. The Cubs are the Cubs, with the most ferocious young hurlers in the game. I've also enjoyed following the Reds this year -- Adam Dunn has been a favorite of mine, and Ken Griffey's run to regain his dignity seems more legit now than in years past.

And Joe Sheehan touched on this in yesterday's Prospectus column, but the Brewers -- yes, the Brewers -- are actually a damn fun team to watch. Just tonight they spanked the Expos by scoring 5 runs in the bottom of the ninth to tie (they were down 5-1 with nobody on and two outs), then won in the 14th on a walk-off homer by Wes Helms.

And then there are the Cardinals, who seem stuck in neutral somewhat, but nobody in the game has a more dazzling future than Albert Pujols, and the Cards have him locked up for the next 7 years.

What does all this have to do with the Braves? Not much, really, and that's precisely the point. As much as I admire the Braves organization, I wouldn't mind if they became a bit of an afterthought for the next few years. The Cards certainly treated them that way tonight.

Posted 1:58 PM by Brian
OL' ABNER HAS DONE IT AGAIN Two interesting things about this article:

1. The game of baseball goes back to at least 1791, possibly further, which makes it nearly as old or even older than our federal government. But I would take this with a grain of salt. There have been other early references to baseball played in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and other northeastern states, but most of these games were experiments with different rules and methods of play that may or may not resemble the game we know today.

In fact, a pocket-book from 1744 features a woodcut drawing of boys playing "baseball" and a poem of the game: "The Ball once struck off, / Away flies the Boy / To the next destin'd Post, / And then Home with Joy." A few years later a Londoner named Lady Hervey wrote a letter in which she describes family members "diverting themselves in baseball, a play all who are or have been schoolboys are well acquainted with." So the mere mention of a game called "baseball" in 1791 isn't too revealing.

2. A lot of people still think Abner Doubleday had something to do with the invention of baseball. The AP writes that the 1791 document "would have been produced well before Abner Doubleday is said to have written the rules for the game in 1839."

Abner Doubleday has been discredited as the inventor of baseball for at least the last half-century. He never referred to the game of baseball and never claimed he invented it. But he was a colonel in the Union Army, and after the war several baseball owners made up the legend that he invented the National Pastime in order to sever ties to the British game of rounders. It's best to think of Doubleday in the same spirit as Paul Bunyan, Santa Claus, or Mel Gibson's Jesus.

Posted 9:47 AM by Brian
HOW WE DOING? With the Cardinals regular season 20% over, the team has shown a remarkable talent for mediocrity. They're scuffling along in fourth place, with a 16-16 record, 6th in the league in runs scored per game, 11th in runs allowed. Ho hum.

How does this start compare with other Cardinals teams? Well, this is actually par for the course for the La Russa-led Redbirds. Here are our team records at the 1/5th mark since 1996:

1996 14-18, 2.5 GB
1997 15-17, 2.5 GB
1998 17-15, 3.0 GB
1999 17-15, 3.0 GB
2000 19-13, 3.0 in front
2001 17-15, 3.5 GB
2002 14-18, 4.5 GB
2003 17-15, 1.0 GB
2004 16-16, 4.5 GB

As you can see, we're in a pretty familiar place -- a lot of middling starts over the last several years.

What's more, our performance through the first 20% of the season seems to have no real bearing on our final record. We've had only one above-average start in the past eight years, and we ended up winning the division (2000). Then again, we've had two subpar starts (1996, 2002), and we won those years too. All in all, our teams are 64-64 in division-winning years, and 66-62 in non-division-winning years. Not too revealing.

What this means is that the Cardinals still have plenty of time -- either to charge to the top of the NL Central, or to fade far out of the race.

Posted 1:20 PM by Brian
RENTERIA'S BACK Quoth our favorite baseball medhead, Will Carroll:

There's still no scientific data that [suggests] turf causes more injuries, but the anecdotal data is pretty strong. As turf fields continue to vanish, there hasn't been a reduction in injuries. That doesn't stop anyone from complaining and blaming, so when Edgar Renteria pointed to the Montreal turf as the cause of his back problems, the Cards were hoping no one would point out that his back spasms pre-date the Montreal trip. Renteria has been receiving massage therapy and other modalities for a while. His reduced power early this season points to the problem's effects.

Indeed, Renteria has struggled with back pain for several years. In late June 2001, he missed a few games with back spasms and narrowly avoided the DL. Last June he was given a night off due to a sore back, and on August 26th he was kept out of the lineup with a strained back.

Have these back problems affected Edgar's power, as Carroll suggests? Perhaps so. The best way to judge a player's ability to drive the ball is by looking at his Isolated Power, which is nothing more than slugging percentage with the singles factored out. With those aforementioned back spasms in 2001, Edgar recorded his lowest ISO in a Cardinals uniform (a meek .112, which is about what you'd expect from Royce Clayton or Endy Chavez).

And Renteria has shown a marked power decline after wrenching his back last August. In 488 seasonal ABs before 8/26/03 (the day ER sprained his back), Renteria's ISO was .154, the highest of his career. Since that time his ISO has been only .108, which would be the lowest of his Cardinals career. In that time Renteria has hit only 3 home runs in 212 ABs.

Of course, there are other possible explanations for this drop-off (small sample size, for one), but it still seems like a legitimate cause for alarm. Something to keep an eye on as the season wears on.

Posted 12:59 PM by Brian
HE SQUARES TO BUNT... BP's James Click crunches a bunch of numbers to figure out when you should call for the sac bunt. Despite a few qualifiers, he basically concludes that there's only one situation where a bunt makes sense: runner on second, no one out, and you're playing for one run. That's it.

Posted 12:32 PM by Brian
PAPERWEIGHTS Stephen Rodrick has a priceless essay over at Slate.com about that lovable species known as the backup catcher. Writes Rodrick,

Backup catchers are harder to kill than cockroaches and just as unsightly. The fraternity is the athletic equivalent of Skull and Bones: Once you're in, you've got membership until you're 40 or bat below .180. And sometimes even that won't get you bounced... Despite their noticeable lack of skill, fans love the weak-hitting, glass-armed shlubs. The backup catcher is the equivalent of Dad's comfy chair, or those treasured broken-in loafers. We love them enough that we watch with joy as a backup catcher parlays second-bananadom into a show-biz career. Joe Garagiola turned his crappiness into gigs commentating at dog shows and hosting Today. Bob Uecker gave us Major League and, more importantly, Mr. Belvedere.

What's odd is that most backup catchers seem to have born for the job, as if they popped out of the womb and the doctors said, "Mrs. Giardi, you've just given birth to a backup catcher."

There are countless catchers in Cardinals lore who, like Leopold Bloom, have a kind of epic ordinariness: Rick Wilkins, Steve Lake, Alberto Castillo, Rich Gedman, Chris Widger, Mike LaValliere, Scott Hemond, Carlos Hernandez, Danny Sheaffer, Hector Villanueva, Tom Lampkin, Orlando Sanchez, Alan Knicely, Terry McGriff, Steve Swisher, Tom Nieto. But there's one guy who towers above all of them -- Mr. G.B. himself. Sometimes I get happy just remembering he's an actual guy walking around out there and not some figment of my imagination.

Posted 11:14 AM by Brian
SURVIVOR: ST. LOUIS Am I the only one who thinks Big Tom's son Bucky Bo (far left) is a dead ringer for Scott Rolen?

Posted 12:50 PM by Brian
PHEW That three-run tie-breaking homer by Jedmonds in the 6th was aided by the collective energy of Redbird Nation waiting to exhale. Here's how Mike Shannon called it: "Swing and LOOONG one into rightfield. Get up, baby! OH yeah! WAY out of here and the Cards go up 5-2." And all was good. Some other observations:

• This series really reminded me of our excursion into Milwaukee a couple weeks back. If you remember, the Cards had just swept the Astros on the road, travelled north to polish off a lesser opponent, ran into a buzzsaw for a couple games, then salvaged Game 3 to maintain some modicum of dignity. This past week we took two of three from Philly, travelled north for a big tasty Expo dessert, lost two games, then snatched the finale to keep our heads above water. Both series could have been worse, but I gotta say -- it's a bad sign when you're playing for dignity rather than the division lead.

• Resident hophead Tony La Russa seems even jumpier than usual. After Saturday's limp showing he said, "What I was taught a long time ago is if you're not hitting and you're not pitching, look at the manager first. Change the lineup, play different people, tell the hitters something different -- that's where I'll go first."

Forgive me if I'm wrong (because let's face it, at the end of the day I'm taking wild guesses about what it takes to manage a major-league baseball team), but doesn't this frantic overmanaging seem like the worst thing for a team that's pressing? I would think you'd help our players most by letting them take their licks and play through their slumps.

Instead TLR yanked a bunch of starters, sat Rolen, sat Sanders, put Luna in at third, tried to steal a couple bases (even though it was clear when he was going to run, and Brian Schneider has one of the best arms in baseball). But we all know Tony La Russa, and we know that he's not a guy to sit on his hands in a crisis. Do all these movements help a team relax? Or, the opposite, do they help rouse the team from its slumber? Hard to say. We won today because of our regulars (Edmonds and Pujols), not because of the lineup shuffling. But whatever it was, something worked...

• Wayne Hagin said during the broadcast that the Expos had a specific plan going into this series about how to pitch to the Cardinals lineup. I hope that plan doesn't get around, or we might have the biggest mess since Marcia's new boyfriend tried to swipe Greg's playbook.

• Pujols had only his second multi-hit game in the last 19. Oddly, he's had only two hitless games over that same time period. That means 15 out of his last 19 games he's had exactly one hit. How's that for consistent mediocrity?

But to show you how good Pujols is: he's going through one of the worst slumps of his career, he's hitting only .270, and yet his OPS is still .946 -- that's higher than the 2003 totals for Berkman, Beltran, Sexson, Rolen, Magglio, Sosa, etc.

• Carpenter was terrific today. Sure, he gave up another home run (Cards pitchers have now allowed HRs in 11 of the last 14 games), but he retired the last 15 in a row, didn't walk anyone, threw only 91 pitches over 8 innings, and combined with Izzy to finish off the Expos in 2:24.

• How bad are things in Montreal? Check out this comparison --

Cumulative attendance for this weekend series: 23,244
Average attendance of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays: 22,300

• Bernie Miklasz has a vivid illustration of how tipsy this Cardinals team has been:

They are batting .288 with the bases empty, their highest average since 1974... Their batting average with runners in scoring position (.235) is the team's poorest since 1974. The disparity includes Cardinals pitchers. They're allowing a batting average of .236 with the bases empty and .296 with men on base.

They've been odd in other ways too. The Cardinals scored 7.1 runs per game in their first 15, but only 3.2 over their last 15. Conversely, our pitchers had a 5.55 ERA over those first 15 games, but a 3.50 ERA over the last 15. Very strange.

• By the way, some of our individual numbers with runners in scoring position this year are crazy: Mike Matheny (3-26), Renteria (3-23), Pujols (7-37), Lankford (1-19!), Edmonds (6-37). I'm actually encouraged by those totals, as they should even out some as the year goes on.

• And one final note: Cardinals farmhand Brad Thompson is keeping his streak alive -- he's now pitched 37 1/3 innings this year without allowing a run (this article says he's pitched 37 3/4 innings without a run, which is a little bit like being 5'13"). Dating back to last year, Brad has a streak of 43 scoreless innings, which is only 11 short of the all-time minor league record set by the most awesomely named man in the history of pro sports, Urban Shocker.

Posted 11:51 PM by Brian
SURREAL Did you see that Tigers-Rangers game? The Rangers gave up 8 runs in the top of the 5th and fell behind 14-4. But they came back promptly with 10 runs of their own in the bottom half of the inning, tied the game at 14, then fell behind again, then came back again, then won it in ten, 16-15. The 5th inning marked the first time in major-league history that both teams scored 8 runs in an inning, and it took one hour, six minutes, and 100 pitches to complete. Alfonso Soriano finished the game 6-for-6. Detroit pitchers walked fifteen batters. It had to be one of the more astonishing games ever played.

And the Cardinals? Someone told me they played a game up in Montreal, although I may have blocked it from my memory.

Posted 6:56 PM by Brian
THE SLOW DANCE WITH .500 When I was a kid going to Catholic schools, the nuns used to describe for us the difference between a mortal and a venial sin. They'd draw two points on a chalkboard -- one labeled YOU, the other GOD -- and then they'd draw a line connecting them. "If you commit a venial sin," they'd say, "the line between you and God stretches out. But you can always get back to where you were if you repent and do penance and things like that. But a mortal sin" -- and here the nuns would take an eraser and wipe away the the line -- "a mortal sin destroys your relationship with God for all eternity."

Tonight Matt Morris committed a mortal sin. For most of the game he was a good, upstanding gentleman on the hill, but he made two mistakes in the first inning -- big, fat grapefruits thrown to Brad Wilkerson and Termel Sledge, both put in the seats for two-run homers -- and the Cardinals never recovered.

Not that we didn't have our chances. We had a zillion chances to do penance:

Inning 1: Anderson in scoring position with two down; Edmonds strikes out.

Inning 2: Runners on first and third with one out; Matheny grounds into a DP.

Inning 3: Lankford on with the heart of our lineup at the dish; Lankford picked off.

Inning 4: Runners on second and third, one out; Sanders K's, then, after an IBB, Morris grounds out.

Inning 5: Lankford back on first, one out, Pujols up; he kills the inning with a DP.

Inning 6: Runners on first and second, two outs; Matheny whiffs.

Inning 7: Runner on third, Albert up again; he grounds out weakly to third.

After that the Cardinals (except for Colin Porter, who jacked his first ML homer with two outs in the ninth) just rolled over and died. It was fitting given the surroundings at Stade Olympique, which are so barren of people that the few cheers take on a howling, wind-tunnel effect, as if the ghost of Warren Cromartie had come back to taunt us.

Earlier today Robert Dudek of the Hardball Times put up an interesting article about Runs Created and lucky wins. He showed that when a team has more runs created than the other team, they're more likely to win (which is fairly obvious); the more RC, the more likely. When a team has 2 or more runs created than the other guys, they win 93% of the time; between one and two, 81% of the time.

Tonight the Cards had 4.57 runs created to the Expos' 3.14, a difference of 1.43, which puts us squarely in that top 20th percentile. Essentially that means we outplayed the Expos everywhere but on the scoreboard, where it mattered most. In some ways, then, this game was a good metaphor for our season -- the Cardinals have had plenty of opportunities to make a serious run, but, so far at least, they're allergic to success.

Posted 4:32 PM by Brian
BAD MATTHEW I asked earlier this morning whether we'd see the good Matt Morris or the evil, bizarro Morris up in Montreal. Well, that question has already been answered: five hits, two laser home runs, and four runs in the bottom of the first. This to a team that has trouble hitting the broadside of a barn, which continues the Cardinals' nasty habit of rising (or, in this case, lowering) to the occasion. They grind it out against the tough teams, then fritter it all away against the lousy teams. They have 8 innings to turn that around...

Posted 11:08 AM by Brian
SPIDEYGATE, CONT'D I've read a lot of articles and op-ed pieces over the last couple days about the Spiderman 2 flap, and I've had two general reactions:

1. Everyone needs to take a timeout. I mean, sure, those logos on the bases could lead to big blinking Pepsi ads in the batter's box and Budweiser logos tattooed across Derek Jeter's face, but I'm not going to worry about it until we toboggan down that slippery slope a little further; and

2. These priggish debates detract us from the real flaws and foibles of MLB's current regime, which are far more egregious than logos on the bases.

(Actually I've had a third reaction too, which is that people are talking too much about the logos and too little about how radicool Spiderman 2 looks. Did you see the clip with Doc Oc throwing that car through the window? Jesus H. Crap, it's awesome.)

Well, I've finally read an article that makes these points much better than I ever could, and it comes, not surprisingly, from Joe Sheehan, who may be the most unblinkered sportswriter on earth. About the Spidey controversy, Sheehan writes:

I couldn't get worked up about it, in the same way that I couldn't get worked up about the ads that appeared on uniforms during the season-opening series in Japan. While I know that some people consider these things to be an affront, as well as an aesthetic nightmare, I consider neither to be the case. Certainly uniform and base ads are less intrusive in person than ballpark signage or between-innings advertising blasted at 110 decibels. For those watching at home, ads superimposed on the backstop on every pitch are clearly a greater incursion on the experience. If MLB could mine one more revenue source without detracting from the game--and six-by-six painted squares certainly pale in comparison to the profile of the other marketing messages being conveyed--then more power to them.

Sheehan goes on to lament the ways in which MLB lied about their motives (claiming the ads were about bringing kids to the ballpark, rather than a money grab), but he saves his real venom for the latest attempt by Selig and Co. to extort money from local municipalities:

To wit: Hours after abandoning the plan to advertise on the bases, Bud Selig participated in a press conference in Oakland, this in his first trip to the city as commissioner. Quotes from it were passed to me by BP's James Click. During the session, the commissioner referred to the A's owners:

"These people find themselves in a very uncomfortable position of playing in a park that's now 38 years old and just can't generate the revenue to keep its players and be competitive."

You want to get upset about something? Get upset about that. Forty-eight hours after announcing a plan that was purportedly designed to help create baseball fans, the game's leader goes to a place where one of its most successful franchises plays and tells people, "Don't bother supporting this team by coming to the park, they can't be competitive unless you give us hundreds of millions in public money."

A lot of people have said recently that ballparks are sacred, that they shouldn't be surrendered to blatant money interests. I'm not sure if "sacred" is the word I'd use (I've always thought profanity and baseball go well together), but I do agree that decorum has its place. And Bud's trashing of the Oakland A's is a clear desecration of one of the best sports stories of the last decade.

Posted 8:55 AM by Brian
AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT Barry Bonds weighs in on the Spidey bases controversy:

"What the [bleep] are you asking me for? I don't care. Our job is to play ball, not to worry about what ad is on the billboard. I don't care. They can have [bleepin'] dog-poo as bases so I have to step in [bleep] as far as I'm concerned. What the hell."

It's easy to hate Bonds, but it's hard to hate his incorrigible Bondsness.

Posted 12:17 AM by Brian
TRACTION The Cardinals have yet another chance tonight to break their slow dance with the .500 mark. Here's our relationship to the break-even point since April 23rd:

+1
0
+1
0
-1
0
+1
0
+1
0
+1
0
+1

That seems like a really bad computer program. The Expos send Sun-Woo Kim to the mound tonight against Matt Morris, although it's not clear whether we'll get the good Morris or his bizarro brother. You'd think the former -- the 'Spos have the majors' worst record, as well as its worst offensive attack (by far).

Posted 2:29 PM by Brian
WHEN YOU GROPE FOR LUNA, good things happen. Tony gave Luna a rare start in left today, and he responded by belting a three-run homer in the first. The Cardinals were never headed after that, and wrapped up the rubber game 7-4. Some news and notes:

• Before this game, Luna's last three plate appearances were all against Billy Wagner (how often do guys face that guy three times in a row?). After seeing Wagner's triple-digit heat, Randy Wolf's breaking pitch must have seemed like it was sitting on a tee.

• Wolf came in with a 21-inning scoreless streak, but the Cards hit him early and often. It's probably a good idea not to throw too many lefties at our lineup, as our team slugging vs. southpaws is .502 over the last two seasons. (The bad news is that there are only four lefthanded starters in our entire division: Chris Capuano, Doug Davis, Oliver Perez, and Andy Pettitte.)

• After the top of the first I said to myself, all Suppan has to do is not be terrible and the Cards pick up the W. If he can go, say, 6 innings and give up 4 runs we'll be fine. Sure enough, Suppan flirted with terribleness, but he hit his mark -- 4 runs in 6 innings -- which was enough to hold on.

• I know Jim Thome terrorizes most pitchers, but what he does against our staff is getting obscene. After homering again today, Thome's career numbers look like this:

Home Run Rate vs. Teams That Aren't the Cardinals: 1 every 14 ABs
Home Run Rate vs. Teams That Are the Cardinals: 1 every 4.9 ABs

• I'm not really worried about Albert Pujols, but I'm getting there. He's had only one multi-hit game out of the past 17, and in that time he's hit only .239. It seems to me that he's pulling the ball too much, as opposed to last season, when he really drove the ball to all fields. During the aforementioned 17 games, he's had only one extra-base hit the other way, a double against Houston on April 21st.

• Two more home runs allowed today, and our starters have now coughed up 34 on the year. What accounts for this trend? Is it (a) an early-season quirk; (b) the parks we've played in (road trips to terrordomes Arizona, Milwaukee, Houston, and Philadelphia, which seems like an extreme hitter's park to me); (c) our starters' penchant for gopher balls (but if that's so, why are the same guys who allowed 0.93 HR per 9 IN last year now allowing 1.69 HR per 9 IN?); or (d) the fact that our starters have trouble blowing the ball past guys (only 5.4 K's per 9)?

• Here's an interesting side note about K's per 9, which I just learned from Rob and Rany's website. Did you know that Whitey Herzog's pitching staffs were among the biggest soft-tossers of all time? During Whitey's years in the Lou (1980-1990), the Cardinals struck out fewer batters than any team in baseball, and several of those teams were among the worst strikeout staffs of all time (the '86 Cards, for example, had the third-worst strikeout rate in relation to their league of any team in history). I don't think you could build a staff like that today and expect to win many games. (Although it helps if you Ozzie Smith in his prime behind your pitchers.)

• Here's a quiz: it's the fifth inning of a high-scoring game; your team leads by one; your leadoff hitter gets on with a double, and one of the best hitters in baseball is on deck. Your #2 hitter is at the dish. What do you do? Do you tell your hitter to dig in and try to score as many runs as possible, or do you play small ball in the middle of the game, maybe try to bunt the runner over and hope your best hitter picks up a sac fly? If you're Tony La Russa, you choose the latter -- in fact, that's exactly what So Taguchi did today. I think it's safe to say that if your #2 hitter is bunting in that situation, then he shouldn't be your #2 hitter.

• Ryan Madson wears #63, but I don't think he'll be heading to the minors anytime soon. He's now pitched 19 innings in the majors without allowing an earned run (wonder what the record is to start a career), and his stuff is flat-out wrinkly. He sorta reminds me of a righthanded Ken Dayley -- neither guy is capable of throwing anything straight. Even a 93 mph fastball that Madson threw to Renteria had some serious movement on it.

• Where has Reggie Sanders been? Zero for his last 22, with 11 K's. In fact, he's currently 0-for-May.

• This game was a perfect illustration of why you should take errors, fielding percentages, and unearned runs with a grain of salt. There were four times today when players made awful plays, but no error was charged. 2nd inning: Todd Pratt hits a soft liner to right. Reggie Sanders loses it in the sun, gets a late break, takes a couple steps in, has the ball hit off the heel of his glove. Official scoring: hit. 9th inning: Colin Porter hits a dribbler down the first-base line fielded by Jim Thome. Pitcher Jim Crowell spaces out, is late covering the bag, and Porter beats the throw. Hit. Two batter's later, Womack hits a dribbler to Jimmy Rollins, who thinks about getting Porter off third, but no one was covering. His hesitation causes him to eat the ball. Fielder's choice. Next batter: Edmonds grounds to first; Thome decides to come home, but throws weakly to Pratt. Another fielder's choice. These were all terrible plays but you'd never know it by looking at simple stats like fielding percentage.

• Leo Durocher + Bobby Valentine - Casey Stengel = Larry Bowa

Posted 8:12 PM by Brian
REDBIRD JAM You've heard that old chesnut applied to baseball a thousand times: it's not a sprint, it's a marathon. But I don't think the metaphor is quite right, for a marathon implies slow, steady, inexorable progress toward a goal. And baseball is filled with stalls, stutters, speedbumps, and sudden stops. It's less like a marathon and more like a car chase in the middle of a traffic jam.

Tonight was one of those speedbump games -- nothing much you can do about it, a one-run loss to counterbalance last night's heart-stopper. I mean, sure, I could bemoan the Cardinals now-ridiculous penchant for giving up home runs (40 HRs allowed, if you're scoring at home), and I could get down on Woody for throwing such an uninspiring game (oh, if he could have just retired Bell, what a different tale we'd have to tell...).

But there's only so many ways you can point out the obvious, and besides, it's not like the Cardinals are trying to give up home runs. They're grown men, and they sure won't play any better if I point out their deficiencies. So let's wear the "L" tonight with heads held high and come back and try to win the rubber game tomorrow. (Trivia detour: did you know that the term "rubber," used to denote a tie-breaker, goes back to the 16th century? You could look it up.)

Onto a less nerdy and more pleasant topic: like the Diamondbacks mastery over the Chicago Cubs. What is it with that team? Last week they outscored the Cubs 23-4 while winning two at the BOB; now they come into Wrigley and take the series, and, as Alex Ciepley points out, that's without Randy Johnson, Brandon Webb, or Richie Sexson.

Tonight's matchup pitted Casey Daigle against Kerry Wood -- for an analogy, think me vs. Roy Jones Jr. (that's in the boxing ring, not on an SAT test, although Roy's a supremely shrewd guy and he'd probably kick my ass on a standardized test as well). Anyway, Daigle -- the same guy we took to the woodshed in his major-league debut -- shut down Chicago's bats and took home the win 2-zip.

That doesn't help the Cardinals much, but it don't hurt either.

Posted 7:32 PM by Brian
BASEBALL'S NADIR The scandal of the week? MLB is allowing ads for the movie Spider-Man 2 to be placed atop bases at major league ballparks to help promote the film (and, of course, add a little pocket change).

Oddly enough, this comes on the heels of a letter sent to Bud Selig by professional windbag Ralph Nader, who bitched about ads worn by the Yankees and Devil Rays on Opening Day in Japan. Wrote Nader:

The great lengths of selfishness with which you are willing to go to desecrate baseball and alienate fans of the game should no longer surprise us... You are suffocating Baseball’s fan base... This over-commercialization is sapping the fun out of being a fan of Major League Baseball. Now, you have sunk to a greedy new low... [W]hy do you insist on trying the patience of loyal baseball fans across the country?

As usual with Nader, his letter is more himself than it is the issue at hand, but it's fair to ask -- are baseball games becoming too corporatized? Jeff Chown, managing director of The Marketing Arm, an entertainment and sports marketing consultancy firm, says no:

"The fans are already becoming used to corporate logos being a part of their sporting events. The purists will say that something like this is not good for the game, but something like this also helps promote the game."

I would add that corporate logos aren't just becoming part of sporting events -- they've been part of sporting events since time immemorial. Just look at old photos of Ebbetts Field -- there are corporate ads plastered over every square inch of the outfield wall. They looked pretty cool, if you ask me.

And that's really the key issue here: aesthetics. I have no quarrel with advertising in principle -- after all, those ads help keep ticket prices down and allow you to listen to ballgames on the radio for free, and in general MLB should be finding creative ways to increase revenue. But I draw a line when such ads uglify the game. Case in point: those horrendous digital green-screen effects that Fox puts behind home plate during the playoffs. They're a blight on the eyes, and should be done away with, pronto. But those spidey webs on the bases? Seems pretty harmless to me.

Posted 7:32 PM by Brian
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE Remember a couple years ago, when everyone used to call our division The NL Comedy Central? No more, or at least not so far this year. As of this writing, every team in our division is playing .500 baseball or better (although that'll change as soon as the Cincinnati-Milwaukee game ends), and we have the best collective record against the other divisions. Here's how it breaks down:

NL Central, 27-16 .628
AL West, 18-12 .600
NL West, 29-25 .537
AL Central, 26-26 .500
AL East, 23-29 .442
NL East, 20-34 .371

Wasn't the AL East supposed to Sherman's March all over the rest of baseball? What's going on over there? And while I'm thinking of divisions -- is the AL West ever going to add a fifth team? To win the NL Central you have to climb over five teams; to win the AL West, you need only climb over three. Isn't that a little, oh, I don't know, crooked?

Posted 7:09 PM by Brian
THE PITCH TO BARRY MOVEMENT Mike Hussinger make a convincing case that teams are treating Barry Bonds too gingerly. Money quote:

Even on his hottest tear, Bonds makes an out 50% of the time that he is allowed to swing the bat. During more normal stretches, like the past seven days, when Bonds has hit .273, he is even more likely to make an out – probably about 70% of the time. For those of you who are scoring at home, when Bonds is walked – either intentionally or, more commonly, un-intentionally intentionally – he reaches base 100% of the time.

If there's one guy who might buck this rule, it's Barry Bonds, playing for this Giants team. But even for Bonds I think the truism holds: most of the time guys swing the bat, bad things happen.

Posted 7:04 PM by Brian
WAINWRONG So AAA batters are finally catching up to Adam Wainwright. He's had a couple subpar outings in a row, including a lambasting at the hands of the Nashville Sounds on Monday night: 1 2/3 IP, 4 hits, 5 walks, two HRs allowed, and 7 earned runs. Early in the season Wainwright was pitching so well it looked like he might join the Cards' rotation by the All-Star Break (perhaps Woody Williams was hearing footsteps). But after this latest hiccup it seems wise for the Cards to stick to their plan of giving Wainwright a full year of seasoning.

But one guy who might be moving up is Tennessee righthander Brad Thompson. He's been almost literally untouchable in AA, with an ongoing scoreless streak of 31 1/3 innings and a season ERA of zero.zerozero. Full disclosure: I know next to nothing about Thompson. To the best of my knowledge, he's not considered a top Cardinals pitching prospect, although his numbers have made me perk up a bit. If anyone can put a little flesh on his bio, I'd appreciate it.

Posted 7:25 PM by Brian
THRILL RIDE Baseball, it seems, is fun only in retrospect. Take tonight's game up in Philadelphia. There were several moments that make me giggle as I look back on them, but as they were unfolding in real time -- well, I can assure you I wasn't laughing.

Let's start with those back-to-back-to-back homers by the Phils in the 5th. Right after Burrell launched his moon shot into the upper deck, I couldn't help but grumble about our pitching staff and their sudden addiction to home runs. The Cards have now surrendered more dongs than any team that doesn't play half its game in Mile High air. Matt Morris has given up the second most homers in baseball, with 9, and Chris Carpenter is now right behind, with 8.

And yet, as I look back on it now, that threepeat was pretty cool. The Phillies were down by three, and then -- bing! bam! boom! -- the game was tied. I've never seen a team do that except in highlights, and it was sorta surreal the way it unfolded.

But that was just an appetizer for the bottom of the ninth. The inning started innocently enough, with Jason Isringhausen freezing Tomas Perez on a wicked 12-to-6 curveball for out #1. And then the witches' brew started to gurgle. Izzy, who seemed to have such pinpoint location with Perez, walked Marlon Byrd (yeah, the guy with the .278 OBP) on four pitches. Peaceful Polanco then smoked a single into right, and Bobby Abreu watched three straight deliveries from Isringhausen sail out of the strike zone.

Izzy had to be perfect from that moment on. Abreu had already feasted on Cardinal pitching for two home runs, and Thome was wearing a bib on deck. And yet somehow the Iz Man reached down for something extra and stuck out Abreu on three pitches, the last one a cutting fastball tailing away from the lefthander. Two outs.

That set up the main event -- Izzy vs. Thome, power vs. power -- except, astonishingly, La Russa took the ball out of his ace closer's hand and walked Thome! We've all heard wild stories about walking Bonds with the bases loaded, but this may have been the goofiest free pass I've ever seen. I know, I know -- Thome murders the Cardinals, 38 for 84 (.452) lifetime with 16 homers. But he'd never homered off of Isringhausen, and besides, what kind of lunatic would willingly put the winning run in scoring position?

With Thome at the plate, it takes a single to tie, an extra-base hit to win. But after the walk, anything -- hit, walk, error, even (wink wink) a dropped third strike -- would tie the game and a base hit would win it. I don't care how great Thome is or how much you doubt Pat Burrell, the chances that Burrell gets a hit and wins the game are far greater than the chances that Thome gets an extra-base hit.

But La Russa rolled the dice anyway. The move certainly took balls -- after all, if Burrell ended the game, TLR would wear the goat horns for the next year or two -- and in my book it took balls in place of a brain, regardless of the outcome.

Anyway, back to the game itself: so Burrell runs the count to 2-2 and fouls of three straight pitches (while I burn about 15,000 calories). The next offering was an explosive fastball, up and over the plate, and somehow Matheny misses it (it almost looked like he got crossed up on the pitch) and the ball ricochets to the backstop.

That's when all hell broke loose. Byrd takes off for home, Polanco for third, Thome for second, and Burrell -- who's not the game's fastest customer -- rumbles down the first base line. Matheny races to the backstop and thank God the ball takes a true carom and comes up scoop-ready for Matheny. The fans are going bonkers, screaming and hanging on every milisecond. Matheny fires a cannon-shot down to Pujols at first, who lunges to make the catch, with Burrell's lead foot about three inches over the firstbase bag. Game over.

It may have been the wildest ending to a baseball game I've ever seen, rivalled only by another Iz-capade from last season, when Cards pitchers gave up five runs in the bottom of the ninth and still squeaked by the Mets 10-9.

Baseball games don't usually end so feverishly. That's not to say that baseball doesn't have great endings. But because the game is so methodical, and because it doesn't have a clock, it doesn't lend itself to the kind of freaky/desperate/last-second fireworks we saw in tonight's game. The closing moments -- with Matheny racing behind the plate and Burrell frantically tearing down the line -- remind me of scenes from other sports: the Music City Miracle, Flutie's heave against Miami, Christian Laettner's turnaround buzzer-beater, the Immaculate Reception, the 1972 Munich Clock Controversy, and Kevin Moen running through the Stanford Marching Band.

If you're disenchanted with Hollywood and think you've seen every two-bit plot twist in the book, just remember we always have our sporting events, which, on rare nights, produce enough shock endings to make M. Night Shyamalan blush.

Posted 10:31 AM by Brian
BROTHERLY LOVE The Cardinals travel to Philadelphia for their first-ever game in Citizens Bank Park. Taking the hill for the Phils is Brett Myers, who enters the game with a hideous 7.36 ERA.

But that may not bode well for the Cards. Over the last couple weeks we've lost games started by Matt Kinney, Jason Jennings, Chris Saenz, and even Myers himself, while we've won games started by Carlos Zambrano, Kevin Millwood, Ben Sheets, Wade Miller, Kerry Wood, and Roy Oswalt.

Posted 8:58 AM by Brian
A PERIOD OF ACUTE FLACCIDITY As Brian Doolittle notes, the party is over for the Cardinals hitters. That's not to say that the Cards don't have a great lineup, or that they don't have a ton of offense left in them, but it does mean that those funhouse numbers you saw early in the season have finally levelled off. Brian writes:

In 36 innings at home over the past four days, the Cardinals had exactly 0 innings in which they scored two or more runs. In their first 15 games, the Cards averaged over seven runs per game. In their past 11 games, they've scored less than three per.

In fact, the Birdnals have scored more than 2 runs in an inning just once in those 11 games. The culprit: lack of power, particularly with runners on. After hitting 35 homers in their first 15 games, the Cards have knocked out only 8 in the last 11. Seven of those eight homers have been solo shots.

Posted 8:41 AM by Brian
KING FOR A DAY Here's one of my favorite quotes of the season so far, by Cleveland's young catcher Victor Martinez after he went yard off of Curt Schilling:

"I was rounding the bases, and I thought, 'Oh, my God, I just hit a home run off Curt Schilling.'"

Why do I like that? Because he had the exact same reaction as I would in that situation.

Posted 8:38 AM by Brian
THE ROB DEER ALL-STARS The Cardinals have some serious whiffmeisters in their lineup. The biggest culprits -- Jim Edmonds, on pace for 187 K's, and Reggie Sanders, on pace for 174. Ray Lankford, with 18 strikeouts in only 58 ABs, has been doing his part too.

Now, I know these projections won't necessarily pan out, and I know that how you get out is much less important than the fact that you get out; what's more, I'm not too worried about Edmonds' or Lankford's K rates, because they both take a healthy number of walks.

But Sanders concerns me. He currently has 28 strikeouts, only 4 walks (that's 174/25 over a full season). I find it hard to believe the rest of the league won't catch up to a guy with such a huge hole in his swing.

Posted 8:27 AM by Brian
MARINATED MOISES You've probably noticed that Moises Alou is one of the few big leaguers who doesn't use batting gloves (only a handful of other players abstain, including Vlad, Jorge Posada, Jason Kendall, Craig Counsell). And as you probably also know, hitting without gloves can tear up your hands if you don't have strong calluses to weather the friction caused by swinging a bat.

So how does Moises harden his hands? According to ESPN's Gary Miller --

He urinates on his hands. That's the honest truth. Alou said he isn't sure where he learned this distasteful folk medicine, but it wasn't from his famous father. And it works for Moises.

I'd be careful high-fiving that dude after a home run.

And speaking of bizarre, Mike Lucas of The Capital Times had this reaction to Gary Miller's, er, leak:

Wasn't this the same Gary Miller who was once arrested and charged with urinating out a window of a Cleveland nightclub? Yep, it's the same guy. What a coincidence. You want to talk about bad timing? Miller had the misfortunate of urinating on a couple of off-duty Cleveland police officers who just happened to be standing under the second-floor window of the nightclub.

I hate when you go to take an honest piss out of a window and some cops are hanging out under you.

Posted 8:10 AM by Brian
HAVE YOU NOTICED that J.D. Drew is on a tear? He was hitting under .200 less than two weeks ago, now he's jacked his numbers up to .296/.438/.549. That's a better start than Reggie Sanders (and Gary Sheffield, for that matter). Just something to keep an eye on as we evaluate last December's trade.

Posted 1:37 PM by Brian
MADDUXED So officially the Cards close the series with a split, but if anyone won this four-game set it was Chicago. Remember, we're chasing them; they're not chasing us (so we're back where we were on Friday morning, 2 1/2 games behind the Northsiders). What's more, the Cubs break even after some horrible bullpen outings, they let Prior rest for four more games, and they get the next series in Wrigley.

I really hate losing to Greg Maddux. I always get the faint impression that there's one thing standing between him and a mediocre pitcher: he's smarter than you are. I mean, sure, he's got good mechanics, a good breaking pitch, and, in his day, a pretty decent fastball. But his greatest asset will always be his brain, and it's more humiliating losing to a good brain than losing to a good fastball.

In fact, Maddux, who's one of the least imposing physical specimens in all of professional sports (just ahead of half of NASCAR, most of the PGA, and Ray King), sometimes seems to me like little more than Pure Brain. Here's what Roger Angell said about him after he allowed only two hits and won Game 1 of the 1995 World Series:

Maddux is not a pitcher in the gasping, edge-of-your-seat Sandy Koufax or Bob Gibson mode. Rather, he conducts his business in the style of an actuary -- a studious collector of numbers and patterns and opportunities, who arrives at a plan and then rides it through to the end. Maddux, who has a glazed, pallid stare, studies hitters and hitting styles so obsessively that he confessed, after his masterpiece, that he hadn't found it necessary to look at most of the dossier compiled by the Atlanta scouts. "Well, you just try to make pitches, you know?". Maddux conjures up images of math prodigies and human computers, geniuses who can perform lickety-split computations and permutations in their heads.

Maddux wasn't always like this. When I first saw him as a rough-edged newcomer, he was a typical 1980's Cubs pitcher. He was a nagging, shifty opponent even then, but you could always tag him for a homer or two. There was a prototypical Cubs pitcher in those days: like the Brewers of the same era, they were to-the-core Midwesterners -- rangy, raggedy, beefy slobs. In games at Wrigley Field, Maddux used to slip into a McDonald's across the street, in full uniform, and down a couple of cheeseburgers.

But then something changed. Maddux transformed himself into a guy who got by on sheer imperturbability and craft, as if someone at the Pentagon had slipped a microchip into his brain. Come to think of it, Maddux sorta reminds me of the Pentagon, or at least Norman Mailer's description of it:

...the Pentagon, architecturally, was as undifferentiated as a jellyfish or a cluster of barnacles. One could chip away at any part of the interior without finding a nervous center... Nineteenth-century generals would not have been permitted to explore the fortress they would attack, but they would have known its storehouse when they took it. Now recapitulate the problem at the Pentagon: an enormous office building in the shape of a fortress housed the military center of the most powerful nation on earth, yet there was no need for guards -- the proliferation of the building itself was its own defense: assassination of any high official of the edifice could serve only to augment the power of the Pentagon; vulnerable to sabotage, that also could work only for the fortification of its interest. High church of the corporation, the Pentagon spoke exclusively of mass man and his civilization; every aspect of the building was anonymous, monotonous, massive, interchangeable.

That's Greg Maddux to me. Most pitchers are like 19th century fortresses -- goading, easy to read, mountains ripe for attack. Maddux is the Pentagon of pitchers: anonymous and impenetrable, the new organization man, appropriately calm and bespectacled (that is, before the Lasik surgery-cum-chip implant). It looks like you could blow him away like a feather, but the next thing you know he's kicking your team's ass and the game is over.

Posted 4:01 PM by Brian
10 THINGS I'VE LEARNED FROM THIS SERIES SO FAR...

1. Cubs pitchers can bring it. Okay, I'll admit, I didn't just learn this. After all, the top three strikeout staffs in major-league history are:

1. The 2003 Chicago Cubs
2. The 2001 Chicago Cubs
3. The 2002 Chicago Cubs

And the team with the most strikeouts this year is:

1. The 2004 Chicago Cubs

This series alone, Cubs hurlers have punched out the Redbirds 30 times, including Edmonds and Matheny four times each, and Reggie Sanders six times. That's enough wind power to heat a mid-sized Danish village for a year.

You know how many times the Cardinals have struck out the Cubs this series? Nine times [cue deflating Brady Bunch-style flugelhorn]. That's far and away the biggest difference I see between these two teams. In general, Cards pitchers don't have that killer out pitch -- when they have to go mano a mano, say, a 3-2 pitch, runners on, the opposing team can lick their chops. No so with Cubby pitchers.

And Mark Prior is waiting behind the ropes, about ready to go tag-team with his buddies on the rest of the National League. It's a good set-up they got up there, and it's the main reason I don't expect the Cubs to endure any big slumps.

2. Cubs hitters sure do swing a lot. The Cubs might not strike out much against Cards pitching, but I think we match up well against them anyway. Why? Because we have a lot of crafty vets on our staff who can exploit the Cubs' tendency to go fishing.

Consider: the Cards and Cubs have had roughly the same amount of plate appearances these last three games (Cards 106, Cubs 104), but the Boys in Red have seen 432 pitches, compared to only 364 for the Boys in Blue. That's an advantage of 20 pitches per game.

Now, I know this is a miniscule sample size, but as Derrek Smart pointed out last night, some of the Cubs hitters just don't seem interested in working the pitcher. Like this Moises Alou character. Twelve trips to the plate this series; eight of those times he had a one-pitch AB.

Pedro Martinez once said that "the key to good pitching is not throwing strikes -- it's throwing balls that look like strikes." And to Cub hitters, a lot of balls look like strikes.

3. Pujols is pressing. His batting average is down to .277, and as a few people have mentioned on this site, he appears to be taking an unusual number of poor, off-balance swings (as opposed to that preternatural brand of batter's box t'ai chi we've seen from him the last few years).

Albert seems to share something in common with ultra-competitive sorts like Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods. That is, he seems personally affronted when he isn't doing well, as if every time he pops up or strikes out the planets had fallen out of orbit or the universe had slipped out of its regular time-space axis. Sometimes this wounded-animal approach can fuel Albert's fire -- it might even be key to his work ethic and success -- but other times it seems a distraction (like today, when he let home plate ump Angel Hernandez get under his skin in the bottom of the 10th).

If I was Pujols' therapist, I'd say, "Look, Al, even when you're slumping you're a great player. A .405 on-base percentage and a .574 slugging percentage? Be happy with that. No need to press." And then next I'd say, "Can I have an autograph? It's for my two-year-old nephew."

4. Michael Barrett looks like a good pick-up for the Chubs. He didn't do much today, but I like the way that guy plays baseball (or, rather, as a Cardinals fan I dislike it). He can drive the ball better than Damian Miller, and if he can hit anything like he did as a 22-year-old rookie in '99, then I'd say Jim Hendry may have found himself a crucial piece of the puzzle.

5. Jim Edmonds is tired. He's had a decent series so far -- couple doubles, reached base 6 times (including a crucial 10th inning walk today). But this article in the Post makes it sound like he's getting ready to write his own eulogy. Read this paragraph and tell me if you can spot the difference between Jim Edmonds and a 600-year-old man:

"I'm tired of waking up with my feet numb and my right knee sore... If I was just sore and achy every day, that's no big deal. But waking up every morning and the first 10 steps I take my left foot is completely numb. I've had four knee surgeries, three shoulder surgeries. I want to play, but when it's time to retire, I'll get on with it."

6. Kyle Farnsworth might be the Cardinals MVP this series. On Friday night Kyle Farnsworth entered a tie game in the bottom of the ninth and promptly walked Albert Pujols on four pitches. When Dusty yanked him, Farnsworth shook his head, laughed out loud, then came back to the dugout and Freddy Adu'd a Gatorade bucket.

I don't know if he was pissed at himself, or Baker, or what, but I'd hate to be within ten feet of him after today's performance. How in the world do you walk Tony Womack on four pitches leading off the 10th? In Womack's defense, he's been much more patient this year (81 walks per 162 games so far), but still, that's inexcusable from Farnsworth. He's always been a wild pitcher (over 4 walks per nine innings over his career), but this year (9 walks in 10.2 IN) he's been even wilder. The Cardinals heartily thank him for his largesse.

7. Matt Morris is a flake. I know he's a flake off the mound (I always picture him lounging around with an ankle tattoo and a shark-tooth necklace, blasting, like, Dave Matthews or the Goo Goo Dolls), but he's been a very flaky pitcher on the mound too. Check out these game scores this year: 36 - 69 - 52 - 60 - 38 - 82. Will the real Matt Morris please stand up?

Fortunately, Morris usually brings his A-game when he's facing the Cubbies, with a lifetime record against them of 10-2. And he was a joy to watch today. He used the Cubs' main weakness against them (see #2 above), needing only 12 pitches per inning to retire the side. I speculated last week that Morris may be transmogrifying from a power pitcher to a location pitcher, which means if he can hit the corners (i.e., limit walks) and set up hitters (i.e., stay out of their happy zones and limit homers), he's gonna be just fine. If he's a few degrees off, though, or if he can't get his curve over, he's in trouble. Today that wasn't a problem.

8. Matt Clement is doing a fine, if unfunny, impersonation of Mark Prior. 4-1 record, 1.95 ERA, more strikeouts than innings pitched? Could the Titanium Horse do much better?

And unfortunately us Birdnal fans are going to have to put away all those sniggering jokes about how the Cubs got fleeced by the Marlins in the Dontrelle Willis deal. I mean, sure, Clement costs $5.6 million more than Mushmouth, and he's only 1/18th as fun to watch, but he seems to get the job done.

9. The Law of Averages is alive and well. Last season the Cards were 14-25 in one-run games, which was basically the only stat you needed to explain their third-place finish. This year we're 5-1 in one-run games and 3-0 in extra innings. Part of this is due to our slightly improved penmanship, but a lot of it is just good old-fashioned luck. But I'm not complaining -- lucky wins count in the standings too.

10. The Cards and Cubs sure put on a show, don't they? The writer Kenneth Patchen once said, "Boxers punch harder when women are around." And I think the Cardinals and Cubs play harder when the other is around. When was the last time these teams didn't have a good game? Nine of the last eleven Cards-Cubs battles have been decided by one or two runs (the only exceptions are the ones pitched by Mark Prior). And six of those games were decided in the winning team's final at-bat.

While ramping up to the first pitch on Friday night, the folks over at WGN described Cubs-Cardinals as "the greatest rivalry in all of baseball" at least three times, as if some pollster had slipped them talking points before the broadcast. This kind of pre-fab sloganeering brings out the contrarian in me -- after all, as any freshman undergrad who's taken Lacan 101 can tell you, your definition of the greatest rivalry depends less on objective truth and more on where you live. East Coasters have Sox-Yanks; West Coasters have Giants-Dodgers; we Midwesterners have Cardinals-Cubs; and if you live in North Carolina you're probably partial to Durham Bulls vs. Richmond Braves.

That's why I'm not so keen on blanket phrases like "the greatest rivalry in all of baseball," for it's usually trotted out by East Coast media types every time the Yankees and Red Sox look at each other cross-eyed (whereas I'm a hell of a lot more concerned about Cards-Pirates than I am Yankees-Red Sox). So is Cards-Cubs the greatest rivarly in the game? Who knows. But I do know that, as Cards fans, it's the best we got.

Posted 7:30 PM by Brian
NO MIRACLES TONIGHT Of course there was about a zillion-to-one chance the Cards were going to pull it out in the ninth, but don't you think Sanders could have made things far more interesting by laying off of Ball 3?

And oh, that crushing three-run jack by Ramirez. Like Wood last night, Suppan made only one truly bad pitch -- and unfortunately, it came at the very worst time. Clement, on the other hand, made no truly bad pitches and came through with an astonishingly clean game in some astonishingly sloppy conditions. He deserved it; Cards didn't; we'll see you tomorrow afternoon...