coming in out of the cold

saturday's postponed game was the first one that mrs. rabid and i attended. it was cold, and so were the cardinals' bats. they were the best seats i have ever purchased (right field field boxes, twenty feet into foul territory). the drunken folks behind us had driven in from hannibal, mo in time for the noon start; instead of going to the arch, or the art museum, or some such, they had chosen to drink from noon until gametime. while your very own rabid redbird is no stranger to drink (though at times, sobriety has seemed like a long lost acquaintance), hours of drinking followed by hours of driving is never a good idea. i can only hope they killed no one on the way back to hannibal.

yesterday, our son, jackrabid, had his first birthday party/bbq. in celebration, the cardinals rediscovered their abilities at the plate (most of them, anyway... both rolen and edmonds 0-4 with a walk weren't quite mv3 calibur, but what can you do). perhaps i need to grill 20-plus pounds of meat for every game, or perhaps we need to change the jersey numbers to 42 permanently. whatever the case, it was good to see/hear.

that's all for today, as work crises come before baseball good times.

finally!

a deserved win! we almost lost control there, but dingers from el hombre, rolen, and jedmonds are welcomed back after a relatively low power stretch (ok, so scotty has three in his last four games, but still...). and if the rumors are to be believed, moves are about to be made.

in celebration, we went to the batting cages at tower tee, where i learned that i can't really hit a fast-pitched baseball anymore, and by fast i mean 60mph. however, my softball hitting skills have improved significantly. i also learned that my hands aren't as tough as they once were, as i lost quite a bit of skin. thank god for superglue!

call me kool-aid man

but oh yeah! good god we needed to win a series, even if it was against the brewers. we needed to learn that we didn't have to hang every win squarely on el hombre's broad shoulders. we needed yadier to figure out what to do with that stick he's been flailing about with. we needed scott rolen to continue playing like he's the on-base master he's been this year (i won't worry about power yet). we needed a first baseman who's head doesn't look disporportionately tiny and young when compared to his massive physique. ok, we don't always get what we need.

i'll post the 2 pictures of jack's first game soon. they're at home, and i just haven't had the time to do so yet.

bastros

last night i was trying to quiet the boy and watch some of last comic standing, so i didn't get the game turned on right away. when i did, i was just in time to hear rolen's solo shot called by john rooney. seconds later, i heard what sounded like a replay of the call, which had me curious, and then it turns out to be jauncarnacion's homer. i was ecstatic. anthony reyes is major league ready (or so three very strong starts would have us believe).
josh hancock, however... well to be honest, we can give as much or more blame to so's throwing error. let's just say that with the exception of scott rolen, our redbirds weren't themselves after the seventh inning last night. maybe they were worried about jim edmonds. god knows i am.

but enough gloom and doom. juancarnacion looked decent last night, which is a plus. yadi hit an rbi double, which has to be good for him (and when you're batting .174, going 1 for 4 can only help, albeit slowly). hector luna continues to play above his actual skill level, even if no one could manage to get him home. hell, even anthony reyes got a hit.

i still think this could be our year, but it's going to take the acquisition of a larry walker-type to re-energize our offence. i just hope we can settle for only replacing one outfield position by the trade deadline.

spearfishing

just what a ballclub that has had recent struggles needed: a weekend series with the fish. there were a hell of a lot of great moments during the series this weekend, but here are a few random thoughts about the games in miami.

-scott rolen is a baseball hero. we all knew this, but over the course of 2005, a lot of fans started to lose faith, and the national media completely forgot that he was ever a dominant presence in the infield and at the plate. no more. ten pounds lighter from illness, and he still performs like that?

-soup nearly pitches a complete game... i thought perhaps he'd get the chance, but i'm not complaining. he had a fantastic outing, pitching like the top notch suppan only the cardinals have been able to draw out of him in his career.

-hr #16, rbi #38. we have a baseball god in this town, folks. i'm not the only one who thinks so, but i will add my voice to the throng. (the next in the rbi race is lance berkman. i wonder how many of those rbi come from crawford box cheap homers?)

-100 career wins for mulder is great, but i don't see him getting 300 unless he's still pitching at 49-50. just a feeling i get. feel free to disagree, but in the end, it won't matter to me, because i doubt he'll be a cardinal after this year.

-ponson's elbow. dave duncan says that it would be more likely to go with a four-man rotation than to have a spot start to cover sidney's spot in the rotation, so we go back to my mantra from an earlier post... short rest marquis!

-we seemed to recover some of our offense, even from those who haven't had much this year (read: yadi). encarnacion is working his way back to his lifetime numbers, and jrod (i like to say it with only one syllable... it rhymes with zod) is tearing it up still.

tonight, i'm going to see my second (marquis start) game of the year. today my son is four weeks old, and he will be attending his first cardinals game with me and my wife. i'll post some pictures of jack at the game in the next few days.

welcome to thunderdome (i mean, the cardblogosphere)

[hopefully, this doesn't post twice]
g here (aka geronimo, aka gthedamned). i've been blogging for a few years now, but it's finally time for me to devote a whole space to one of my passions, namely cardinals baseball. for those of you looking for another metric for your fantasy league team, this blog is not for you. in fact, i will probably shy away from stats a lot more than other baseball blogs. i can only keep a few numbers going in my head at a time, so while i know that john gall is currently batting .397 in aaa, i can't remember what albert's average is. i don't consider this to be a problem, as that information is available elsewhere.

now, for my first post...

dear god, what's scott rolen gotta do to score a run? two doubles inches away from being homers, and how many times has he been left on after great efforts at the plate in the last few games? scott is still underappreciated, by cards fans and the rest of the league alike. the fact that he is hitting like this after last season's collision with a mountain in/from korea is a testament to how great this guy is. even if eckstein is officially our second best hitter right now, let's show scott rolen some love. he's one of the hardest working players in baseball, and therefore a perfect cardinal.

i won't say anything about sir albert, so as not to throw a jinx his way.

juancarnacion might be showing some signs of life (maybe). (i bloody well hope so).

i had to pass up tickets to the game last night because my son is only two weeks old, and i'm already leaving him alone with my wife on friday to go to the game (as part of her x-mas present four-pack). it hurt like being knifed in the belly.