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

Vashon High School today was stripped of three state championships in basketball for recruitment violations and use of ineligible players. The school was also forced to forfeit five seasons' worth of games for the years 2000-'01 and 2002 through 2006.

The ruling by the Missouri State High School Activities Association, the state agency that governs high school sports, came during a closed session of the association's board of directors this morning in Columbia.

"It's what I expected," says Sam Dunlap, athletic director of the Public High League, in which Vashon competes. "Violations happened; the rules were applied."

Dunlap declined to say whether he thought the ruling is fair. "Any time you have something like this, it's not a happy day," he says.

"Like Sam said, we had a feeling it was going to happen" adds Keith Northway, Vashon's athletic director the past two years. "I have no other comment."

With four rainouts this season, the RFT softball team has had plenty of time to sit at home watching the Cardinals on television. Evidently the hours parked on the couch have served them well.

Like the Redbirds, the RFTies have ignored the preseason naysayers to get off to their best start ever. After just three games, team RFT is 2-1 and already tied with its 2007 win total. With one more victory, the team will equal its franchise victory count dating back to ’06.

Got Worms?

Ballpark Village may be a big, wet hole, but that doesn't mean it's closed for business.

When the Cardinals signed Ryan Franklin to a two-year extension in August of last year, the club believed it had shored up its setup slot for the next couple of years. Franklin was in the midst of a spectacular season then, pitching the eighth inning ahead of Jason Isringhausen, with an ERA that hovered below the 2.00 mark for a large portion of the season. Some of us, though, were less than enthusiastic about the move.

On Tuesday night, in the Cardinals' postponed season opener, the 35-year-old Franklin took the loss after giving up two runs -- though both were unearned -- without recording a single out. It's far too small a sample size to assign any significance to this one rough outing, but there are some disturbing trends that point to more of these tough nights ahead for Franklin and, hence, the Cardinals.

Let's start by taking a look at Franklin's overall statistical profile from last season:

Innings: 80
Hits: 70
ERA: 3.04
HR: 8
BB/PA: 3.5%
K/PA: 13.9%
BAA: .234
BABIP: .251

Pretty straightforward, right? There are two stats up there you may not be familiar with, BAA and BABIP. BAA is Batting Average Against, and it just means the average that all hitters combined to hit off of a given pitcher; in this case, Ryan Franklin. The walks and strikeouts are presented as percentages of plate appearances.

BABIP is a little more complicated but very important to understand. BABIP stands for Batting Average on Balls In Play. This particular statistic is a measure of how many of the balls put in play against a pitcher turned into hits. This includes everything except home runs, walks, strikeouts and errors.

The reason this one is so important to know is because it tells you, essentially, how lucky or unlucky a pitcher may have gotten. Once a ball is put into play, the pitcher has virtually no control over whether it becomes a hit. He can field his own position, yes, but he is essentially dependent on his fielders to turn the ball into an out rather than a hit. A ton of research has been done on this subject, and it all points to the fact that there is a baseline level for BABIP that most pitchers fall into. A very small number of pitchers have shown a consistent ability to depress that number a bit, but even then, only by a small amount.

The point of all this is this: The average Batting Average on Balls In Play is right around .290 to .300. Pitchers with unusually good movement on their pitches, who are able to induce weaker contact than some others, can sometimes maintain a BABIP more in the .270 range. That's really the best that a pitcher can do, though. After he releases the ball, the only control a pitcher has over what happens is if the ball happens to be hit directly back to him. Otherwise he has to rely entirely on his defense.

So take a look at how Mr. Franklin stacks up against those expected numbers: .251. You'll notice immediately that his BABIP is far, far below what is a normal range. Also, his strikeout percentage is extremely low. This presents a problem, because if you aren't striking out a ton of batters, then lots of balls are being put into play. Last season Franklin was the beneficiary of unusually good luck. He helped himself out quite a bit by being very stingy with his walks, but he still just didn't miss many bats. He also gave up a ridiculously low number of home runs. This is partially due to good pitching, but again, he may be due for a bounce back up on his HR rate.

All of this points to a pitcher that is probably due for a serious downturn. The Cardinals' infield defense this year, particularly in the middle, should be slightly stronger than it was last year, helping to cushion the numbers a bit. However, a BABIP as low as Franklin's was last year really isn't sustainable. Most likely, that number will regress toward the mean, meaning that his BABIP is bound to move back toward the usual range, and when it does, Franklin's ERA is going to rise significantly.

Even if Franklin maintains his ridiculously low rate of bases on balls, his low strikeout percentage, coupled with a larger number of balls in play becoming hits than last season, is most likely going to result in a much larger number of runs allowed. We saw the beginnings of these problems in the second half of last season, when Franklin had a 5.25 ERA and allowed six of his eight home runs. All of his other statistics stayed approximately the same, but the "luck"-based ones went up, and his overall performance suffered tremendously.

Last year Ryan Franklin pitched very well. He kept his walks to a minimum and made good enough pitches to get batters out consistently. But if you look a bit closer, his great season also had an awful lot of smoke and mirrors involved, and that can't go on forever. I fear we may be in for a very long season of watching Ryan Franklin trying to hold on to leads for the Cardinals.

-Aaron Schafer

The St. Louis Cardinals are trying to get us pumped for the upcoming season, during which we'll likely watch the "new-look Cards" finish with a losing record. And it kills me to say that. Especially after a decade-plus of stretch drives, one National League pennant and a World Series championship.

The bloom of contention is, as the poets say, off the rose. The front office has undergone changes; two executives, John Mozeliak and Bill DeWitt III, got promotions. The team on the field looks different too (as you may have read).

But with lowered expectations come funny commercials!

Check out these slightly weird ads. They don't exactly conjure feelings of an October run or a 100-win season. They do, however, make me long for summer.

The organization's new slogan, "Play Like a Cardinal," is a little fuzzily defined. Judging from these commericals, it might translate to: Share a hot dog with a friend, play hard and be sure to include the mascot in team warm-ups.

My favorite spot stars pitchers Adam Wainwright and Jason Isringhausen and a hot dog. The two aren't afraid to share a baseball during a game, and apparently also are unfazed by wiener-swapping:

Here we have Fredbird doing the high-knee jog with the team. To those who don't see the mascot every...single...freaking...day on television in St. Louis during the baseball season, the guest spot might seem novel. Well, hell, the kids love him:

A third spot has Rick Ankiel professing that he isn't just a pitcher. And he is only sort of a right fielder. Rest assured he is 100 percent "ballplayer," though:

-Nick Lucchesi

Tyler “Psycho-T” Hansbrough, now leading the University of North Carolina Tarheels in their pursuit of another NCAA men's basketball championship, was profiled, along with his brother Ben, by the Riverfront Times back in September 2004.

Not surprisingly, the story is coming back to life on the web, as more readers are interested in learning about the tenacious center from Poplar Bluff, Mo.

Read the story here.

An excerpt:

In their free time, Ben (now playing basketball at Mississippi State University) enjoys cavorting with friends while Tyler retreats to the solitude of one of the area's local fishing holes.

"That's the Bluff comin' out," Tyler concedes.

-Nick Lucchesi

I have received a lot of requests for the entire transcript of the November 12, 2007, interview between former Vashon High School basketball coach Floyd Irons and executive director of the Missouri State High School Activities Association (MSHSAA), Kerwin Urhahn.

We previously published the first 50 pages of that Nov. 20007 interview here and here.

(To clarify: As part of Irons' plea agreement with the U.S. Attorney's office for his involvement in a real estate fraud scheme, Irons agreed to provide information involving recruiting violations to MSHSAA. Irons' attorney, Rick Sindel, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Hal Goldsmith sat in on the interview between Irons and Urhahn, as did FBI agent Shannon McGarry. Irons is questioned by Urhahn and McGarry about the residences of players found by Riverfront Times to be in violation of MSHSAA and St. Louis Public School district policies.)

Below you will find three PDFs containing the final 143 pages of the transcript. The names of the students have been blacked out by MSHSAA. Our chart of Vashon basketball players published back in November, 2006, provides a cheat sheet.

Part 3: Pages 50-99
Part 4: Pages 100-150
Part 5: Pages 151-193

-Kristen Hinman

Former Vashon High School coach Floyd Irons, one of Missouri's most victorious high school basketball coaches, and his former confidant and booster Mike Noll, were sentenced to federal prison Monday, along with mortgage broker John Mineo Jr., thus closing the book on a real estate fraud case that earlier resulted in prison time for a property appraiser as well.

U.S. District Court Judge E. Richard Webber showed leniency with Irons, Noll and Mineo.

The judge sentenced Irons to two twelve-month prison terms, to run concurrently, as well as five years' probation, and ordered him to pay $653,147.09 in restitution to the banks that lost money as a result of the mortgage fraud. Federal sentencing guidelines, which judges may stray from, had called for a 27- to 33-month sentence.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Hal Goldsmith had recommended 18 months.

Webber sentenced co-conspirator Mike Noll to twenty months in prison and five years' probation and ordered him to pay $1,032,212.71 in restitution. Guidelines had called for a 33- to 41-month sentence. Goldsmith had recommended 25 months.

John Mineo Jr. received a sentence of twelve months and one day -- which ends up amounting to a lesser sentence than twelve months, because of prison rules, Judge Webber noted -- and was also ordered to pay restitution of $653,147.09. Guidelines had called for jail time of 21 to 27 months. The federal prosecutor had recommended 14 months.

It was a long afternoon, with proceedings beginning at 2 p.m. and not wrapping up until 7:15 p.m. Irons was the last to be sentenced; his day in court ended with an unlikely sight: a receiving line of well-wishers offering hugs and handshakes. More than 100 people -- standing-room only -- had crowded the courtroom in his defense.

Degree of culpability, as well as character, seemed to factor most into Judge Webber's rulings.

Noll's attorney, Ed Dowd, claimed that Mineo approached Noll about the scheme to purchase and flip properties using false paperwork. But the judge rejected that idea and determined that Noll was the ringleader.

Dowd asked for leniency for Noll, based on Noll's twenty-year history as an informant on gambling and organized-crime cases. Dowd said Noll has had shots fired at him and received oral threats against his life because of his work for the FBI. "He has lived in danger while he served his country for no reason other than he wanted to help," Dowd said. "He has given the government everything he knows and is willing to continue to cooperate."

Dowd also referred to Noll's decades of providing financial assistance and support for children across the metro area to attend sports camps and tournaments, high schools and colleges. "He has no assets at all to support his family or to pay his legal fees," Dowd said, "so [my fellow attorneys] and I have been working on this case for free...because, particularly, of the numbers of young people he's helped."

Dowd read from letters written on Noll's behalf by parents and students who were recipients of his beneficence. The defense attorney also cited from letters written by two Catholic brothers and by St. Louis Rams executive vice president Bob Wallace.

Noll himself asked Judge Webber to spare him from prison: "Basketball kids, my extended family and my immediate family, they will bear the brunt of a lengthy punishment -- "

"How is that true?" Webber interrupted. "You're going to have to pay back more than one million dollars, and if you ever try to do anything like that again you're going to get arrested."

The Kansas City Star ran its in-depth piece on the hoops school Milestone Christian Academy and its suspended pastor/principal/coach, Peter Flournoy in yesterday’s paper.

High school sports reporter/columnist Candace Buckner details some of the promises (laptop computers, for instance, and Adidas uniforms) Flournoy made to basketball recruits and their parents. According to the story, Flournoy didn’t deliver on the promises.

Buckner also reveals that Flournoy went AWOL from the U.S. Army and may have misrepresented his education and training.

She reports that Milestone’s rolls have dwindled to about 20 students, from 65 earlier this year. Buckner also says that the boys’ varsity basketball team now features three foreigners: two Colombians and a seven-foot Serb.

-Kristen Hinman

Say what you want about the King of Beers. When it comes to making quirky, attention-grabbing advertisements, the folks at Anheuser-Busch know few bounds.

Like, have you seen the Bud Light commercial entitled "Cut the Cheese" that’s making the rounds online? The one the Federal Communications Commission ostensibly banned from this year’s Super Bowl? Since yesterday the ad has garnered more than 8,500 hits on the popular sports blog Deadspin, which -- like other media -- reports that that the commercial was too risqué for television screeners. (Deadspin in turn credits BostonSportz for getting there first.)

Not true, according to A-B’s vice-president of brand management, Keith Levy. “Bud Light’s 'Cut the Cheese' spot was not banned by the FCC and was never intended for TV,” says Levy in a statement to the RFT. “The spot was created as an Internet-only ad and was made available online at budbowl.com to adult consumers who participated in Bud Light’s Super Bowl ad mobile-phone voting campaign.”

The brewery did the same thing last year with an online-only ad titled "Apology Bot."

Okay, now that we got that cleared up, you can check out the “banned” commercial below. Umm, Buttweiser anyone?

Psssst! Here’s a “bonus feature” of our own. The following commercial aired in the U.K. in 2006. Same oeuvre as the Bud Light ad, with a slightly different odour, as the Brits would say. Watch out for the brown trout.

-Chad Garrison

Remember the great St. Louis Cardinals World Series/St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department scandal of 2007? I broke news of the department's internal affairs investigation into the matter here on STLog back in March of '07.

Well, it's back, thanks to St. Louis attorney Albert Watkins, who frequently goes to bat for the blue shirts of the department. Watkins issued the following press release today:

Police officers involved in the 2006 World Series ticket use inquiry have directed the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department to cease its unilateral delay in the production of records sought by subpoenas issued by the State's Director of the Department of Public Safety.

The eight officers, seven of whom remain active with the City's police department, learned late last week that the State's POST Commission had for over a year been seeking the Police Department's files on the World Series ticket use investigation but the City Police Department had failed to release the requested records. "The officers are shocked and disappointed that anything less than full and timely cooperation has been demonstrated by the police department and cannot understand the rationale for the secretive delay," said Albert S. Watkins, legal counsel for the officers.

"The officers involved have previously acknowledged their role in the incident and accepted their discipline. They want nothing more than to demonstrate a continuing commitment to transparency and cooperation with the POST Commission," added Watkins.

The POST Commission (Missouri Peace Officer Standards and Training Program) is a regulatory agency that is responsible for licensure of peace officers.

Watkins also sent along a copy of one of the subpoenas, sent to Captain John Hayden (click to download in pdf form), commander of the city department's Internal Affairs Division. The POST Commission basically wants any and all records related to the IA investigation. More, certainly, to come...

-Kristen Hinman

Here's the scoop from Matt Leach at mlb.com.

The Post-Dispatch has a story, of course, but they never link to us, so why should we link to them?

The kicker to Leach's story:

[St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony] La Russa, who said he hadn't talked to Spiezio since learning of the arrest warrant, said news of the allegation wasn't a complete surprise.

"I had heard there was an incident in California, but I didn't think anything would come of it," La Russa said.

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but the Spiezio debacle sheds a new light on the Cardinals' seemingly counterintuitive decision in early January to re-sign utility infielder Aaron Miles.

It was odd, in that the team seemed to have enough infielder-types going into the spring, and that they'd opted not to tender Miles a contract offer in December, making him a free agent. Then they turned around and signed him for $1.4 million.

That move was decried by sabermetricians all over Cardinal Nation. Larry Borowsky, who operates Viva El Birdos, which for my money is the best Redbirds blogs out there -- and one of the best baseball blogs, period -- surely spoke for many on that fateful day.

(Though not for me. I like Miles. I'll concede his defense doesn't hold up to statistical analysis, and that the same goes for his bat. I like the guy's attitude, though, and I like being able to point him out to my kids as an overachiever who makes his bones the hard way. God forbid there turns out to be a warrant out for his arrest.)

Here's what the Post's Derrick Goold wrote about the signing:

"The way we are set up now, we're fully protected in the infield," Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak said. "You look at the need we had, and there's a comfort level with Miles. ... He gives us added flexibility."

Miles provides depth at both middle infield positions and may be the answer if questions arise with [second baseman Adam] Kennedy, [shortstop Cesar] Izturis or switch-hitter Scott Spiezio, who missed more than a month last season in rehab for substance abuse.

The club also has Brendan Ryan, a young shortstop who turned in a solid performance when called up from the minors late last year.

Also, a few weeks ago Post columnist Bernie Miklasz noted that La Russa had "called out" Spiezio for being late to the team's annual Winter Warm-Up event.

I'm just sayin.'

-Tom Finkel

Here's a link to the Orange County Superior Court Web page that details the charges against St. Louis Cardinals utilityman Scott Spiezio in connection with his alleged DUI in December.

As the courts in OC see it, Speez is a fugitive.

Also, here's two relevant paragraphs from a statement from the Orange County District Attorney's Office:

At approximately 12:20 a.m. on December 30, 2007, Spiezio is accused of leaving a bar in Newport Beach after spending the evening drinking several vodka drinks. He is accused of getting into his 2004 BMW and attempting to drive home while under the influence of alcohol. Spiezio is accused of speeding, cutting across several lanes, crossing through the oncoming traffic lanes, driving over a curb, and crashing into a fence. The crash knocked down a fence pole and blew out the front two tires of the car. Spiezio is accused of getting out of the car and fleeing the scene on foot.

The defendant is accused of running to his Irvine condominium complex and going to a friend’s condo, who lived in the same complex. While his friend attempted to clean up the defendant, Spiezio is accused of vomiting in his friend’s room. When the friend made a comment about the vomit, Spiezio is accused of becoming angry and attacking his friend, punching him repeatedly and throwing him against a wall.

Another spring, another booze-related Cardinals train wreck?

From the Associated Press:

An arrest warrant has been issued by the Irvine Police Department for St. Louis Cardinals utilityman Scott Spiezio on six charges stemming from a crash in late December.

CNN/SI

The warrant alleges driving under influence, driving under the influence with a blood alcohol content of .08 percent or more, hit and run, aggravated assault, assault and battery.

According to the story, after the hard-rocking Redbird, who underwent treatment for substance abuse last summer, crashed his 2004 BMW and ran from the scene, a neighbor reportedly told police that "Spiezio had arrived home appearing disheveled and apparently injured. Spiezio vomited in his condo and then allegedly assaulted the neighbor, causing significant injuries."

The AP story can be found here.