fifty some odd hours to go

real baseball is coming so soon, i can hardly stand it. of course, if it isn't simulcast, i won't get to watch it, as we are the last american family without cable (by choice, i might add, though we do miss watching a lot of baseball). nonetheless, real baseball.

in the meantime, tonight, we've got real baseball versus just shy of real baseball. i hope john rodriguez gets a start in rf for memphis, and i hope he clobbers the shit out of the ball, even if it's at the expense of adam wunderkind. no team needs both so taguchi and skip schumaker as of's. i realize that both skip and jrod are left handed swingers, but they have different skill sets as well. despite the fact that a disproportionate number of major league pitchers are lefties as compared to the general population, there are still a lot fewer lh's out there than rh's, so both skip and jrod could still be used in optimal conditions most of the time.

tomorrow night we have the civil rights game in memphis, featuring the cardinals versus the indians, supporting an effort to raise african american participation in the game. perhaps the idea behind putting the indians in such a game is so that all baseball fans, be they of black, white, hispanic or asian descent, can join together and say "at least we have it better than the indians." actually, part of the purpose of the game is celebrating the indians getting rid of (inordinately racist mascot) chief wahoo's bottle of firewater. someone told me that the big contraversy was whether there would be a dh in the game. go figure.

happy weekend, cardinal fans. i'll try to get in an opening day post, but as usual, the computer is in the (very nearly one-year-old) baby's bedroom. bad planning in the rabid redbird house, to be sure.

on the importance of spring training naps

rabid redbird is going on record to tell tony la russa that he's a naughty, naughty manager... for driving tired.
a 20 plus hour day is hard for most anyone (that's why laws have been changed to keep truckers and medical interns from pulling them), and even harder for a 62 year old man. falling asleep at a stoplight is proof that he shouldn't have been driving. however (steeling myself for the angry screed from some readers), it doesn't prove that he was intoxicated. i am strongly opposed to drunk driving, but i don't believe that lowering the legal limit from .1bac to .08bac had anything to do with stopping drunk driving accidents. it's a money-maker for state governments and the neo-prohibitionist organization mothers* against drunk driving (a group whose founder will no longer have any part of, thinking that they are going too far). given tony's size, .093bac is approximately two to two and a half glasses of red wine (his preferred tipple). a quarter of the people leaving busch stadium have consumed more than that, and the period of time between seventh inning last call and the game's end is rarely long enough for everyone to sober up. am i saying it's ok to drink and drive because lots of people do it after games? no. i myself rarely get a second beer at the park anymore (mostly because i'm cheap), and frankly don't see how some of the people i've seen at the park could really enjoy the game. as a still relatively new baseball obsessed blogger, i need to devote a lot of attention to catch the subtleties of the game.
but i digress.
tony was tired. driving while tired is as bad as driving drunk. so is driving while on the cell phone. it was irresponsible for him to get behind the wheel fatigued, but he might have fallen asleep with or without the alcohol in his system. in our country, one means a night in jail, the other a warning and an offer of a ride home.

*(the current president of madd, glynn birch, is billed as the "first dad to head madd". far be it from me to deny that many members of madd have suffered great tragedies at the hands of drunk drivers [and his is certainly one], but their scope has widened to stop drinking, not just drinking and driving.)

re-entry

two weeks remain in spring training. the games are meaning more, braden looper looks more like a sure thing, and rabid redbird is doing the pee pee dance waiting for meaningful baseball. we visited knox vegas last week, aka the land that baseball forgot (my grandmother gets mad when jack is wearing cardinal colors instead of a vols outfit, as though they were rivals or something), so i have been flooding my consciousness with baseball since saturday.

some thoughts
position players
jenc on the dl to start the year? well, at least some of our aaaa guys will get a chance to prove something, i guess. skip and so, together again? if we must. i love so, but i still want to know why skip doesn't just have his job at this point.

skinny jrod still hits virtually everything to the warning track, but not out. however, the .350+ batting mark says let him keep that up as long as injuries require.

hamlet better start hitting, from the sound of things. tony won't stand for settling, and neither will cardinal nation.

pitchers
i'm liking the springer signing less and less these days. true, 1.75 million isn't much in today's baseball market, but it's a lot of money to pay for a guy who's a) old b) possibly injured (see rincon, ricardo) and c) russ springer. i know we need some veteran presence in the bullpen, but thirty-two-year-olds can be veterans as well as thirty-nine-year-olds.

dennis dove? why not. he's a fireballer, and not jorge sosa, both strong selling points.

it's good to see izzy feeling more comfortable on the mound, if only to help tums sales in st louis. i'd say rolaids, but my brother-in-law works for the people who make tums, so i'm bucking the norm.

more to come later this week.

oh, and thanks to cardnilly for the new link

spring training spill

i determined as i waited for blogger to load that i would post a blog to whichever blog i had neglected for longer, then i realized i have a lot more to say about baseball right now. here goes.

spring training has me all excited. i can't wait for grapefruit league games, hearing who is tearing it up in "live" bp, who has learned to throw a cutter in the off season. i watched more pro football this off season than i ever have before, but it's no substitute for baseball. i think that this year my be the watershed year in which i become capable of following at least the whole national league, if not both leagues. as a still relatively new baseball fan who has been absorbing concepts for the last few years, it took me a while just to follow the entire nl central. no more. every day when i get home from work, i give my wife the details of what went on in baseball today, and i think that will be expanded in 07.

at what price belliard? we could have had jabba as a backup 2nd baseman for less than gollum. not that brass could have forseen it, but it is still something of a loss. hell, i'd almost consider jabba to be a backup right fielder, as deep as he plays 2nd. i guess it worked out for the best, what with management's hope to make the whole team of albert and former angels.

i have made an ankiel category. i don't know how to feel about the guy. his meltdown was before my time, so i don't have that bad taste in my mouth. i guess i'd like to see him succeed as an outfielder, but not just because tony feels guilty. if he's not a major waste of organizational resources, fine. if his bat is real, fine. if he is doomed to be a career minor league guy, let someone else try with him.

i have a strong feeling about trades in the works. we have a lot of rp's and of's. some of them are relative bargains, too. i'm expecting the proverbial "impact bat" by the all star break.

god, i love baseball.

aaaantiiiiiiiiciiiiipaaaaaatiooooon

i'm waiting excitedly for next wednesday, though i know it will be a disappointment. "pitchers and catchers report," but it's to start throwing, working out, etc. they won't even pitch a bp for another week after that.
nonetheless, after a long, dim offseason that has seen the cubs get simultaneously better and worse, the astros finally get some offense while trying to convince oswalt to pitch every other day ("how many bulldozers will it take, roy?"), and the brewers pay jeff suppan as though he really will be a #2 guy, i'm glad to have baseball again.
so far, we're only going to one game this season, but that will have to change. i'm just hoping they offer the 5.50 tickets again this season, or it will be a bigger budget hit than we're ready for.

hamlet rides again

the st louis cardinals have re-signed outfielder preston "hamlet, prince of denmark" wilson to a 1 year deal. i, for one, am in favor of this, as it means i have a whole new baseball season to reference hamlet and baseball. it also means that mookie "claudius" wilson will be spending a lot more time in st louis.

ok, let me qualify. provided we didn't pay him an absurd sum, i like this signing.

second qualifier: by absurd sum, i mean an absurdly large sum. i don't mean "league minimum + 83lbs of m&m's, six crocodile teeth, and enough helium balloons to fly to nepal." that would actually be reasonable.

(g)rumblings

from the various happenings since my last post or passed over by it:

i'm ok with the ryan franklin signing, as long as it doesn't force anthony reyes or adam wainwright to be the odd man out. it's just a cheap insurance thing that keeps braden looper that much further out of the rotation.

rick ankiel has yet one more last chance to be a cardinal. count me among the "why the hell not" crowd, assuming we're paying him a regular minor league salary.

so signed today, pre-arbitration. i like so, but i wanted him to be an outfield defensive coach this year for the cardinals, not an outfielder. skip schumacher should be our defensive replacement this year, but 925k for so isn't that bad.

according to various sources, we either are or aren't trying to sign weaver. unless he's willing to sign for close to his actual worth and a short term contract, i say no thanks.

betting on the brokedown

ok, i'll admit that though i'm not his biggest fan, i would like to have at least one more healthy, "vintage" season out of the guy (considering what we gave up for him). he is a good pitcher when on top of his game.

that said, if the contract walt offered him is not incentive laden to the point of near-ridiculousness, i may have to kill someone. maybe something like this

base yr 1: $500,000
>50 innings: $500,000
>100 innings: $1,000,000
>150 innings: $1,000,000
>10 wins: $1,000,000
>15 wins: $1,000,000
no dl time after returning: $500,000
not frosting his hair in '07: $500,000
no interviews until return: $500,000
not sounding like a douche when he does do interviews after return: $500,000
total with all incentives: 7mm

base yr 2: $1,500,000
>50 innings: $500,000
>100 innings: $1,000,000
>150 innings: $1,000,000
>200 innings: $1,500,000
>10 wins: $1,000,000
>15 wins: $2,000,000
1 or more home runs hit: $50,000 each
not frosting his hair in '08: $500,000
not beating redbird brass at golf: $500,000
not sounding like a douche in interviews: $500,000
not wearing a "sounds of the game" mic: $500,000
total with all incentives: 11mm + hr (hit) bonuses

for the "not sounding like a douche" incentives, i offer my services to the cardinals for a mere 50k per year.

i should write contracts for the cards. think of how much we could have saved on marquis if we'd had a "not sounding like a douche" clause...

plea for sanity/rant of the insane

eighteen million dollars a year for barry zito? i'll bet supp wishes he had held out a while longer.

let's discuss salaries in baseball for a moment.

first off, i will make the disclaimer that i am something of a socialist and fully expect to see class warfare within my lifetime.

now, this is america, and entertainment is the ultimate good, so naturally, we pay those who entertain us extravagantly. professional sports are at least merit based, unlike hollywood, where being someone's nephew can guarantee a career (cough*nic*cage*cough), so i'll lay off that.

in a country where most households won't make baseball's league minimum salary, i think the sport needs a salary cap. nothing too restrictive, say 20 million a year, moving up on a sliding scale along with the minimum, but a cap is necessary nonetheless.

i'm not trying to sound too preachy, but our values as a culture are fucked up. when a teacher has to work a night job to keep food on the table, we shouldn't be paying someone the gross national product of malawi to play ball. yes, they provide a distraction from our pains as the everyday people, but we must look at it from a populist perspective. baseball is supposed to be our sport, yet ticket prices go ever upward, bleachers are torn down to make room for more luxury boxes, and virtually every game is on cable tv, often requiring an additional expenditure if you don't live close to your team's home town. furthermore, we're working our way back to having several teams in each of a very few cities as teams like the royals struggle year after year with low payrolls, low attendance, and low expectations. yes, new york is a big market, but folks in the midwest like baseball too.

ok, end of socialist rant.

cold supp

i hope one and all had a merry christmas. i know that the suppan household did. i will miss supp as a cardinal, but in all reality, inflated market or not, a four year deal is too far to go with him. had he been willing to sign for two years at that per year price, he would have been a steal for the cards, but those last two years are the kicker. i wish him good luck and hope that the brewers emphasize their infield defense more next year for his sake.

i am starting to wonder where we're going to pull out that last starter, assuming that wainwright is definitely going to the rotation. at this point, i wouldn't mind letting brad thompson start for the half year or so that mulder will still be rehabbing and then trade him out for mulder (still not his biggest fan, but when he's on, he's freakin' on).

resquiat in pace, godfather of soul.

merry something

merry christmas to those who lean that way. never been much of a fan myself, but, hey, who am i to get in the way of someone else's good time.

my x-mas wish list

a serviceable starting pitcher who doesn't cost the remainder of our payroll (weaver? narveson?)

a 4th outfielder who bats right handed

a healthy izzy

somewhere to dump rincon (not his body)

more tickets than the one game we have so far.

if anyone wants to give rabid redbird any of these things, please let me know.

happy holidays

per request

anonymous asked me to "talk about mcgwire!"

i don't get requests very often, with the possible exception of "stop posting: do you want to go on another 8 game losing streak?" in honor of the request, i will have a few swings at this dead horse.

i was only making my way back into baseball fandom when big mac and corky sosa were in the race, and it wasn't home runs that brought me back. i like the strategy of baseball, and the fact that one needs to be a complete player to succeed for long (that's why i don't like the dh).
mcgwire wasn't a complete player, in my opinion. he was a home run hitter, plain and simple, and unfortunately for me and those who feel the same way i do, there will always be a place for those guys in baseball, today more so than in the past. he was an average first baseman, and didn't hit for a great average, it's just that every time he was up, there was a good chance of it going out of the park.

if i got a vote for the hall of fame, i wouldn't vote for big mac. i think his scene on the floor of congress tells us that he did more than the andro he admits to, and i don't want cheaters in the hall of fame. if big mac is a hall of famer, so is barry bonds, and i don't want him in there either.

however, my opinion has no weight in these matters. i think both mcgwire and bonds will be in the hall of fame, though not on the first ballot. it is bothersome to me that that's what serves as "punishment" these days. in twenty years, it won't matter who was first ballot or not; they'll be hall of famers. and some of them will be cheaters.

big head barry

big head barry gets to play baseball another year, and in all likelyhood, will end up breaking hank aaron's home run record. this is a fucking travesty, but a virtually unavoidable one. at least he signed in the one town that likes him.

as for the cardinals, i (like everyone else) am waiting anxiously to hear that next year's rotation will not include braden looper or any other such nonsense. i'd also like to see chris duncan traded while his stock is high, but i've said that many times before.

i'm glad that we're not making moves for the sake of making moves (see royals) or spending money to show we have a lot of it (see cubs, red sox), i just want to see the move that will make me confident that this has been a good off season.

spring training is still two and a half months away. if i don't hear something about the dominican league or something soon, i'm going to break down and start watching the nfl. it can't come to that.

moving not treading

regarding yesterday's bunch of signings: i like them. they are all good money deals for the redbirds. true, adam kennedy is signed for more than last year's 2nd base spending limit which cost us grudzielanek (god knows i've misspelled that), but in the end, we'll have spent less this coming year than in 2006 on 2nd base due to the junior spivey-as-million-dollar-minor-leaguer added to luna (at minimum), gollum (at slightly over minimum), and jabba the second baseman (pro-rated, but 1mm+).

kip wells for 4mm a year is fine with me. he projects to be a good duncan fixer-upper, with a new coat of paint and maybe new curtains. most groundball specialists can succeed as #5 guys with the cards, thanks to the emphasis on infield defense (and the dumb luck of the best hitter in the game, possibly of all time, also being one of the best first basemen in the bigs today).

1 more year, 162 more chances to utter the phrase "gary freakin' bennett?!?"

eli marerro is a fan favorite, and as far as i'm concerned, we can sign virtually any old body to a minor league contract. let him compete for a spot. it worked for the imperial spiez, did it not?

start out on the (relatively) cheap, build from there. i like it, walt.

a little further celebration

two more quick thoughts...

i kinda hope we do sign jabba the second baseman, if only so i get to use that nomenclature again. on the other hand, if we don't resign strikeout machine hamlet as a fourth outfielder, i will be satisfied to have only called him that this one time, so long as someone other than my wife recognizes just how freakin' clever that is.

free agents! free all contractual prisoners!

stl free agents already filed (and opinions where warranted):

ronnie belliard - i like his glove, i like his offensive potential. this may be the year ownership decides to pony up on spending at second, but it's worked for them to do no such thing for four years in a row, so who knows? ron-ron will probably price himself out of a lot of teams range this go round.

gary bennett - say it ain't so, gary, say it ain't... ok, i really don't care in the slightest.

jason marquis - bye. best of luck, headcase.

scott spiezio - if we can afford this super-sub i can see going for it. if not, well, the soul patch was fun while it lasted.

the corpse of jose vizcaino - thanks for that one homer, jose, and for giving eck a few minutes to heal.

jeff weaver - i don't think our other jeff will be back next year. call it a hunch. therefore, i want to keep this jeff. his stuff is better; it's just a matter of control. working with duncan again can only help, and if he needs to know, i might know a guy who knows a guy who can get him some good weed.

i've heard a rumor on mark mulder as well. if this is true, and he doesn't accept an incentive-heavy deal from us, i will truly wash my hands of him, the ungrateful bastard. if he does, welcome home, mark. we always knew you'd be great again.

oh my good cardinals loving god

the world champions! very few rabid redbird posts, just in case the curse was real, but oh my god, the baseball. it was beautiful and ugly, sometimes at the same time. some thoughts.

- what a time for david eckstein to remember how to bat! though i am of the opinion that scott rolen deserved the series mvp, eck is a great choice as well.

- i'd be thrilled to have jeff weaver next year, especially when (not if) we can't afford to overpay supp for his "play to the level of the opponent" talent.

- you can beat pujols this world series, but you can't beat the cardinals. i guess we turned that one on it's head for the series.

- the parade was a fun half hour, but jack doesn't deal well with crowds, so that's about all we got. we did get home just in time to see the ceremonies on tv. my man juan e'car'cion as a no show, well that just wasn't ok. come on, man, i've been defending you.

perhaps more later this week. for now, i'll enjoy it as much as you will.

Game 4

oh, there they are

last night we got a little reminder that this team did limp into the post season. as evidenced by the series versus the padres and the first three games of the nlcs, they are capable of some stunning baseball. as perfectly shown by the play in which edmonds, belliard, and (correct me if i'm wrong) eckstein watched a ball fall that any one of them could have caught. we were an offensive force last night, but we were up against an offensive juggernaught.

it doesn't matter, though. everything so far this series has been a bonus for a team that finished the season only a few games over .500 in a division full of weaklings. it's now a three game series. we stand a chance in a three game series, just as any team would (hell, the royals swept the tigers at the end of the regular season... anything could freakin' happen).

now, if the new driver we hired will shut up today about the met blowout, we can all move on. just a three game series.

curses be damned

so, we backed into a championship. yesterday was kind of like being the runner up in an election, only to have the actual winner be exposed as a drug addict on election night, and thus you win by default.

thanks to anonymous, who (for the benefit of those who don't read the comments) wrote regarding my last post:

Did you seriously post this before another seven game losing streak?You should erase this blog for the good of your team and your city.It's funny.I like to read it.But start over.And burn some sage or something.

no, i think i posted it after the first game of the streak, to be honest, but in reality, i don't believe in such things. i haven't been posting much not because of the "curse" of rabid redbird, but rather because i haven't wanted to badmouth our team through some of the ugliest stretches of baseball i have ever had the displeasure to follow. in the last few weeks, i turned off more games than i care to admit.

regarding yesterday's start. why reyes? i would have just called it a bullpen start and sent narveson out there again against that lefty heavy lineup. then again, i'm not a major league manager, so, what happened happened. i do think that anthony may have pitched himself out of a playoff roster spot, and frankly, so much the better. i would rather him not get rocked by a superior team in the post-season, damaging his confidence or (far worse) his arm by trying to overthrow.

the three homers in the ninth tell me not to expect too much in the playoffs (not that i was, anyway). once the pressure was off, our guys found it in them to knock the shit out of the ball. up until that point, they had been shut down by a good, but not great pitcher, despite having several great talents in the lineup.

wait, that gives me an idea. perhaps if we can convince them that they've already clinched the world series due to someone else's accomplishment, we can have us a party...