TOWER GROVE — Long about time the Thanksgiving double whammy of football and tryptophan wear off from this weekend, the next key date in baseball’s free agency will be on the horizon.
Next Tuesday is the deadline for teams to offer arbitration to their free agents.
As much as the non-tender date [...]
TOWER GROVE — There was a time about midway through the 2009 season when St. Louis Cardinals rookie Colby Rasmus was the National League leader in homers, RBIs and a few other telling stats among first-year players. It didn’t last long.
An injury. The wear of the long season and significant [...]
TOWER GROVE — On the eve of Thanksgiving, we can say this about the monthlong process of putting together the Bird Land Community Top 21: We know who the first 20 players are. We just don’t know the final order.
In a prospect poll loaded with close votes, recurring debates and [...]
TOWER GROVE — In a recent conversation, St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa politely declined to discuss anything about Albert Pujols and the MVP award until Albert Pujols had actually, officially won the MVP award. La Russa explained that the Cy Young Award voting had taught him a lesson.
He [...]
TOWER GROVE — A year has passed but the conversation remains strikingly similar.
About 12 months ago, the Bird Land Community Top 30 reached No. 19 in its poll, and the discussion hinged around two righthanded starters: the recently drafted Lance Lynn and the rising changeup artist P.J. Walters. Lynn [...]
TOWER GROVE — The final results of a radical re-write of the prospect rankings for St. Louis Cardinals’ minor-league system just slid through the mail slot here at the home office.
The current issue of Baseball America ranks the top 10 prospects for each team in the National League Central, and [...]
TOWER GROVE — In his illuminating and detailed look at the defensive difference between baseball’s two best free-agent bats, ESPN.com Jerry Crasnick opens with a combination of words that won’t be used again this winter: “Poor Matt Holliday.”
The St. Louis Cardinals’ outfielder Holliday and fellow free agent Jason Bay, last [...]
TOWER GROVE — Now we have encountered a problem with the polling, one not to different from the the quandary facing the St. Louis Cardinals or the one that all prospect ranking lists are bound to encounter when mining the Cardinals’ system for potential.
At some point, it becomes difficult to [...]
TOWER GROVE — While a lot of attention was paid to the pitchers a few of the National League Cy Young Award voters did and didn’t vote for, lost in that hubbub was how much money one pitcher made because of one single vote.
By receiving a solitary second-place vote, Atlanta [...]
TOWER GROVE — There are many things that St. Louis Cardinals recent third baseman Mark DeRosa brings to the table, not the least of which is his classification as a free agent.
He’s a Type B and loving it.
Each fall, on the eve of free agency, the Elias Sports Bureau releases [...]
TOWER GROVE — With the teeth-gnashing about the Cy Young Award still in full grind around these parts, baseball’s free agency opened at 11 p.m. St. Louis time Thursday, and Cardinals outfielder Matt Holliday could officially entertain offers from all 30 teams.
No more footsie. They can talk financials.
And, yet, according [...]
TOWER GROVE — The numerical bounty (especially when it comes to types of pitches) available at Fan Graphs has made that Web site increasingly valuable when it comes to using and exploring some of the — what’s the phrase we learned yesterday? — nouveau riche’s statistics that are out there.
But [...]
TOWER GROVE — Come Friday morning, Bryan Burwell & Company will have to find something different to ask me about and a new way to introduce me on radio shows, if they have me on at all. As of this afternoon, I no longer hold a secret ballot in one [...]
TOWER GROVE — It seems that St. Louis Cardinals’ first-round pick and shortstop prospect Pete Kozma is often judged for the player he isn’t and never will be as opposed to the player he is or could be.
Kozma is not Rick Porcello. No news there.
Yet, that fact seems to bludgeon [...]
ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. — Asked within the past couple days if he expected the St. Louis Cardinals to make a move on his client, outfielder Matt Holliday, before the window for exclusive negotiations slides shut this week, agent Scott Boras stated the obvious: “Uh, no.”
The Cardinals and Boras have [...]
ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. — The St. Louis Cardinals’ free agent most often linked to the New York Mets this offseason as a buoy for that franchise’s floundering has been the Cardinals’ free agent most often linked to any team with pinstripes and/or a pocketbook: Matt Holliday.
Turns out, there may [...]
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Back in 2005 and 2006, Matt Holliday, then an outfielder for the Colorado Rockies, began experimenting with a leg kick — a high, pronounced, flamingo-like kick of his leg that he could use as a timing mechanism for his swing. Holliday would try it. Abandon it. Try [...]
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Not even the prom was enough to keep Robert Stock out of college.
Three years before his preference to play catcher helped make him a draft pick for the St. Louis Cardinals, Stock’s preference to get his baseball career started led to a pretty good line for a [...]
TOWER GROVE — Earlier this week, MLBTradeRumors.com — a site that has become an essential clearinghouse and one-stop shop of reports, rumors and, yes, even tweets this time of year — handicapped the 2010 Free Agents by ranking them No. 1 through No. 50 and predicting where each of [...]
TOWER GROVE — The St. Louis Cardinals admittedly don’t have the level of prospects out in the Arizona Fall League that they’ve had in the past. There is no Brett Wallace out there this season, for example. There are a few players auditioning for a spot on the 40-man roster [...]
TOWER GROVE — The Topps 2009 Update packs are now out in stores*, and card No. UH263 features Matt Holliday reaching up to catch a fly ball, all decked out in his St. Louis Cardinals home whites. With this being the first week of baseball’s blockbuster equivalent of a big [...]
TOWER GROVE — After a brief hiatus to artificially inflate the click totals on the previous poll — or so that I could play father for a few days, whichever — the Bird Land Community Top 21 returns today and will continue each weekday until it’s finished. There are seven [...]
CREVE COEUR — They are at very different stages in their careers, at very different positions and they were talking about two very different subjects, but St. Louis Cardinals ace Chris Carpenter and minor-league outfielder Tyler Henley hit on the same theme during interviews I had with them Wednesday.
In discussing [...]
TOWER GROVE — Of all the statistical bubblegum that is packed into Bill James’ annual Handbooks, among the best to chew over and stretch to the point of popping is the predictions for the coming season.
ACTA Sports recently emailed me the 2010 predictions for several members of the 2009 St. [...]
TOWER GROVE — As many as seven of the St. Louis Cardinals better prospects must be added to the 40-man roster in the near future or the team will risk losing them through the Rule 5 draft in December. The process of clearing space on the 40-man roster has already [...]
TOWER GROVE — Some members of the St. Louis Cardinals brass, including VP/farm director Jeff Luhnow and assistant general manager John Abbamondi, traveled west this week to see the Arizona Fall League and the prospects there in person. They were greeted with a marquee start — against their players.
Stephen Strasburg, [...]
DOWNTOWN — One of the best bats in the St. Louis Cardinals system and one of the most reliable arms at their minor-league affiliates won the team’s organization awards for 2009. Outfielder/third baseman Allen Craig, who led Class AAA Memphis to a Pacific Coast League championship with his power, won [...]
TOWER GROVE — The St. Louis Cardinals pickoff combination of catcher Yadier Molina and first baseman Albert Pujols continued its monopoly of one of baseball’s fast-rising awards for defensive play. The Fielding Bible is in its fourth year of handing out awards for the best defensive play at each position [...]
TOWER GROVE — The Bird Land Community Top 21’s top 10 is completed, and we’re just about halfway through the annual ranking of St. Louis Cardinals prospects by readers here at the blog. The overarching lessons of the first 10 are two-fold: Voters have adopted the perceived franchise emphasis on [...]
TOWER GROVE — In one of the most dominant World Series pitching performances of our era, Philadelphia Phillies lefty Cliff Lee tied-up one of the finest lineups in the game last night, striking out 10 New York Yankees and authoring a complete-game in Game 1 at (New) Yankee Stadium. It [...]
TOWER GROVE — Another day, another runoff.
The fallout from the high-end changes to the St. Louis Cardinals’ depth chart of prospects appears to be close votes and very few clear-cut, obvious prospects who stand out above their peers. The vote for No. 9 in the Bird Land Community Top 21 [...]
TOWER GROVE — This morning, St. Louis Cardinals starter Adam Wainwright was announced as his peers’ selection for the National League Outstanding Pitcher, as discussed over on the breaking-news blog, Cardinal Beat. The Players Choice awards, founded a little more than a decade ago by the players’ union, doesn’t [...]
TOWER GROVE — In what probably was the closest vote yet in any Bird Land Community prospect poll, Eduardo Sanchez, the fireballer righthanded reliever, took 52 percent of the vote in the runoff and will be your No. 7 prospect on the Top 21 poll this year. Lance Lynn, the [...]
DOWNTOWN — One of the elements of his decision that preoccupied Tony La Russa as he considered whether to return as manager of the St. Louis Cardinals was message vs. messenger. He mentioned that this afternoon as he explained how he came to weigh whether his message had grown tired [...]
TOWER GROVE — The poll for No. 7 in the Bird Land Community Top 21 jockeyed back and forth all weekend, with some comments even declaring a winner — or, rather, declaring an opinion about the winner — just as the tide shifted. With about 775 clicks counted, Eduardo Sanchez [...]
TOWER GROVE — It would be tempting to begin any look at the St. Louis Cardinals’ bullpen and its search for additional power sources with the fact that the Cardinals relievers had the fewest strikeouts of any bullpen in the National League. Their 340 were the least in the majors [...]
TOWER GROVE — The Arizona Fall League is settling into gear, and while Stephen Strasburg is the headliner out at the annual gathering of some of the better prospects in baseball, the St. Louis Cardinals have sent some noteworthy names out west. A few are making up for lost time. [...]
TOWER GROVE — Let the annual windfall of awards begin for St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols and his chip-free right elbow. Early this morning, The Sporting News continued its award announcements and revealed that Pujols, for a second consecutive year, is the publication’s choice as the Major [...]
TOWER GROVE — Judging by yesterday’s poll, there were many comments that indicated Blake Hawksworth belonged higher in the poll than No. 5, and the voting certainly validated that opinion. In his first appearance on the poll, Hawksworth won, taking 35 percent of only 446 votes cast, at last check. [...]
TOWER GROVE — By all accounts, the St. Louis Cardinals and backup catcher Jason LaRue believe they are a good match. LaRue, a favorite of the team’s coaches and the team’s leaders, has the feel for calling a game that the Cardinals desire, the arm that controls the running game, [...]
TOWER GROVE — Back in 2008, during St. Louis Cardinals team physician George Paletta’s talk with the media about what’s become the most famous injured elbow in baseball, the doctor described the network of scar tissue and these bone spurs in Albert Pujols’ joint as a support structure, one that [...]
TOWER GROVE — Back in 2003, a high-profile draft-and-follow pitcher who received a stout bonus joined the St. Louis Cardinals and was described this way by Baseball America:
(He) has the highest ceiling of any St. Louis pitching prospect since Rick Ankiel. His fastball usually ranges from 90-92 mph, but it [...]
TOWER GROVE — Judging from some of the comments at the tails of the first three Bird Land Community Top 21 polls, one question continues to perplex many voters: What age is too aged to be a prospect?
There is no real answer.
The St. Louis Cardinals, as described by farm director [...]
TOWER GROVE — A couple summers ago, a young shortstop was available in the June draft that fit so many of the “buckets” that the St. Louis Cardinals look for in a high pick. He played a premium position. He played a position of some need for the team. He [...]
TOWER GROVE — On the St. Louis Cardinals’ dime, Adam Kennedy went on to have a fine season with Oakland, filling in at third base for the Athletics and contributing with a .289 average, 63 RBIs and 65 runs scored. It was the kind of the production the Cardinals signed [...]
TOWER GROVE — Maybe it’s the time of year, what with the season just ending and the playoffs still going on. Maybe it’s how the season ended, with a St. Louis Cardinals team riding high expectations and fizzling when it mattered most. Maybe it’s a fanbase adopting the win-now attitude [...]
CREVE COEUR — It didn’t take long for the Bird Land Community Top 21 to throw its first curveball. Not that it’s a surprise lefthanded starter Jaime Garcia won the No. 1 spot in the readers’ rankings of St. Louis Cardinals’ prospects. It’s just wasn’t close.
That was unexpected.
Garcia pulled away [...]
TOWER GROVE — The first edition of this offseason’s PostCards mailbag begins with a favorite parlor game of the press box: Take the best player on the team. Put him on the trading block. Wonder just what it would take in return to make a deal happen. Stir and … [...]
TOWER GROVE — The No. 1 spot on any St. Louis Cardinals top prospect list was so obvious the past three seasons that no poll was necessary. We just skipped it. Installed Colby Rasmus at the top. And moved on with the poll. No need to state the obvious. Albert [...]
TOWER GROVE — It started as a cumbersome, at-times chaotic, count-by-hand poll posted in the Cardinals’ message board here at StlToday.com. Through four years and four attempts to refine the process it has improved to an at-times cumbersome and slightly less chaotic poll based here at Bird Land.
But, hey, we [...]
TOWER GROVE — In addition to working on the Community Prospect Poll Part 1 that will appear in a few minutes, I spent the morning visiting with an old friend: The Inbox at PostCards. Cleared out all of the digital sludge — from the letters that begin “Hello Dearest One”, [...]
TOWER GROVE — One look at the between-the-legs, behind-the-back fielding tricks that St. Louis Cardinals shortstop Brendan Ryan does during practice and it’s easy to see the influence of his beloved Los Angeles Lakers and the reflection of their Showtime ways.
Or, so it would seem.
Sure some of the inspiration for [...]
TOWER GROVE — A fascinating vote is underway today at MLB.com and around its 30 official sites, as the numerologists there have some fun with today’s date — Sept. 9, 2009 — and the statistically rich number of spots in a batting order. Mentioned this in today’s 10@10, but [...]
TOWER GROVE — A year ago at this time, Mannywood was sweeping the nation as the Los Angeles Dodgers and their flamboyant outfielder were surging toward a playoff berth. Manny Ramirez, acquired in a stunning deadline deal with the Boston Red Sox (with an assist from Pittsburgh), had 43 RBIs [...]
TOWER GROVE — The St. Louis Cardinals have developed their own way of celebrating a walk-off home run, too. When the hero for the moment steps foot on home — sometimes taking a cannonball-like leap onto the plate — the Cardinals overwhelm their teammate and attempt to land some kidney [...]
TOWER GROVE — Even though his team has gone unbeaten in 11 consecutive series and will be visiting a division rival that is 24 1/2 games back in the race, manager Tony La Russa will have that familiar, unsettled, and caustic sensation in his gut before tonight’s game at PNC [...]
DOWNTOWN — For the first time in his young career and perhaps the only time in his career, St. Louis native and former Mizzou All-American Max Scherzer made a start for the Cardinals last night.
Scherzer, who grew up a fan of the hometown club, pitched 7 1/3 innings for the [...]
TOWER GROVE — In his office after Tuesday night’s loss, Milwaukee Brewers manager Ken Macha told a group of us reporters that the “second-most important” at-bat of the Cardinals’ 7-6 victory was by St. Louis Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina.
Apparently, Molina was the first to recognize that.
Of course, the most important [...]
TOWER GROVE — Twice this season, St. Louis Cardinals starter Joel Pineiro has had streaks of four consecutive starts without walking a batter. Thirteen times this summer, he has started a game and not allowed a walk. For this, he credits his father.
“My dad taught me that,” he said this [...]
TOWER GROVE — When the Milwaukee Brewers last visited Busch Stadium, way back in May, outfielder Ryan Braun made a diving catch in left field that left him sprawled on the warning track. He fought the urge to do a snow angel in the track, but couldn’t repress his personality [...]
TOWER GROVE — The St. Louis Cardinals were the first to see the Rockies revival (just as San Francisco this past weekend may have hastened their crumble), as Colorado arrived at Busch Stadium with the worst record in the NL West, a new manager and … promptly swept a four-game [...]
TOWER GROVE — This past offseason, switch-hitting utility infielder Aaron Miles — a member in good standing of the 2006 World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals — grew frustrated with a third consecutive winter of being non-tendered by the club he had hoped to call home. And though an 11th-hour [...]
TOWER GROVE — John Smoltz, the St. Louis Cardinals’ recent booster shot for their rotation, freely admits that he’s had a lot of time to think about things in his highly decorated major-league career, and one day he decided to figure out his personal odometer.
For every year of his big-league [...]
DOWNTOWN — The difference this season between Houston Astros switch-hitter Lance Berkman batting from the right side of the plate and batting from the left side of the plate is 100 points in his batting average.
The difference Wednesday for the Cardinals was having a pitcher to trust when turning him [...]
TOWER GROVE — For the moment, St. Louis Cardinals starter Adam Wainwright pulled ahead in wins. On Tuesday night, he set a new career high with his 15th victory of the season, and he’s the first National League pitcher and the second pitcher in the majors to reach 15. But, [...]
TOWER GROVE — The way Todd Wellemeyer describes it, he joined the St. Louis Cardinals at a vulnerable time in his career. He could not figure out why good stuff was getting bad results. He had just been hammered by the Detroit Tigers in consecutive games against them, and he [...]
TOWER GROVE — Five thousand at-bats into his career, baseball great Babe Ruth had already shattered home run records and set the gobsmacking standard with his 60 homers in 1927. He had also been a two-time 20-game winner as a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox.
Five thousand at-bats into his [...]
TOWER GROVE — It was only last year, barely more than 13 months ago, that the St. Louis Cardinals were changing Mark Mulder’s arm slot and still waiting to see if Matt Clement could pitch his way to the majors. General manager John Mozeliak called Clement “a lottery ticket”, and [...]
TOWER GROVE — Having already added an All-Star elite bat, a grinder third baseman and a second-chance middle infielder to his executive-of-the-year bid, St. Louis Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak is poised this afternoon to add a future Hall of Famer to the club’s pitching staff. Righthander John Smoltz is [...]
TOWER GROVE — A few seasons ago, the St. Louis Cardinals veteran relievers Russ Springer, Ryan Franklin and Jason Isringhausen presented what one of them called a save-your-bullets approach to spring training. The theory, as Springer explained, was their high-mileage arms had only so many throws left, why waste those [...]
TOWER GROVE — The St. Louis Cardinals have trailed their opponent 49 times this season entering the ninth inning. And 46 times whoever the Cardinals are facing goes on to win the game. Earlier this season the conclusions were often as quick as they were inevitable.
Three times — three times [...]
TOWER GROVE — Today’s 10@10 begins with an anecdote, before diving into the Tool Chest: Every indication late Wednesday night was St. Louis Cardinals third baseman Mark DeRosa had no interest in leaving the ballpark until he had a swing that satisfied him. Late after the game, DeRosa was dressed [...]
TOWER GROVE — Former St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Juan Encarnacion couldn’t possibly have been quoted in a Dominican Republic news organization’s online report that he was organizing a run for a Senate seat.
He was with an eye doctor in Jacksonville, Fla., at the time of the article, not in the [...]
TOWER GROVE — Out in San Francisco tonight, Giants ace and reigning Cy Young Award winner Tim Lincecum pitches against the rival Los Angeles Dodgers with a chance to assert his bid for the pitching Triple Crown. Lincecum takes the league’s best ERA into the game at 2.20, has a [...]
TOWER GROVE — There was a time when Blake Hawksworth, as a young, big-bonus pitching prospect, was so changeup-happy that people cautioned him that if he didn’t use his fastball he would lose his fastball.
It took him some time to realize how right they were.
Hawksworth, emerging now as potential relief [...]
TOWER GROVE — If reliever Brad Thompson received a three-game suspension for what the Major League Baseball pitch cops deemed “intentionally throwing a pitch in the head area of David Wright” then is it fair for the St. Louis Cardinals wonder what looms today for Pittsburgh Pirates closer Matt Capps?
What [...]
TOWER GROVE — The latest of the managers to experiment with the Tony La Russa-advocated lineup that has the pitcher batting eighth is none other than Los Angeles Dodgers skipper Joe Torre. During his visit to Busch Stadium in the past home stand, Torre even chided La Russa, saying that [...]
TOWER GROVE — St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols has batted nine times this season with the bases loaded. By definition, that means there have been 18 runners in scoring position for Pujols to drive in. Eighteen.
In those nine at-bats, Pujols has 24 RBIs.
The max he could drive in [...]
SOUTH GRAND — There were few, if any, members of the St. Louis Cardinals’ traveling party thrilled to be at Shea Stadium for a one-day, barnstorming trip in the final week of a disappointing 2007. But, as one Cardinal said in the clubhouse after the win: At least it was [...]
TOWER GROVE — Even by his own admission, St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols believes the year he didn’t win the National League MVP may have been his best year, by the numbers, so far. In 2006, Pujols said recently, he didn’t have that prolonged lull. He missed games [...]
TOWER GROVE — Los Angeles Dodgers manager Joe Torre, whose easy manner and prominence has made him an unfortunate veteran of these steroid revelation press scrums, said Thursday that it is important to him that he continue trusting players, trusting his players, trusting what he’s seen, and trusting the game. [...]
TOWER GROVE — The St. Louis Cardinals are 15 wins away from becoming the fourth franchise in baseball history to win 10,000 games and only the second to do so without changing their address. Unless, that is, you asked the Cardinals.
Entering this season, the Cardinals and their opponent tonight, the [...]
DOWNTOWN — If the St. Louis Cardinals flipped the first face cards of trade-deadline hold ‘em with the acquisitions last week of Julio Lugo and Matt Holliday, the Philadelphia Phillies responded by upping the ante Wednesday with a trade for lefty Cliff Lee.
Your deal, Dodgers.
Sitting in the visitors’ dugout Wednesday [...]
TOWER GROVE — Add the cover of a national sports magazine (see below) to the growing list of accolades St. Louis Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina has received in the past year, joining, but obviously not eclipsing, that coveted Gold Glove he won in 2008 and that All-Star Game invitation this [...]
TOWER GROVE — Ignore the throwing error. Errors are going to happen. And Adam Wainwright pitched around it anyway as the Cardinals shut out the Los Angeles Dodgers on Tuesday night. Ignore the throwing error and Brendan Ryan is putting on a defensive clinic at shortstop this week.
On one sharply [...]
TOWER GROVE — The player that inspired the St. Louis Cardinals’ biggest and costliest move yet into the international free-agent market came to Busch Stadium on Monday, taking a few souvenirs from the big leaguers and leaving an impression.
Outfielder Wagner Mateo, the Dominican Republic teen phenom that merited a record [...]
SILVER SPRING, Md. — The transactions will show that the St. Louis Cardinals come home tonight with two new players, each acquired in the last week. But the stats show something different.
There is a third.
Center fielder Rick Ankiel, making the most of some extra playing time with Colby Rasmus slowed [...]
WASHINGTON — The train waited for them to finish two rain delays and a 4-1, six-inning victory late Thursday night here in the nation’s capital. The train waited, because this wasn’t like any other train.
The St. Louis Cardinals chartered what was described as a four-car train that was set to [...]
HOUSTON (for the moment) — The St. Louis Cardinals were scheduled to land in Washington D.C. for their one-game visit to the nation’s capital sometime around, oh, about now.
The wheels down time for the Cardinals’ charter flight from Houston to D.C. was around 4 a.m. according to folks as they [...]
HOUSTON — By now you’ve read that St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa gets an upset tummy when it comes to the salvos of criticism launched against outfielder Chris Duncan. His point, while somewhat lost in the colorful description of his digestive troubles, is that Duncan is not alone [...]
HOUSTON — He has been the torchbearer for the St. Louis Cardinals’ revamped minor-league system since the moment they took him 28th overall in the 2005 draft, and center fielder Colby Rasmus hasn’t been overcome or buckled by the expectations because he isn’t overcome or buckled by much.
Sometimes he has [...]
HOUSTON — St. Louis Cardinals third baseman Mark DeRosa didn’t see his first hit for his new team as a relief. He described it as progress.
In DeRosa’s first at-bat Monday night at Minute Maid Park, he stung a single to left field and a couple at-bats later he had his [...]
HOUSTON — The last of the Killer B’s still buzzing around — unless, that is, Michael Bourn has graduated to the hive — Houston Astros first baseman Lance Berkman has become one of those likable adversaries that populates the St. Louis Cardinals’ best rivalry of the past decade.
Berkman will have [...]
HOUSTON — This past weekend it was a familiar face that fed the St. Louis Cardinals their first loss of the second half, and this week it’s a familiar race that confronts them in their first road series of the second half.
The Cardinals arrive in Houston to find an Astros [...]
TOWER GROVE — On the last day of the first half of the Major League Baseball season, the St. Louis Cardinals put the band back together and celebrated two returns — one actual, one implied.
With Kyle Lohse off the disabled list in time to make a start Sunday, that mustachioed [...]
DOWNTOWN — Asked who he would pick to win the Home Run Derby, New York Mets third baseman David Wright said it was difficult to choose any hitter other than Albert Pujols. But not just because the St. Louis Cardinals first baseman had home field advantage — he had an [...]
DOWNTOWN — In his final start before racing home for the All-Star Game, St. Charles native Mark Buehrle allowed eight runs (all earned) on 10 hits in a dismal 3 1/3 innings for the Chicago White Sox. He heard all the jokes. American League manager Joe Maddon called and told [...]
DOWNTOWN — New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter was the unofficial host of the 2008 All-Star Game as it visited the Bronx, the spotlight barely found him because of the big cement, facade-famous goliath that was the true star of last year’s main event — Yankee Stadium. Still, he had [...]
DOWNTOWN — As Major League Baseball begins tonight the accepted definition of the second-half of the season, Milwaukee Brewers closer Trevor Hoffman doesn’t see any of the NL Central contenders shaking loose any time soon. The division leaves the All-Star break with five of its six teams within five games [...]
DOWNTOWN — When he was in pinstripes and even in the year since he left the Bronx, Los Angeles Dodgers manager Joe Torre has often argued that Alex Rodriguez is the best all-around player in the game, the best hitter in the game, the best in the game. Torre said [...]
