St. Louis Sports Blog

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​Bill James has called him the perfect player, and this year, the voters apparently agreed. 

Cy Young agrees with me. It's a shame his namesake award didn't go to a Cardinal. Hell, he even played for the Cardinals for awhile! If anything, I'll bet he's even MORE pissed than I am!

​Sigh. 

This soooo totally helps my plan.

​So yesterday Joe Strauss of the Post-Dispatch writes an article about Mark McGwire, the day when he will finally have to Talk About the Past, and the way the Cardinals plan on trying to handle the potential reaction of the fanbase. 

The baseball awards season is in full swing now, with Rookie of the Year just having been announced (and by the way, Andrew Bailey, who won ROY in the AL, wasn't even the best rookie on his own fucking team), and Cy Young and MVP coming in the very near future. It's always interesting each year to look at who wins the awards, because it gives you a good idea of just how divorced the awards often are from the reality of the game. 

Sosa as a young shortstop for the Texas Rangers, left, and unholy creature of the night, right.

​Sammy Sosa wants everyone out there to know that, no matter what you may have heard, and despite seemingly incontrovertible photographic evidence to the contrary, he has not become a gay vampire. 

What? It's a pirate. It's a story about pirates, and this is a picture of a pirate. Totally justified.

​Stuck here in the doldrums of the early baseball offseason, with only a World Series in which I hate both teams to watch, it's nice to have any little bit of news or movement to talk about. 

​As the World Series heads back to Philadelphia tied at one game apiece, both the Yankees and the Phillies have reason to be optimistic. The Phillies have to feel great about where they stand, as they succeeded in wresting home field advantage away from the Yankees and now have three games in their own building. The Yankees probably don't feel quite as good, honestly, but they also have to be fairly optimistic, given they came back from a complete ass kicking in Game 1 to tie the series up and get a bit of positive mojo back on their side. 

​ ​There's something to be said for being cool under pressure. Last night, Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Cliff Lee not only pitched a complete game -- Philly shut down the Yankees 6-1 -- but Philadelphia won what their fans hope is a momentum-building match-up on the road. (Hold off on planning that championship parade, New York.)

Oh yeah, Lee also made this catch, in which he oozed confidence. The rest of America, especially Yankee-haters, now stands and applauds Lee's inability to be rattled by a New York team that's being hailed as one of the best Yankee squads in years.

Oh hey sup, ball. Just doing my job here.

​Naturally, Lee wasn't nervous about the catch. After the game he told the New York Times:

"Not nervous at all," he said, before pausing and adding: "It's been a long time since I've been nervous playing this game. It's what I've been doing my whole life. I put all the work in. You do everything you need to do to prepare, and I try not to leave anything to chance. So what's the point in being nervous? I've already done the work. It's game time. Time to go out there and have fun and execute and let your skills take over."

The look on Lee's face (wait for it during the replay) is also priceless. He's already thinking about getting the next batter out, looking away from the catch, as he's making it. Bravo, sir, bravo.

Carpenter, shortly after being shot by an opposing player. He went on to throw 6 2/3 shutout innings later that day.

​Chris Carpenter was named yesterday the National League Comeback Player of the Year by Major League Baseball. It shouldn't come as a shock to anyone, of course, considering Carpenter missed almost two full seasons after having Tommy John surgery in 2007, then returned this year as a Cy Young Award contender. 

Will Leitch, a man of dignity and class.

​Will Leitch, superhero of pithy internet writers everywhere and close, personal friend of yours truly, needs your help. And if you don't help him, I will come to your house and I will cut you, so help me god. 

Well, sure. I'll bet she's really funny, though.

​You know, I've stayed above the fray to this point in the whole Steve Phillips extramarital affair scandal. Ever since I first read about the situation, every single thought I've had for a column to write about it has seemed just way, way too mean. Not to Phillips himself, mind you, because I really don't think he deserves any sort of mercy. But the woman involved, oy.

The poor girl, Brooke Hundley, is getting killed on every single blog, sports channel, radio show, absolutely everything. And not because she had an affair with a married man, mind you. No, she's getting clobbered because she's, well, somewhat less than stunning. (She has been dubbed by the New York Post the "Tubby Temptress," among other things.)

​So maybe, just maybe, perhaps, it might be, maybe, that the St. Louis Cardinals are preparing to name one Mark 'Big Mac' McGwire as their next hitting instructor. Maybe. 

Well, it looks as if Tony La Russa will be returning to manage the St. Louis Cardinals once again in 2010. He hasn't made any sort of official announcement as of yet, but all signs point to La Russa coming back for his 15th season wearing the Birds on the Bat. 

​When people look back at the Yankees' 2009 World Series Championship (it's going to happen, sadly; get used to the idea), there will be talk of Alex Rodriguez finally breaking through and becoming the clutch genius we all knew he had locked away inside him, or Derek Jeter leading the Yanks to their first title since he took over the mantle of Captain. What will probably be missed, though, will be the biggest reason the Yankees won. The funny thing is, if the Yankees do win, the biggest reason will be the same as it was all those other times they won. Nope, not Jeter. No, not the high-powered offense. No, not even the enormous payroll. (Well, okay, maybe the enormous payroll.) 

Ryan Franklin, seen here in a file photo, proves to be an outstanding interview subject.

​Ryan Franklin was on the ITD Morning After on 101.1 ESPN the other day, and I have to say it was of the more interesting interviews I can recall hearing an athlete give in quite some time. He talked about the blowup in Game 2 of the NLDS, Matt Holliday possibly returning to the Cardinals, and John Smoltz' opinion of the St. Louis area in general. 

​With the Cardinals out of the playoffs, I've had to decide what team I'm going to root for the rest of the playoffs. Sure, I could just watch the games impartially and enjoy the sport itself, but where's the fun in that? No, I'm one of those people who are always going to set up a team to root for and a team to root against in virtually any athletic competition. Just the way I am. 

​Remember those parodies of Green Day's "Holiday" that hit YouTube this summer following the Cardinals' acquisition of Matt Holliday? 

Somehow, it was perfect Rick Ankiel should be the one to make the last out. 

​So the question must eventually be asked, you know. I don't want to have to ask it, and I'm sure you probably don't want to have to try and answer, but the question will not just go away. So here goes. 

​Coming off the three-hour, 54-minute letdown last night in Los Angeles, there's nothing we want more than to look ahead to this afternoon's Game 2 start time of 5:07 p.m. and put Matt Holliday's plate failures and Chris Carpenter's perplexing inability to find the outside of the plate behind us.

To get your mind off all that -- if only for a few brief moments on this saturated Thursday afternoon -- here's what they're saying in other cities. Take comfort: that the nail-biting, cursing, nervous wreck of a human you've become in the past 24 hours or so is not all that uncommon. Hell, in New York, there's some babe who's dubbed herself "Crazy Yankee Chick."

For the past couple of weeks, I've been feeling really kind of rough. Not sick, necessarily, but just not all that well. Every few days, I would feel a little better, but then the next day it would be right back down. I had a hell of a time mustering the wherewithall to complete much of anything. No energy, kind of just icky, you know? I didn't think too much of it at the time; just the cost of doing business when you've got too many hours worth of work to get into the day.

​
In just a moment we're going to hear from Craig Welling, a Denver blogger who snapped a photograph that was the source of much argument and consternation around the Interwebs last week.

​The decline of Brad Lidge's pitching prowess has been well documented. We all remember the defining moment of Lidge's 2005 campaign: his gopher ball to Albert Pujols with two on in the ninth and the Astros on the verge of their first-ever trip to the World Series. (Relive it here, but don't say we didn't warn you to mute the sound.)  The 'Stros, of course, bounced right back and eliminated the Cardinals two days later but proceeded to hand over the championship hardware to the Chicago White Sox.

Lidge's downhill slide continued into '06, but then he righted himself for a while.

This year, however, has been positively ulcer-inducing  -- 11 blown saves! -- a development that has driven some Philadelphia fans, who haven't proven themselves to be the most sane bunch, to start video-ing the closer's meltdowns and coupling them with their own play-by-play meltdowns:



Before St. Louis fans get too deep into the shit-talk, though, we'd all do well to remember the late-career implosions of two great closers, Jason Isringhausen and Lee Smith.

​Yesterday I began breaking down the potential teams coming out of the American League for the playoffs. (Well, technically, two potential teams and one guaranteed team; the Yankees are already in.) I made my way through the likely winner of the AL East and the teams most in contention for the AL Central crown. Today I'll finish up with the AL West and the likely Wild Card team. 

​So not too long ago I previewed the most likely playoff teams in the National League, trying to assess how much of a threat each one might be to the Cardinals come October time. Well, in the interest of completeness, and to try and educate my readership as best I possibly can, today I'm going to take a look around the junior circuit and make a bold, can't-possibly-go-wrong prediction as to who I think will be the Cardinals' punching bag in the playoffs. (Hey, I'm feeling expansive today. Smacking the shit out of the Astros will do that to you. Just let me have my momentary optimism, okay?) 

Despite efforts to screw up post-season play by the commissioner and his staff, Major League Baseball has something going for it than other professional and college-level leagues don't: When a team clinches its division and is headed for the post-season, it actually means something.

To wit, writer J. Carnage at Inside STL gives his take on what it means to clinch in the MLB, compared to the every other major and not-so-major league in America. It just means less in the NHL, NFL, NBA, WNBA, and college football and hoops than it does for baseball. Maybe so, but don't tell that to Blues fans this season, where a playoff berth is all that matters, no matter how inconsequential it is to the rest of the league.

About the NHL, Carnage writes:

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Well, it's nice to see the Houston Astros are still a train wreck. 

​​Ladies and Gentlemen, let me first tell you how much I respect the Gods of Baseball. I truly, truly do. They are fearsome, vengeful, old testament sorts who will reach down and quite mightily smite any foolish enough to spit in their faces. Disrespect them, friends, and your sorrow shall multiply. Rather, you must always fear the Gods of Baseball; revere them by showing proper deference to thine enemies even when presented with a seemingly insurmountable lead. Revere them by never speaking of perfect games or no-hitters or World Series matchups before the playoffs begin. Fear always the Gods of Baseball, gentle readers, and you just may find the path to October.