St. Louis Sports Blog

Every year, the day after the All Star Game in the host city, there takes place an event which is, in my ever so humble opinion, quite a bit more interesting that the game itself. The Annual Symposium on Statistics in Sports is just what it sounds like- a gathering of some of the biggest nerds you've ever seen in your life, all eager to teach the secrets of the universe - or at least why VORP is overrated - to anyone and everyone willing to listen.

Thanks to devoted reader and friend of the blog Kenneth Kitchin (who sent in one of the very first batches of baseball cards ever featured here, with both Cal Eldred and Andy Benes being represented), I can bring to all of you the so-exciting-I-may-be-unable-to-control-my-bladder news that Kevin Goldstein, Will Carroll, and Steve Goldman, all of Baseball Prospectus, are going to be at Left Bank Books tomorrow, not once, but twice. They'll be book-ending the Cards' day game with the Metropolitans of Flushing, appearing at both 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. 

If you've been to the Loop lately and looked down at the sidewalk, you might have seen Lou Brock's star on the Walk of Fame and thought to yourself, "Wow, base-stealing legend Lou Brock has had his informative plaque -- his base, even -- stolen from the Loop's Walk of Fame!"

But you'd be wrong. The plaque, bowing to the harsh winter conditions, came loose from the sidewalk, says Joe Edwards, owner of Blueberry Hill and founder and chair of the non-profit St. Louis Walk of Fame.

"I have [the plaque] up here in my office. it started to come out of the sidewalk. Winter conditions are always tough on things. Every so often a plaque or a star might come up and rather than have somebody trip on it or anything, We took it up for safe keeping."

The star is near Smoothie King in the Delmar Loop. The next three inductees into the Walk of Fame will be selected this spring.

An aside -- Rickey Henderson, the legendary base-stealer who broke Brock's record, is a shoe-in for Hall of Fame induction today.

Photo of the missing plaque after jump.

Just got word from Birmingham, Alabama, that St. Louisans Clayton Braun and Kerri Morgan have once again made the 18-person U.S. farm team for quad rugby. The national "murderball" team represents the U.S. at major world tournaments, including the Paralympics.

Both Braun and Morgan, who play for the St. Louis Rugby Rams, are hoping to make the last round of cuts, next May or June, in order to play for the U.S. at a world tournament next fall.

Morgan, who competed in track at the Paralympics in Beijing this past summer, was the subject of an RFT feature, "Ready to Rumble," in January 2007.

Braun also figured in that piece. His mother explains his injury here.

-Kristen Hinman

Photo: Jennifer Silverberg

Team RFT had a sniff of its old self last night. It smelled a lot like marijuana. Sticky, gooey, chronic marijuana.

Then again, perhaps that odor was just the fumes wafting over from the Macanudo-size blunt being passed around in the nearby parking lot. Whatever the case, the secondhand smoke seemed only to stoke RFT's lethargy Monday night and produce more than a few flashbacks to seasons when the team routinely suffered defeats by double-digit margins.

From the onset yesterday, it was clear that this was not the same club that just two weeks ago rallied for its greatest victory of the season. Hitless in the top of the first, RFT took the field only to watch Chevys Fresh Mex bat its way through the order on the way a quick eight runs. Chevys added to its tally in nearly every ensuing inning and led 22-3 going into the final frame.

While Chevys' bats were finding a Jarlsberg wheel's worth of holes between RFT fielders, it was all RFT could do to not hit the ball directly into the gloves of its opponents. Chevys' man-mountain of a pitcher recorded so many 1-3 putouts that several RFT players questioned whether his girth wasn't exterting some type of gravitational pull on the ball.

As he does so often, Tom "Sox" Kavanaugh scored the first runs for the good guys, with a three-run blast over the fence in center field. Chris Schaeffer proved once again that the proper mixture of human-growth hormone and Busch beer can work wonders; the outfielder had another big day, going three-for-three at the plate and ably scooping up two flyouts to right-center.

Plays of the day, though, have to go to Ray "Ray" Richardson and Cathleen "Coach Cat" Joffray, who hit back-to-back, inside-the-infield home runs in the seventh.

Those "hits" brought the final score to 22-5 and left RFT with a 3-4 record on the season.

The team can only hope that next week's party in the parking lot will feature a more stimulating intoxicant -- say crack or meth. This team could use the pick-me-up.

-Unreal

The addition of ace pitcher and RFT circulation manager Kevin Powers wasn't enough to ensure victory last night in a tightly contested game versus Chevy's Fresh Mex.

Powers -- whose prowess in beer-related sports is comparable to Bo Jackson's onetime dominance of real athletics -- missed the first three games of the season to conclude his Monday-night dart league campaign. The postponed start had little to no adverse effect on his pitching. Powers struck out the side in the fifth inning and recorded a whopping seven Ks over nine innings.

Okay, the tree is not the most significant part of the controversy over University City’s plan to build a driving range on the Ruth Park municipal golf course.

Perhaps more significant is that the 76-year-old, nine-hole golf course has been losing money for the city for the past decade and that U. City's Department of Parks, Recreation and Forestry hopes that a driving range will generate some much-needed revenue -- an estimated $138,000 per year. The driving range would be installed at the southern end of Ruth Park, along Groby Road, in what is now a free practice area.

Or perhaps it’s that the city’s plans have enraged some residents who live near Ruth Park. They’re upset about the bright lights the driving range will cast at night, and the potential for more traffic. They think the city has not done sufficient research into the impact the driving range will have on the rest of the neighborhood, and they're peeved that members of city council voted to go ahead with the plan without consulting their constituents. Then there’s that agreement the city made with Clayton: Clayton will contribute $30,000 toward the cost of the driving range and Claytonites will be able to hit balls at U. City resident rates. What will U. Citizens get in return? Will this set a dangerous precedent for other towns that want to take advantage of University City’s facilities?

“They’re acting recklessly with taxpayer money,” says David Rubin, one of the leaders of the Ruth Park Preservation Committee (RPPC).

Next week U. City parks director Nancy MacCartney plans to submit a grant proposal to the Municipal Park Grant Commission of St. Louis County, which allocates $3 million annually to improve the county’s parks. In the past, University City has received grant money to build tennis courts and install playground equipment in Heman Park and to purchase fitness equipment for the Centennial Commons facility.

MacCartney says the parks department has been planning the driving range since 2004. Last week she sent a letter to residents of the neighborhood around Ruth Park that was intended to allay the RPPC’s concerns. The lights, the letter said, will shine downward onto the ground, not upward. The driving range will have only 25 hitting stations; in addition to the existing clubhouse parking lot, there are 40 parking spots along Groby. Furthermore, MacCartney adds, U. City has been negotiating with Clayton to allow U. Citizens use of the Shaw Park Ice Rink.

The RPPC is not buying any of this and has planned a letter-writing campaign to raise public awareness and, they hope, opposition to the driving range. It has also hired a lawyer.

But the tree.

The oldest tree in University City lies in the middle of the proposed driving range. MacCartney promised the tree would not be cut down. Instead she proposed that the tree be surrounded by a protective fence and that a target be placed on said fence. Anyone who hits the target will receive a free bucket of golf balls.

The RPPC was outraged.

“There are driving ranges with the most amazing hazards. I’ve seen lakes,” MacCartney protests. “It has been turned into a sacrilegious statement.”

-Aimee Levitt

See? Told you it would only be for a few days.

-Aimee Levitt

OK, I admit I once rented an apartment because of its proximity to Wrigley Field. And I used to smirk at those “Cuck the Fardinals” T-shirts they sell at the corner of Clark and Waveland. And when I first started interviewing for my job here at RFT, my first words were, “Just so you know, I’m not going to become a Cardinals fan. Ever.” (Fortunately, this paper does not practice discrimination on grounds of baseball fandom.) As a sign of my allegiance, I keep a Cubs Curse Breaker on my desk here. It takes the form of a plush goat and is very small and tasteful because I know I'm in enemy territory. I’ve seen those signs around town. And I must admit that most of the time, I take pride in being part of a vicious minority.

But last year? When the Cardinals were in the playoffs? I rooted for them. At first I thought it was because I associated the Padres with sad and bitter memories of 1984. And because I associated the Mets with pure evil. But then I realized: To root for the Cardinals is to root for the Midwest, our shared homeland, ridiculed by East Coasters and West Coasters alike as “flyover country.” Chicago and St. Louis are red-brick sisters! (It’s true Chicago is by far the larger and more people actually know where it is, but so what?) If I could put aside my North Sider prejudices to cheer for the White Sox in 2005 (and really cheer, like jumping up and down and screaming in my Wrigleyville apartment; I would have frightened my downstairs neighbor had he not been cheering, too), I could surely do the same for the Cardinals two years later.

This noble resolution kind of hit a snag when the World Series rolled around, but all due to complicated family loyalties, namely that my parents are natives of Detroit and I spent the summer of 1984 getting quizzed on the Tigers’ starting lineup every night at dinner, and some old habits, like inbred Tiger love, are harder to break than others, like institutionalized Cardinal hatred. Nonetheless, I have to admit it's a novel experience to be living in the same city as the World Series champs.

So, my fellow St. Louis residents, when you sit down in front of the tube for this interminable playoff month, remember regional loyalty. If you must turn over the National League crown over to anyone, let it be your fellow Midwesterners, just a few hours up I-55, not those snakes slithering around out in the Arizona desert! We won’t lord it over you. (Too much.) It’s probably not going to last long anyway. To be a Cubs fan is to know only fleeting happiness, not to bask in entire years of glory, as I imagine you Cards fans must do. It won’t take too long, just a few weeks at most before the inevitable occurs, and then you can go back to feeling superior.

This is what it is to be a Cubs fan:

-Aimee Levitt

Richard Gaines, a member of the Special Administrative Board of the St. Louis Public Schools, presided over the first meeting of the board's new High School Athletics Committee Tuesday night. It's the first committee of its kind for the district, and its purpose is to restore long-lost glory to the Public High League.

Gaines, who played basketball for Vashon High School in the 1960s, marshaled a mix of business, athletics and education leaders in St. Louis to volunteer for the committee. Among them: Frank Viverito of the St. Louis Sports Commission, Tom Irwin of Civic Progress; Kathy Osborn of the Regional Business Council; Deborah Powell-Childress, former mayor of East St. Louis, and the athletics directors at Wash. U., SIUE and UMSL. Thom Kuhn -- whose nonprofit group, PHL, Inc., has been working miracles for the SLPS by restoring fields and facilities during the last two-and-a-half years -- is also a member.

The district's biggest problem is its dwindling budget -- about $75,000 per school this year. That figure includes salaries and covers all teams. Gaines is said to favor the creation of an athletic endowment, presumably with private funds, that could eventually sustain the public schools' athletic program no matter the financial straits.

But the committee's immediate task is to examine the district in comparison to others in the metro area and issue recommendations for improvements. The process will take the entire school year.

Gaines said he believes in "linkages" between academic and athletic successes -- a fundamental reason for evaluating the district's program. He said he is also hoping to restore a lost sense of community:

"This is part of our process of bringing people back to the schools, and not just the children."

-Kristen Hinman

Of this we can be reasonably sure: Robin Leach will never arrive in St. Louis to shoot an episode of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Leach's famous tagline, "Champagne wishes and caviar dreams," don't compute in Missour-uh. And we certainly don't have those bus tours like they do in Hollywood -- the ones that showcase the megamansions of movie stars and entertainers.

In St. Louis our celebrities -- for the most part -- are professional athletes or reclusive business owners who've amassed fortunes selling pharmaceuticals, libations and rental cars. And while their homes may be magnificent, to our knowledge no one has ever thought of putting them on tour.

Until now.

Introducing Virtual Globetrotting, a Web site that provides tours of exotic locales the world over, including our very own St. Louis. We stumbled across the site today when searching for information about beer baron August Busch III. Not only does Virtual Globetrotting display photos of the Busch mansion as seen through Google Maps and Windows Live Local (which captures incredibly detailed "Bird's Eye" images from a low-flying airplane), it also provides links to dozens of other local celebrity manors.

We see that Nelly's casa is indeed worthy of a spot on Cribs and understand why President George W. Bush would choose to stay at the luxurious compound of his friend and campaign contributor Stephen Brauer during his visits to St. Louis.

Virtual Globetrotting bills itself as a Web site that is "all about visiting exotic locations from the comfort of your home." The site allows anyone to post images provided they meet the moderator's approval. That said, how accurate are the images? We checked the addresses of Cardinals players Jim Edmonds and Albert Pujols as provided by Virtual Globetrotting and the St. Louis County Department of Revenue and found they matched up.

Our only questions now: What the hell does Jimmy Baseball do in that gaudy swimming pool of his ? And why on earth is Pujols still living in that chintzy McMansion?

-Unreal

Running is often celebrated for its sublime simplicity. All you need is a pair of shoes and a lung.

That's easy to forget when a runner's world is awash in GPS devices, those things Nike makes to link your stride to your iPod and chip-timed 10K's. Want to return to the halcyon days before you knew that your favorite route was 200 meters shorter than you thought (and you are therefore slower than you thought)?

Mark your calendar for next year's Union Founder's Day 10K.

Who needs chip timing with fewer than 200 runners? Course volunteers do call out times -- but they don't correspond to any mile markers.

Needless to say, this race has not attracted sponsors, or goody bags filled with crap products.

What Union does have is one of the hilliest courses around. Mile four will make you want your mommy, and it doesn't end there.

When you cross the finish, you get an index card with a number on it. Walk over to the results board and you'll see your time handwritten next to that number.

If you placed in your age group, your name will go up on the leaderboard. The timing crew has no computer to help satisfy that urge to compare yourself to everyone in your age group or gender.

Instead, while you wait around for the awards ceremony, you can wander the courthouse square. Check out the FFA petting zoo, or enter a raffle for a canoe or a quilt.

Union as a runner's Mayberry might not last. One of the organizers says people have been asking her to post past and present results online. And they have discovered the addictive course-mapping tool on USA Track and Field's Web site.

Let's just hope they don't spring to have the course certified. One of the best things about the Founder's Day 10K is the old-timey price: $12. And no doubt that most of it does benefit the high school band.

-Kathleen McLaughlin