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St. Louis
Sports Online
STL weather
So How Do You Fix This Mess?
There is more coming,
right? This isn’t it, right?
A few days before Thanksgiving the St. Louis Cardinals made their first steps in the extreme makeover of their pitching staff and coaches. While the announcements were not the big news the self-proclaimed Best Fans in Baseball were hoping for, perhaps it’s a start. On the pitching side, the Red Birds reached a one-year deal with a team option with veteran righthander Lance Lynn. The name should sound familiar. Lynn hung a shingle in the 314 from 2011-2017: pitching in two World Series with St. Louis. At age 36, Lynn’s reputation is as a workhorse. He pitches lots of innings. The back of Lynn’s baseball card reveals the righthander has averaged 195 innings pitched in his twelve Major League seasons. While is personality can be surly, Lynn goes out, throws and throws. But 2022 was unkind to the righthander. Lynn surrendered an MLB high 44 home runs last season. He last appeared in the National League playoffs. On an October night in the Arizona desert, Lynn was the starting pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers in an elimination game. He gave up four Diamondback home runs in one innings, sending the Dodgers back to So-Cal. In all likelihood Lynn will be penciled in as the #4 or #5 starter for the 2024 Red Bird rotation. The righthander will likely assume the role Adam Wainwright held in the 2023 starting rotation. It’s fair to view the Lance Lynn agreement as a typical Cardinal free agent move. At $10 million for one season with a team option, this is another safe signing. You know, low hanging fruit. But the heavy lifting remains. At this writing the Cardinals do not have a legitimate top of the rotation pitcher and do not have a solid #2 starter. Lynn and veteran Miles Miklos should serve the role as #3, or #4 or even #5 starter. Both righthanders have a history pitching of logging many innings during the season. This was absent in 2023 when the overworked St. Louis pitching staff collapsed. That led to the team’s first last place finish in over thirty years. At this writing, the top of the St. Louis rotation remains to be announced. For President of Baseball Operations John Mozeliak, his team still has major holes in his starting rotation. So welcome back, Lance Lynn. You’ll be expected to crank out lots and lots of innings in 2024. That said: There is more coming, right? This isn’t it, right? The Red Birds also announced a change in their coaching staff. Former Red Bird utility player Daniel Descalso will return to the 314 as Oliver Marmol’s Bench Coach. 2023 Bench Coach Joe McEwing will be reassigned within the organization. The name should sound familiar. This bureau always appreciated Descalso: his role, how he played and how he accepted his assignments. To us in this little corner of cyberspace, much like former outfielder Jon Jay, Daniel Descalso was a winning ballplayer wherever he went. Given that, we find the hiring of Descalso puzzling. He has no professional coaching experience. This seems unusual for the Coach who is second in command. Also, a role of the Bench Coach is to serve as a devil’s advocate to the Manager. It is the Bench Coach’s role to quietly during a game take the Skipper aside and ask, “do you really want to make that move?” Descalso and Marmol are both 37-year-old. Descalso has no prior coaching experi3ence. It is fair to ask just how effective the new Bench Coach will be in his new role out of the box? Does Descalso have the chops to tap Marmol on the shoulder and ask “are you sure about this?” But the hiring of Daniel Descalso leads to another question: what happened to all that Yadier Molina return to the Cardinals talk? During the playoffs, chatter was strong how Molina and Cardinals were negotiating a return. #4 even suggested as much. “I had the opportunity, when I went a few weeks ago to Adam Wainwright's (the farewell for his retirement), to sit with (the management) and several points were discussed” Molina told Gabriel Quiles of Puerto Rico’s El Vocero last month. “They have the knowledge of my willingness (to assume a position in the management or coaching staff)." In a separate interview with Sports Illustrated.com, Molina continued: "There is something cooking. I have had various offers in the United States last year with (the Miami Marlins) and St. Louis. This year I have offers too. I think there is something cooking with St. Louis. There is a 90% chance that it happens. They are decisions that someone must take in the future. I see myself managing, coaching in the United States for a few years. I like it. I am a guy that is fascinated with baseball, and I am passionate about it. To have an opportunity like that I cannot pass." That was then. Now, days before Thanksgiving Daniel Descalso has been named Cardinals 2024 Bench Coach. Forgive this bureau’s skepticism, but something seems odd here. Since the end of the regular season, tea leaves pointed to a 2024 Molina return to the 314. We in this little corner of cyberspace believe the return of #4 would be welcomed and needed. Many times in 2023 the Cardinals looked like a rudderless ship: a team lacking direction and discipline. Marmol even implied his after the October 1 regular season finale when the Manager said: “I want a clubhouse full of guys that have one thing on their mind, and it’s not themselves,” Inquiring minds can’t help but wonder if with Molina in the clubhouse, would this drama have occurred. Inquiring minds wonder if there would have been the public pitching staff revolt toward the starting catcher or if Willson Contreras’ attitude would have been more businesslike or if Marmol would have been forced to address protocol and tough decisions. #4 is in a unique position. He has the gravitas and is a legend throughout self-proclaimed Baseball Heaven. He has plenty of money and respect. Molina could confront any underperformer face to face. Molina can challenge the Front Office if he sees them as complacent. Molina would come across as a hero with the self-proclaimed Best Fans in Baseball should there be a Front Office showdown about philosophical differences. At the end of the day, Yadier Molina does not need the 2024 St. Louis Cardinals. Rather, the 2024 St. Louis Cardinals need Yadier Molina. Again, we ask the Front Office, are you paying attention to all of this? Meanwhile as Thanksgiving approaches, the off-season rolls on and the Cardinals extreme makeover continues. Welcome back Lance Lynn and Daniel Descalso. Memo to the POBO and the Front Office: There is more coming, right? This isn’t it, right? A Busch Perspective... September 10 This bureau always enjoys chatting with the current Busch III ushering staff. To that end, while walking to the Press Gate prior to the finale of the Labor Day weekend series with the Pittsburgh Pirates, we chatted with an older usher who shared a tale. The night before the Red Birds blew another 9th inning save/opportunity that led to a loss. As the bottom of the ninth ended, the older usher said he thanked the departing fans for attending, reminded them to drive home safely and sked if they would see them tomorrow. When we asked the usher if the departing fans politely declined to returning the next day, the usher replied, “Actually, the fans didn’t say no” “They said, Hell No”. My, oh my This bureau has often questioned the real passion of the self-proclaimed Best Fans in Baseball. Naturally, loads of folks show up on Opening Day and appear during the playoffs. But it’s during tough time when the dedication is challenged. The summer of 2023 has indeed been challenging in the 314. Despite winning two straight in National League leading Atlanta, the local nine are still in last place in the Central Division at 61-78. Four more losses would guarantee the team’s first losing season since the Clinton Administration. At this writing, as a Big-League Manager Oliver Marmol has compiled a 154-146 win/loss record. Even the national pundits are noticing. In its recent Power Poll, The Athletic ranks St. Louis 26th of the 30 MLB teams with this review: “The Cardinals are not in a position to tear down and rebuild. They don’t really do that in St. Louis. The losing this season has been a shock to the system, but there’s always next year, and Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak has emphasized that starting pitching will be a priority moving forward. The Cardinals could look to move some of their excess position-player depth. They could dip their toe into free agency. There are options. But one thing is clear: St. Louis’ pitching staff ranked 25th in ERA, and things have to be better than that.” Yeah, Self-proclaimed Baseball Heaven has not been the happiest place on earth this summer. In past seasons, the Cardinals success was directly proportional to a winning record against Divisional foes. But in 2023, not so much. At this writing St. Louis is 15-24 against NLCD foes. That includes the Red Birds going 4-9 against the Pirates and 5-8 against the Chicago Cubs in 2023. At thus writing the local nine is 12-24 in one-run games and are 17-53 in games when the opposition scores first. So, it has been a rough summer if you are a Cardinal fan. And it’s starting to show at the gate. With ten home games remaining, the Red Bird Official Home attendance is 40,120 per game. Now it should be noted that the “official attendance” does not equal the actual turnstile count or the “eye test”. Viewing the rows of empty seats from the Press Box while hearing the official attendance total, this bureau was reminded of that famous line of a song by the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Eagles: “You can’t hide your lying eyes”/ Regardless, let’s examine that 40,120 number. Ten home games remain. Even with an expected large crowd for Adam Wainwright Day, that 40,120 per home game total likely will not get much better. How does that compare to past seasons? In 2022 the Cardinals drew 40,994 per home game. In the pre-COVID seasons of 2019 and 2018, the average per game attendance at Busch Stadium III was 42,967 and 42,019, respectively. Any way you slice it, the trend is moving the wrong way for for the home. Team. A deeper 2023 dive is more concerning. From August 1 through Labor Day, the Cardinals played nineteen home games. In those nineteen games, only three of them announced an official attendance total over 40,000. We repeat, Memo to the suits at 700 Clark Street: are you paying attention? Under this ownership group, the Cardinals have consistently been successful in the field. That on-field success translated to success at the gate, television ratings concessions and license merchandise sales. During their tenure, the current ownership group should be proud their franchise year in and year out has been in the top five of Major League home attendance. That has been the real Cardinal Way. At the core of the Red Bird business model is success on the field which translates to butts in the seats. Winning baseball brings fans and their discretionary cash downtown to purchase tickets, beers, sodas, hot dogs, souvenirs, parking and perhaps even enjoying all the fun at Ball Park Village. But last place Baseball will obstruct those plans: especially so in this red state where folks can sometimes be set in its ways. It sure looks like the fans are speaking: “Actually, the fans didn’t say no” “They said, Hell No”. Memo to the suits at 700 Clark Street: are you paying attention? Better?! Aptil 30 This isn’t getting
any better.
As the calendar approaches May, the St. Louis Cardinals are concluding their ten-game in ten days, three-city West Coast road-trip. The West Coast excellent adventure has been not a happy one for the pre-season National League Central Division favorites. On the morning of the last Saturday of April, the Cardinals have an overall record of 10-17. They are currently in last place in the NLCD: eight and one-half games behind the first place Pittsburgh Pirates (BTW: that is not a misprint). With two games remaining, the local nine are 2-6 on this West Coast adventure and are 3-7 in the last ten games Saying it another way, St. Louis needs a seven-game winning streak just to reach .500. The Red Birds are 0-9 this season in the opening game of each season. To reach ninety victories in 2023, the Cardinals have to post an 80-55 record (.592 winning percentage) the rest of the way. Any way you look at it, St. Louis is playing from behind. This is not the desired road map for a team whose cleanest path to reach the playoffs is to win the Division. April results so far suggest capturing a 2023 NL Wild Card spot will be challenging. That means winning the Division remains the cleanest route to the playoff. In an attempt to remedy the Cardinals have tinkered with their roster. After a 12-game hitting streak to open the season, rookie Jordan Walker was assigned to the team’s Triple-A affiliate in Memphis. Shortstop Paul DeJong’s returned to the lineup with a bang. That is the good news. The bad news is this DeJong return has muddled the team’s middle infield structure. St. Louis has been a team influx during April. In their first 27 games of 2023, the local nine has a team batting average of .258 (third in the NL) and have scored 120 runs (4.44 runs per game) to date. Meanwhile, in the same 27 games the St. Louis pitching has posted a 4.49 earned run average while allowing 118 earned runs (4.37 earned runs per game) to date. Before returning on May Day to Busch III, the Red Birds still have two more games at Dodger Stadium. To date, the Adam Wainwright-less St. Louis starting rotation has logged 142.2 innings. That translates to a tad under 5 innings per starter per game. That also translates to the bullpen having to log those remaining innings per game. And, it’s only the first weekend of April This isn’t getting any better As the calendar moves to May, the Red Birds return to Busch III for a six-game homestand: three each against the Angels and Detroit, respectively. Then the team travels will play three games at Wrigley Field. Then comes nineteen games in nineteen days in four cities. It starts with three games at Fenway Park followed by seven home games: three against Milwaukee followed by four against the Dodgers. After the Dodger series, St. Louis heads to Ohio for games at Cincinnati then Cleveland. May concludes with a Memorial Day matchup against Kansas City in the eastern part of the state of Missouri. So, let’s review. For Cardinals, who are currently seven games under .500, are scheduled to play 29 games in 31 days. Fifteen of those games will be played at home with fourteen games played on the road. This is not the best scenario for a stressed pitching staff that to date has logged a lot of innings. This isn’t getting any better In its latest ESPN.com Power Rankings, the local nine is ranked 21st of the thirty NLB teams. Writer Jesse Rogers offers these thoughts: “A miserable month can't come to a close soon enough for the Cardinals. St. Louis is finally starting to pitch better, but that doesn't excuse lofty ERAs for starters Miles Mikolas and Steven Matz in April. The Cards aren't deep enough on the mound to withstand multiple starters struggling -- and that's not to mention Jack Flaherty, who is still slowly returning to form after all of his injuries. If those starters don't get rolling, it's going to be a long season in St. Louis -- no matter how well the offense performs.” In that same chart, the World-Wide Leader of Cable Sports Broadcasting ranks the Tampa Bay Rays in the top spot: with the Atlanta Braves, New York Mets, Houston Astros and the New York Yankees, in that order, rounding out the top five. Looking at the upcoming schedule the Cardinals will have to travel to Tampa and Atlanta, with six games against the Mets with both the Astros and Yankees coming to Busch III. But right now, two games at Chavez Ravine remain. After the series opening loss to the Dodgers, Red Bird Manager Oliver Marmol offered his thoughts on the situation saying: “(first baseman Paul Goldschmidt) is about to get hot. The swings he is taking right now are really good. Nolan (Arenado) is looking a lot better, so that's a plus. ... There are several things pointing (up) but at the end of the day, you're paid to win." In a mid-week interview in San Francisco with the team’s regional cable sports outlet, team President of Baseball Operations John Mozeliak tried to talk everyone off the ledge saying, “one thing I would ask from our fanbase is patience. We always have to remind ourselves it’s still April”. With April dwindling and May approaching, we’ll see if the self-proclaimed Best Fans in Baseball will agree. But this s not where the team was expected to be. Welcome to May, Cardinal Nation. Any way you look at it, This sure needs to get better. Soccer in STL: Today...and a History Lesson March 4 This first Saturday
of March is memorable for the Gateway City. St. Louis City FC will play
its first regular season Major Soccer League home game at their new
stadium near Union Station. A sellout crowd is expected.
Perhaps it is fitting this first match will be played on 3/4/23. You see, the team is in town to hopefully march forth into the 314’s sports calendar. To date, interest in the new team seems strong. The Opening Game has been sold out for weeks. There will be watch parties all over town. Merchandise sales have been brisk. You can see fans everywhere donning the familiar soccer scarfs throughout town. We in this little corner of cyberspace salute Carolyn Kindle, Jim Kavanaugh and their entire front office team in pulling this off. Given the political climate of this region, its resistance to change and the history of St. Louis snatching defeat out of the mouths of victory in such endeavors, the completion of the MLS dream is impressive. It didn’t hurt that Kindle and Kavanaugh are two of a dying breed: Executives of companies that are headquarters in St. Louis. There are not many remaining. Anheuser-Busch, Ralston Purina, Monsanto, Famous Barr and others have either relocated their headquarters elsewhere or ceased operations entirely. To that end, Kindle and Kavanaugh have clout that City Hall can’t counter. Again, we applaud their efforts and remain amazed they pulled this off. And this comes from a bureau that is not much of a soccer follower. The sport of soccer is engraved in St. Louis. From the Hill to North City to South City, youngsters through programs like the Catholic Youth Council and others played the game. The sport advanced to the college level at St. Louis University and Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville. The sport flourished in the early 1980s when it went indoors. Back then the St. Louis Steamers Indoor Soccer team packed over 17,000 into the old firetrap at 5700 Oakland Avenue for their home games. But perhaps what brought St. Louis soccer to national/international attention occurred 73 years ago. That is when the 1950 United States Soccer Team shutout and dramatically upset powerful England 1-0 in World Cup competition. Five of the members of that US team hailed from St. Louis: primarily from the Italian “Hill” section of our town. Team goaltender Frank Borghi, Gino Pariani, long-time St. Louis University Head Men’s soccer coach, Harry Keough, Walter Geisler and Charlie Columbo, all from St. Louis, are members of the long-shot American team that competed in Brazil. All played instrumental roles. None realized at the time the impact their upset would have on the soccer world. They were all from St. Louis. All were family men who served our country honorably militarily and proud members of the Greatest Generation. Life was different in 1950. World War II just ended, but Korea was beginning. Many young families were converting from wartime to peacetime with their soldier-fathers and/or sons back home. Harry Truman occupied the White House. Television consisted of a black & white Philco. Cable was only buried in the ground. No one ever heard of “Internet”. Before that small high school in Hickory captured the Indiana Boys High School basketball championship, long before an unknown walk-on showed up on the fabled turf in South Bend, Indiana and long before we started to believe in miracles on ice in Lake Placid, New York, this young group of Americans shook the world on soccer’s biggest stage. In 1950, no one covered the soccer World Cup except for St. Louis Post Dispatch writer and Soccer Hall of Fame member Dent Mc Skimming. He was the only American journalist at the 1950 United States vs. England World Cup game. In order to attend Mc Skimming took vacation time from the Post and paid his own way to Brazil. In 1950 soccer is considered the “World Game”. But it never really caught on in the U S. Our country was fixed on baseball: with the explosion of football and basketball on the horizon. Still on the Hill and other parts of town, the World Game was a way of life. It was part of the fabric of the community. Despite their talents and successes on this side of the Atlantic, when this throw-together U S squad hit the field in Brazil, no one gave them much of a chance. Mc Skimming describes how this soccer team with players from all locations and nationalities, competed in the 1950 World Cup. The squad drew the powerful England in the first round. The game would prove to be a classic. Behind forward Joe Gaetjens’ sole goal and the incredible goalkeeping skills of Borghi, the US team would bend but would not break. Ninety minutes later when the final gun sounded, the Americans shut out heavily-favored England 1-0. The 1950 upset win over England might be the greatest unknown St. Louis sports story. Well before Ozzie Smith had us “Going Crazy” and David Freese walked it off in Game 6, well before the “Monday Night Miracle”, well before Bob Pettit scored 50 points to beat the Boston Celtics, and well before Mike Jones made “The Tackle”, this US soccer team beat England in 1950. While the dramatic win is considered sacred lore on the Hill and in the annals of local sports historians, few outside our town mention this event. The game was chronicled in the 2005 film “The Game of Their Lives”. The movie’s word premiere took place in St. Louis at the Esquire Theatre on Clayton Road. It was the only time (and likely ever) his bureau attended a red-carpet event. On this first Saturday of March, St. Louis City FC starts what hopefully will become a long and successful tenure in the 314. While there is much excitement around town, hopefully this interest will mushroom and not become just a flavor of the week. Time will tell but we wish the Front Office well and this bureau thanks them again for their efforts. If we may offer one suggestion, hopefully in that new soccer palace downtown there will be an area dedicated to our town’s past with the World’s Game. Hopefully included will be a spot reserved for that 1950 team that shocked the world with several St. Louis kids on its roster. As big of deal is that professional soccer is arriving in St. Louis in 2023, It may not have happened not for what occurred seventy-three years ago. Mike's Letter to Santa December 23 Dear Santa: T’was but days before Christmas and all through the
Lou, there’s
a whole bunch of us here waiting for you. 2022 was galore throughout
the 314. In
a nostalgic season the Cardinals returned to post-season play: but
their
playoff stay lasted less than 36 hours The Blues made it to the second
round of
the NHL playoffs only to be sent home via a Stan Kroenke-owned team. Football and basketball at Ol Mizzou are still
being bullied in the tough SEC neighborhood. SLU Men’s Basketball
continues to tease
us. The XFL and MLS are scheduled to return in Q1-2023. While this bureau again asks its standard wish list
of being
taller, thinner, and darker hair, please allow us to offer a few
suggestions to
assist in your list before you hitch up the reindeer for your midnight
ride. We
hope it’ll make it easier as you load up your sleigh for the long trip
south. We do know that we better not pout and better not
cry. This
Wish List is for our local sports heroes, bosses, teams, and fans. But please keep it quiet because it’s a
secret. Some on this list that have been naughty, and some have been
nice. But
you already know that. So, to that end, this bureau suggests this 2022
Christmas wish
list: For the St. Louis Cardinals: A repeat
National League
Central Championship, lots of innings from their starting pitchers, an
offensively-productive outfield and a happy Willson Contreras. For Oli Marmol: A thumbs up for a successful
inaugural season as a mature 35-year-old Big League Manager and an open
mind
and eyes to address things to come For John Mozeliak: a sense of urgency: The
POBO saw
the results first hand when the much-needed transactions at the trading
deadline produced positive results. Sitting on your hands while
spinning
professorial excuses for inactions isn’t going to cut it and everyone
sees it. For Yadier Molina and Albert Pujols: Thanks
for the
memories and specific thanks for making 2022 a happy ending instead of
it not
ending well. For Adam Wainwright: A well deserved farewell
tour,
career win #200, and a job offer in the broadcasting industry at the
end of the
season. For Paul Goldschmidt: A deep appreciation and
respect
from the fans for solid and productive efforts in a businesslike manner. For Alex Reyes: Our best wishes: it’s a shame
that
things didn’t work out better in the 314 Tyler O’ Neill: A healthy 2023 and a return
to his
2021 form: whether in St. Louis or elsewhere. Jack Flaherty: A strong 2023 season to
enhance his
soon-to-be free agent resume and improve his value as a Cardinal
trading chip
at the end of July MLB trading deadline. For John Rooney: More appreciation---he
remains a top
tier baseball announcer For the apologists on Bally Sports Midwest:
Broadcast
adjustments: PLEASE present telecasts that sound like more baseball
games rather
than a Management-approved talking point Cardinal pep rally. More
analysis
instead of infomercials about ticket discounts and giveaways; Please
pull back
on the hype and please lower the volume. For Dan McLaughlin: the help he badly needs. For Scott Rolen: a phone call and invitation
from
Cooperstown, New York To Rick Hummel: A
relaxing and enjoyable retirement/semi-retirement: you
remain the best
reason to buy a copy of the Post-Dispatch. Please don’t be a stranger
in your
press box next summer. To Tony Las Russa: Good health and
satisfaction knowing
your career is a job very well done. For the record, those of us you
scolded
during post-game press conferences, we still wear the experience as a
badge of
honor. For the self-proclaimed Best Fans in Baseball:
Another
red October but longer. For the St. Louis Blues: A playoff spot.
From what
we have seen so far, that is not a given. For Head Coach Craig Barube: His continued
blunt
management style and feedback. It’s refreshing to see that old school
tactics are
alive in 2022-2023 For Ryan O’Reilly: A contract extension to
keep
the Captain in the 314. Both parties want to get it done. It is the
right thing
to do, so just get it done. For Vladimir Tarasenko: Our respect and
continued
success wherever you may be playing a year from now For Jordan Binnington: A copy of the movie
“Back
to the Future circa 2019”. Any 2023 Blues success goes directly through
#50
goal crease. For Blues Fans: The opportunity to swing
their towels
and sing “Take Me Home Country Roads” deep into May down at 14th
& Clark. For the rich & arrogant cartel better
known as the
National Football League: Nothing because we don’t care about you
anymore---and
once again thanks for the big check. For the MLS-STL Group: Thanks. and perfect
February
soccer weather when the MLS arrives in that new downtown soccer palace
It’s
still hard to believe it was really pulled off in this town. To the Battlehawks: A copy of John
Sebastian’s TV
theme “Welcome Back”, 30,000 fans at your home opener and a healthy
“Ka-Kaw”
from the 314 For the University of Missouri Football Program: A season where the win totals exceed those in
the loss total, effective use of the transfer portal for internal and
external
players and something better than the Gasparilla Bowl (whatever that
is) in
2023. To Missouri Head Football Coach Eliah Drinkwitz: a
reminder---these are your recruits, your transfers and your program and
as such
you will own the results. For the St. Louis University soccer programs:
Continued success. It was really fun watching how the legacy of
Billiken
kickers of the past returned in 2022. For the St. Louis University Men’s Basketball
program:
Tangible results that include wins against ranked opponents. Also, stop
the
teasing how “this is the year” each season. For local college basketball fans: Two
things: 1)
Relevancy for the annual “Bragging Rights” game. Remember when that
game used
to be the hottest ticket in town? 2) An annual Missouri/St. Louis
University
basketball game rotating between St. Louis and Columbia. There’s no
reason why this
game shouldn’t occur: especially as programs need shots in the arm. For the flagship radio station of the St. Louis
Cardinals:
Direction and a clue---The Q4-2022 Arbitron numbers were terrible and
the once
mighty-MOX continues to dive into irrelevancy in the local radio
market. While
the decline has been self-inflicted, what has happened to this
legendary radio
station is sad. Also, please drop the moniker of “America’s Sports
Voice”,
because you are not. For the faithful readers of St. Louis Sports
On-Line:
A wonderful, blessed, and safe Christmas, and a wish for a great and
prosperous
2023. Plus, our thanks for bookmarking this site and visiting it on a
regular
basis. Well, that’s about it. Yeah,
I know it’s a long list so thanks for
listening, Santa. See you soon. Have a safe trip and we’ll keep the
lights at
the top of the Arch lit. We’ll also have cookies & milk as well as a
couple Blues/Blackhawk
tickets waiting for you. Your friend, A Mission from God?! July 27 A classic quote from the film occurred when, after securing the needed funds by putting the band back together, the brothers hopped into their car to make the trip to the Cook County Accessor’s office in Chicago to pay the mortgage bill. Before leaving Elwood said to Jake: “There's 106 miles to Chicago, we've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark out, and we're wearing sunglasses.” To which Joliet Jake responded: “Hit it!” This scene came to mind this weekend after the St. Louis Cardinals completed their latest series against the Cincinnati Reds: losing two of three games. This bureau could almost hear Elwood say: ““There's 100 games played, we've got a .500 record, we’re in third place, eight games out of first place, and most of our starting pitchers are still unavailable”. To which this Bureau could almost hear Joliet Jake respond: “Forget it!” After one hundred games, it keeps getting bleaker and bleaker for the local nine. They are running out of time. On the morning of the last Monday of July, the Cardinals’ record is 50-50. Meanwhile, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego keep winning. It’s looking more and more like the two National League Wild Card teams will emerge from the NL West Division. If that does occur, it means only one NL Central team will advance to the 2021 post-season. That also means that if that does occur, St. Louis must win the Central to move to the next round. For that to happen, during the next sixty-two games first place Milwaukee will need to go into a major tailspin. Given the strength of the Brewer starting pitchers, a lengthy losing streak does not seem likely. To that end, given the current condition of the Cardinals starting pitchers, a lengthy winning streak does not seem likely. Forget it? In its recent Power Poll, ESPN.com ranks St. Louis at the bottom of its middle third of teams (#20) saying: “The Cardinals are treading water until they get healthy on the mound, but it might be too little, too late. Unlike other veteran teams who are far from first place, it's not likely St. Louis subtracts from its roster before July 30. St. Louis is hoping its 13 remaining games against the Brewers will be the difference.” With the trading deadline approaching by the end of the week, all indications point to the local nine as possible buyers and/or sellers. Either way, a significant transaction seems unlikely this week in the 314. That ship has likely already sailed when the Front Office did not to make a noteworthy trade once the injuries mounted with the pitching staff. SIDENOTE--Memo to the apologists of the team’s primary funding partner formerly known as Fox Sports Midwest: during the games this week please do not parrot the talking point that getting a pitcher back from the Injured List will be just like making a trade. It’s not. You can do better than that. While the August schedule appears on paper favorable for the Red Birds, the September schedule look much tougher. Aside from three games against the first place Brewers and two against the second place Reds, St. Louis will play against teams that currently have losing records. In August, St. Louis will play twenty-two games against a combination of Minnesota, Atlanta, Kansas City, Pittsburgh, and Detroit. Meanwhile, September not so much: During September the Cardinals will play only six games against teams that currently have losing records. During September, the Red Birds will play twenty-four games against the first place Mets and Brewers, as well as the Dodgers, Cincinnati, and San Diego. Saying it another way, it appears the continuation of a path for a .500 team. Forget it? But could that be a red flag of upcoming storm clouds? The Red Birds have not experienced a losing record since 2007. If that occurs and given the labor situation of Baseball and the lingering effects of COVID, the Front Office should take a deep, hard look at its organization and business plan. In the DeWitt era, the Cardinal organization has been successful and profitable. Until COVID hit, over 3 million fans per season came through the turnstiles at self-proclaimed Baseball Heaven. But for the business plan to work, the baseball team must be successful. If the Cardinals are winning all is well. Fans will show up and open their wallets to giveaway their discretionary cash. But as indicated in this little corner of cyberspace, this bureau continues to wonder how strong the passion of the self-proclaimed Best Fans in Baseball really is. To that end, inquiring minds wonder: just how will the self-proclaimed Best Fans in Baseball react should their heroes post a losing record in 2021? We’ve asked this question many times recently. On the final game of the 2019 regular season, the Cardinals were hosting the Chicago Cubs. If St. Louis wins the game, they become the NL Central Champs. But as the 2:15PM first pitch approached on a beautiful autumn afternoon against the rival Cubs, rows and rows of empty seats were found throughout Busch Stadium. In Game Four of the 2019 National League Championship Series, the Red Birds forced a deciding fifth game on a walk-off single by Yadier Molina. But Busch Stadium was not sold out for this playoff game: Note the words—Playoff Game. On the Sunday after the All-Star break: an unseasonably comfortable July Sunday afternoon against the team with best record in the National League, rows and rows of empty seats were seen at first pitch. And did we mention, the current Major League Baseball Collective Bargaining Agreement is set to expire at 12:01AM on Wednesday December 1, 2021. Yeah, the Front Office must be aware of all of this. Back to the present, there are now sixty-two games remaining. Next up, two games against the franchise that will soon be known as the Cleveland Guardians. Can the Cardinals make the 2021 playoffs? We suppose they “could”. But, will the Cardinals make the 2021 playoffs? It will likely require a mission from God. Better Make a New Plan?! July 14 The St. Louis Cardinals arrive at the All-Star break as a team with a losing record. The team is two games under .500. It has been a disappointing ninety games here in self-proclaimed Baseball Heaven. As the All Stars are arriving in Denver, the local nine find themselves tied for third place in the National League Central Division, eight games behind first place Milwaukee. The Brewers look like a team that is ready to take command of the Division. Meanwhile, the Red Birds do not. While conceding there have been injuries to the pitching staff, St. Louis has committed way too many self-inflicted wounds during the first half. At the break, the Cardinals have a team batting average of .230: tied for 25th place in the Majors. Red Bird pitchers have walked more than any other team (394 bases on balls in 90 games: aka 4.4 walks per game). Cardinals pitchers have struck out 697 batters: 29th in the Big Leagues and just one ahead of last place Arizona. To date, St. Louis pitchers have hit more opposing batters than any other team in MLB (64): ten more to the second place Chicago Cubs. On average, Red Bird pitchers have thrown 17.20 pitches per inning: which translates to an average of 154.8 pitches in a nine-inning game. For the period of 6/13/21 through 7/4/21, St. Louis was scheduled to play nineteen straight games against teams with losing records. Some of those teams are at the bottom of the standings. The apologists at the team’s primary funding partner/cable outlet pushed the talking points how this nineteen-game stretch would provide a reboot for the local nine. So, let’s go to the tape. St. Louis went 8-11 during those nineteen games. During June, the team posted a 10-17 record. In its most recent Power Ranking, CBS Sportsline ranked the Red Birds at #22 with this review: “If we exclude their series against the Diamondbacks and Marlins, the Cardinals are 7-25 since May 19. They have even lost series to the Tigers, Pirates and Rockies.” Yeah, lots of self-inflicted wounds. This sure hasn’t gone as planned, has it? With the first half loaded skewed against weaker teams, logic suggests the second half will be more challenging. That looks correct and here is the rundown:
This translates to 37 remaining games against National League Central Division teams (51.39% of the remaining schedule). This also translates to 19 remaining games against teams that currently are in first place (26.39%): which includes thirteen games against the Division leading Brewers. So, that brings us to questions: first, are the Cardinals contenders or not? At this writing, it appears that the two 2021 National League Wild Card teams will be coming from the NL West. If that occurs, then only the champion of the NL Central will head to the post-season. With seventy-two regular season games remaining, St. Louis is eight games behind the Brewers. But the Cardinals would have to leap-frog over two other teams to reach Milwaukee. If ninety wins are necessary to reach the playoffs, the Cardinals would have to go 46-26 (.639 winning percentage) the rest of the way. This looks like a challenge: even tougher considering the breakdown of the remaining 2021 St. Louis games. While thirteen games remain against Milwaukee, the Brewers would need to go into a losing streak for the Cardinals to go into a major losing streak to trim the gap. Given the strength of the Milwaukee starting pitching, that seems unlikely. So, are the Cardinals contenders or not? That brings us to question #2: should the Red Birds be buyers or sellers at the trading deadline? Unlike the Cubs, the Cardinals do not have attractive, tradable free agents that could be flipped for prospects. While, the St. Louis roster does have some high-priced contracts that will be coming off the books, none appear to be attractive to other suitors. Plus, with the cloud of labor unrest on the horizon, St. Louis may find it best for the long-term good simply to ride 2021 out and then reset when the new labor rules are in place. That would likely translate into more discounted ticket offers, bobbleheads and special gimmicks to engage in all the fun at Ball Park Village. Meanwhile, how will this all set with the self-proclaimed Best Fans in Baseball? It would be at minimum a test of the real passion and enthusiasm with the fan base. While the All Stars prepare for the Rocky Mountain adventure, here in the Gateway City the Cardinal Front Office will likely be making some candid decisions. In a conversation with our town’s only newspaper, Red Bird Manager reflected on the first half. “I always equate the season to a dimmer switch on a light. You need to keep it on because this game is such a challenge mentally. The game is so much played between the ears and there’s so much. But if you keep it all the way up all the time it will burn you slap out. My hope is they can lower that dimmer switch to a very, very low setting and just be able to get away from it. The Manager continued: “Clearly we’d like to be in a better position, buy I think all things being said, it could be in a lot worse position, for sure.” As the self-proclaimed Best Fans in Baseball and the Cardinal pitching staff rest up for the All-Star break, seventy-two games remain. The journey continues when the San Francisco Giants come to town to open a weekend series. Yeah, the same San Francisco Giants that has the best overall record in Major League Baseball. This sure hasn’t gone as planned, has it? posted June 14 It happened one year ago. On the evening of June 12, 2019 at approximately 9:45PM, although the temperature in St. Louis, Missouri was in the mid-60s, hell was about to freeze over. On the evening of June 12, 2019 at approximately 9:45PM thousands of Gateway City baby-boomers finally scratched an item off their bucket list. On the evening of June 12, 2019 at approximately 9:45PM the self-proclaimed Best Fans in Baseball were not overreacting to their favorite baseball team being shut out by the lowly Miami Marlins 9-0. On the evening of June 12, 2019 at approximately 9:45PM, at the end of Game #108 of the 2018-19 season the St. Louis Blues won the Stanley Cup. Has it really been one year? As we remain in a coronavirus world without any live sports to watch, debate or complain, sports fans across the fruited plain remain can only reminisce about the past glories and kick around stories. Reams of film of sporting events of past years have flooded airwaves over the past three months. Fans were searching for reminders of the games. Here is the Gateway City, there have been many of those moments to remember. Eleven times the Cardinals were crowned as World Series Champions. In January 2000, our town celebrated what likely will be its only Super Bowl Championship, On April 12,1958, the St. Louis Hawks won the NBA Championship On March 18, 1948, St. Louis University captured the NIT Tournament title (which back in those days was more prominent than the NCAA tournament). But there was still one missing for the 314. That is, until the evening of June 12, 2019 at approximately 9:45PM, St. Louis time. For years the St. Louis Blues were considered the Chicago Cubs of the National Hockey League. They were the NHL’s Charlie Brown. Die-hard followers always felt that after success, a trap door would eventually open. Whether it be the financial distresses of ownership, the sudden death of an up and coming young defenseman, a possible relocation to Saskatoon, the sudden break-up of a popular Head Coach as he scampered to enemy territory in Detroit, to a first round playoff elimination after winning the President’s Cup, to a lockout and a lost season, long-suffering Blues fans saw the football being yanked from them as they prepared to kick it. This was the life of a Blues fan. But it was different in 2019: although the familiar storyline preceded the celebration. In April 2018 the Blues did not qualify for the Stanley Cup playoffs. Then came an Opening Night loss to Winnipeg 5-1 in front of a sellout home crowd On the day before Thanksgiving, the team fired its Head Coach. During the season Blues players were fighting Blues players during a morning skate with local television cameras rolling. Hours after New Year’s Day 2019, the team found itself with the worst record in the NHL. Days after the big ball dropped in Time Square in January 2019, the St. Louis Blues were a train wreck. But 2019 would be remembered by St. Louis hockey fans much the same way as 1964 is remembered by St. Louis baseball fans. And just like fifty-five years prior, the turnaround started when a 25-year old whose last name begins with the letter B joined the team. On January 5, the Blues added goaltender Jordan Binnington to their roster. St. Louis’ record then was 16-9-4 with 53 games remaining in the regular season. Two nights later, Binnington stopped 25 Philadelphia shots as the Blues shut out the Flyers. This would be the start of a run where #50 would win 24 of his next 30 starts (including six shutouts). In Kurt Warner-like fashion, Binnington led the charge to rejuvenate his hockey team. The Blues would qualify for the playoffs. Suddenly a perfect storm was forming. As the team advanced deeper in the playoffs, NHL powerhouses in Tampa Bay, Calgary, Pittsburgh and Washington were sent to the golf course. Suddenly, a path was opening for the Blues. You had the feeling that if it didn’t happen in 2019, it might never occur. It started to fall into place. The Blues advanced to the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time since the Nixon Administration. They would eliminate Winnipeg, Dallas and then San Jose. Only a team remained. But that opponent came from a city that has sent shivers to St. Louis sports fans for over twenty years: Boston. Beantown seem to have curse over the Gateway City. The Bruins swept the Blues the last time St. Louis reached the NHL Finals in 1970. The Red Sox defeated the Cardinals in the World Series in 2004 and 2013. The Patriots knocked off the two-touchdown favorite St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI. Now, another team from Boston stands in the way of St. Louis winning a professional sports championship. The 2019 Stanley Cup Finals were a physical slugfest that went the distance. The deciding Game 7 would be played on a frozen pond in downtown Boston. But in this showdown, the Blues would conquer the bully. In that Game 7 Binnington was spectacular: stopping shot after shot and making save after save. #50’s performance quieted and declawed the roaring crowd at the TD Garden. While Binnington led the way, he was strongly assisted by Captain Alex Pietrangelo, who finally displayed the advertised leadership and dominance. Veteran Ryan O’Reilly took over as the center iceman Blues fans were coveting for over a decade. Their example cascaded down throughout the team. Then at approximately 10:45PM Eastern Time, the final horn sounded. The scoreboard told the story: St. Louis-4; Boston-1. The Blues players skated around while carrying the Stanley Cup in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The magic number became zero. This was playoff win #16. The Blues were the only NHL team in 2019 that ended its playoff run with a victory Back in the 314 the celebration began. The Blues playoff run united a region in desperate need of a shot of self-esteem. Watch parties became go-to events around town. From the Enterprise Center to Busch Stadium and spots in between, 60,000-80,000 flocked into downtown to experience Games Six and Seven of the Finals When the final horn sounded and when the Cup was presented, Gateway City fans celebrated heartily but respectfully. No fires were set. No cars were turned over. No windows were broken. This was a good time to be in the 314. The quest for the Stanley Cup is the most grueling gauntlet in all professional sports. A team plays eighty-two games over a six-month period for the opportunity to play some more. Then the first team to win the next sixteen games gets to spend time with the Stanley Cup. As the Cup was handed to each current Blues players on that Wednesday night in Boston, memories of Glenn Hall, Red Berenson, Barclay and Bob Plager, Garry Unger, Dan Kelly, Ronald Caron, Bob Gassoff, Doug Wickenhauser, Brett Hull, Bernie Federko, Brian Sutter and others that wore the blue note came to mind. Then the moment hit its crescendo three days later during a parade down Market Street: a parade that many in the 314 are still talking about. As we approach the fourth month of a professional sports lockdown, we are left to reminisce about past glories. For St. Louis, a big one took place on a mid-June night in Boston. And yes, it happened one year ago Comments? Contact Mike at: mike@stlsports.com
The Clock is (Still) Ticking
posted June 14
In a normal Major League Baseball season, Memorial Day would be one those benchmark dates to evaluate the state of our National Pastime. In a normal baseball season, roughly one-third of the regular season would be completed. Memorial Days provided teams an opportunity to gage their chances for the post-season or if a better path would be a fire sale of their better/more expensive players the better path. During a normal Major League Baseball season, the World-Wide Leader of Cable Sports Programming would be flooding their airwaves with games that would start before lunch time and would run straight through until after midnight. Here in self-proclaimed Baseball Heaven, in a normal Major League Baseball season the apologists of Fox Sports Midwest would be spinning patriotic stories while reminding the audience there are plenty of good seats available for future games, upcoming bobble head-giveaways and all the fun that is occurring at Ball Park Village. But 2020 is not a normal Major League Baseball season. It’s Memorial Day 2020. It’s the last Monday of May and not one Major League Baseball game has been played. If things went as planned, this bureau would be preparing a Memorial Day barbeque after finishing covering a weekend series with the Arizona Diamondbacks. But this is not a normal time. Instead we are approaching a deadline to decide if there will or will not be a 2020 Major League Baseball Season. The Lords of the Game as well as the MLB Players’ Association have been talking to carve out something to salvage 2020. Along the way there has been finger-pointing and sniping. But the bottom line is there is no agreement. In this environment, everyone has something to lose. The players are collecting reduced paychecks while helplessly watching a prime season of their career fade away. Published reports that have crunched the numbers predict the cost of a lost season would be $170 million guaranteed and full service time for the players. For those making the minimum, it is spelled out in the Collective Bargaining Agreement: “at the 2019 rate per season plus a cost of living adjustment, rounded to the nearest $500, provided that the cost of living adjustment shall not reduce the minimum salary below $555,000”. Owners are not collecting ticket revenue and reduced (if any) broadcasting money. While both sides have been talking since what would have been Opening Day, no plan has been finalized. Plus (and it’s a big plus), the plan would need a thumbs-up from local officials and the Feds. The folks at ESPN.com sum it up this way: “Owners want players to take a pay cut on top of one mandated by the March agreement, which states players be given a prorated salary depending on the number of games played. Players continue to hold firm, confident that the language guaranteeing them a pro rata share is unassailable. Talks, accordingly, have grown tense. Neither side has made an official proposal. Even if they agree on a deal that covers money and health, MLB needs federal, state and local officials to rubber-stamp play in home cities, a charge complicated by the varying rates of infection and presence of the coronavirus.” “Major League Baseball owners are really rich, and if they are cash poor and need to borrow money to pay employees and minor leaguers and major leaguers this season, they can and should. Wealth is often built on debt. This debt is an investment in the future of their asset.” “The health-and-safety protocol will be there. The posturing is over. Deals take flexibility. Embrace it. The appetite for the game is ravenous. The time for a deal, for baseball to return, is finally here.” So, as we prepare our Memorial Day barbeques, the Owners and Players keep talking in this expensive game of chicken with Baseball fans across the fruited plain watching their every move. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking. The sands of the 2020 baseball hourglass are fading away. In this little corner of cyberspace, the hope is something can be hammered out to have some form of 2020 baseball. In a perfect world, an agreement be reached so that June can be used as a quasi-spring training period with baseball resuming somewhere on or around the 4th of July. Again, that is in a perfect world and perfect worlds don’t always occur. In the meantime, this bureau wonders if this Owners/Players virus standoff is a preview of upcoming attractions. It has been reported in many venues there is a growing animosity and dislike between both parties. Those of us in this little corner of cyberspace wonder if this COVID-19 resumption is laying the groundwork for a bigger battle. That battle can be found on Page 154 of the current Major League Baseball Collective Bargaining Agreement: “This Agreement shall terminate on December 1, 2021 at 11:59 P.M. Eastern Time.” The hope is two-fold: first, Baseball can be restored in some shape or form during 2020 and the final product doesn’t create any more mistrust or resentment between the Players and the Owners. Most of the current Major League Baseball Players were either not yet born or were in elementary school in August 1994: the last time the game shut down. Many of today’s Baseball ownership groups were not involved in that battle. But there are some of us, including this bureau, that remembers vividly just how devasting the shutdown to the industry and how difficult it was to restore the fans’ respect. When the game returned in April 1995, Owners and Players quickly found out this was not Field of Dreams. If you build it. they would come: Not. Instead, the game returned to stadiums were only 75% full and many of the fans who were attendance jeered and mocked the returning players. It was ugly. The fans did not forget. The hope here is returning to the field in 2020 is not a preview of upcoming attractions. In a normal Major League Baseball season, Memorial Day would be one those benchmark dates to evaluate the state of our National Pastime. But 2020 is not a normal Major League Baseball season. Memo to the Major League Owners and Players’ Association: Gentlemen, the ball is in your court. And the clock is ticking. Aledmys
Diaz, Kurt Warner & Talent Evaluation: Tunnel Vision, Not Knowing
What You Don't Know & Missing Greatness
Editor In June of 1981 I met a
young lady (Susan) who, in
September of 1982, became my wife.
In 1983 we attended a
David Bowie concert at what
was then known as the Rosemont Horizon (in suburban Chicago). By that
time,
Bowie had become a mainstream pop star whose songs were heard all over
the
world.
It was my first Bowie
show, and the entire
experience catalyzed an acute awareness of David Bowie and his music.
(Late to
the party, eh?)
In 2004 Bowie performed
at St. Louis' Fox Theatre,
we were there, and those in attendance were mesmerized by what we
observed: we
were in the presence of a star.
By that time, I had
gained knowledge of most of his
career--in large part thanks to wife Susan, who was far 'ahead of the
curve' on
Mr. Bowie.
=====
Forty years ago (March 3,
1976, to be precise),
Susan attended her first David Bowie concert, at Chicago's
International
Amphitheater.
She was eighteen years
old and returned home from
college to see the show--accompanied by her younger brother. Bowie's perfomance
confirmed what she first
suspected years previously after seeing the man on a Saturday night Don
Kirshner-style music video TV show: namely, David Bowie was an
avant-garde
performer with world-class talent, talent impossible to ignore if you
knew what
to look for. Literally ten days prior
to Bowie's International
Amphitheater show, that same Bowie tour paused in Evansville IN on
February 22,
1976, for a Sunday night performance at Roberts Stadium (the home of
the
Evansville Purple Aces basketball team).
I was seventeen at the
time, still a senior at a
small town high school located a half-hour or so from Roberts Stadium...but
I believed I had better things to do than watch some Brit named David
Bowie
perform a couple dozen of his songs.
As I look back to
February of 1976, I had plenty of
awareness of the upcoming bicentennial celebration; plenty of awareness
of high
school advanced chemistry, physics, trigonometry and analytic geometry;
plenty
of enjoyment of high school golf; a fun job at an area supermarket
(don't
laugh: $2.10/hr and time-and-a-half on Sundays); as well as fun and
frivolity
with friends and a high school sweetheart.
This was my world, and it
was all good.
But my good
world, in February
of 1976, would have been my better world if I
had
possessed a little more awareness of the earth around me and had opened
my eyes
to the talents of David Bowie, who, to me at the time, was the guy who
sang the
throwaway Top 40 pop song 'Golden Years'.
Therefore, in 1976, I had
no interest in attending
the Bowie show in Evansville, Indiana.
After all, it was a
Sunday night (school the next
day!) and I had never attended anything other than basketball games and
the
Shrine Circus in Roberts Stadium, a venue that I believed to be
infested,
during rock concerts, with pot-smokers and troublemakers that roamed
freely in
a world that I did not understand.
In other words, my
perspective was foolishly
limited and suffered from myriad distractions, and my tunnel vision
of
that world was incomplete.
The result of tunnel
vision? I didn't know
what I didn't know.
===== Tunnel vision in
professional sports?
On a micro scale,
Cardinals' rookie shortstop
Aledmys Diaz comes to mind as a player whose skills were viewed by
major league
talent evaluators with tunnel vision: they didn't know what they
didn't
know.
Prior to the 1999 season,
the Rams signed
free-agent QB Trent Green to a four-year multimillion dollar contract,
and
viewed Warner, at best, as a back-up--because he (Warner) was made
available
to the Cleveland Browns in the NFL's 1999 Expansion Draft! The Browns did select a
quarterback in their
expansion draft: Tampa Bay QB Scott Milanovich, who was released before
training camp commenced. Browns' management were convinced that
#1-overall
draft choice Tim Couch would be their QB for a decade. Nearly two decades later,
the Cleveland Browns are
still looking for a quarterback while Super Bowl champion Kurt Warner
hopes for
his induction to the professional football Hall of Fame, and Aledmys
Diaz is
hoping for an invitation to Miami for the 2016 MLB All Star Game.
=====
|
Real Life and Sports--Tied for First?! September 19 [better formatted for phone -->here<--]
I. Rick Hummel: The Commish
Earlier this year, long-time (really long-time!) St.
Louis Post-Dispatch
sportswriter Rick Hummel passed away.
Although Hummel occasionally covered other sports
for the
P-D, evidence that the Cardinals were his primary assignment for the
better
part of five (?!) decades includes [1] his 2007 election into the
writers’ wing
of the Baseball Hall of Fame, and [2] his nickname: “The Commish”…as in
the
Commissioner of Baseball.
Truth: actual MLB commissioners (Bud Selig
and Rob Manfred) referred to Hummel, in person, as Commish...
Additional reminders of Hummel’s excellence (and
legacy): [1]
his name adorns the current Busch Stadium press box, and [2] the story
that current
Cardinals beat writer Derrick Goold tells on himself—for years, when
the
self-effacing Goold worked road games and arrived in various press
boxes as a
visiting sportswriter, on more than one occasion he was greeted by
staffers and
writers with a bit of a grimace and an ”oh, it’s you” comment—because
media in
other towns had expected, and even looked forward to, renewing Hummel’s
acquaintance.
II. Beat Writer Rick Hummel: Tied for First
For most of his career, Rick Hummel was not a
columnist.
Rather, his specialty was the construction of informative and
straightforward ‘game
stories’, most of which were leavened with post-game quotes from that
night’s
notable performers. In other words, in baseball-writing parlance, Rick
Hummel
was a ‘beat writer.’ The guy wrote thousands of game stories—a rather
mundane
task to some, but in fact, game stories, for decades, were the
meat-and-potatoes of daily baseball journalism…especially prior to the
rise of highlight
shows such as ESPN SportsCenter.
It is tempting to say that Rick Hummel qualified as
baseball’s best beat writer.
Or, as former Cardinals manager Tony La Russa might
have
said, perhaps Hummel was ‘Tied for first’ as baseball’s best beat
writer.
It is hard to explain how well the hand of Rick
Hummel fit
into the glove that is major league baseball.
Umpires, team and league executives and staffers, managers, players and stadium employees…as well as his sportswriting and media colleagues from all parts of North America—all willingly played starring roles in each summer’s edition of ‘The Rick Hummel Baseball Experience.’
III. The Baseball Wisdom of Rick Hummel: One Last
Thank
You
Of course there was no such thing as ‘The Rick
Hummel
Baseball Experience.’ His ballpark persona was far too humble for that.
But what Rick Hummel was able to offer his readers,
from
Spring Training through the World Series, was careful and judicious
writing,
based on his viewing of that night’s game, as well as decades of
experience and
true baseball wisdom. The man really did know the game of baseball, an
essential trait when conversing on a near-daily basis with the likes of
former
Cardinals managers Whitey Herzog and Tony La Russa—neither of whom
suffer fools.
It is with that in mind that I share my very last
conversation with Rick Hummel, which took place after a March 2023
Grapefruit
League game, within a virtually empty Roger Dean Stadium press box.
While each of us were collecting pens, notebooks,
laptops
and March Madness pools, our conversation turned to the Cardinals, and
their prospects
for the upcoming season.
“They don’t have enough pitching,” Hummel said. He continued: “I was a little surprised they didn’t
do more
to address the pitching…in the off-season. Of course they did add some
guys I
don’t know a lot about, but it seems like they didn’t add enough
pitching. They
are going to have to acquire more pitching.”
As we left the press box and headed for the
elevator, our
chat turned to what I believed to be the singular take-home message
offered by
the 2023 Grapefruit League edition of the St. Louis Cardinals: the
organization’s abundance of genuine position player prospects…young
players who
could be real stars.
Hummel: “You’re right. In all the years I’ve been
doing
this, I’ve never seen what is here right now, in terms of prospects.
Yes, every
year in March, the Cardinals might have one prospect to showcase. Some
years
they had none. This year is different. In (Jordan) Walker [67, left]
and (Masyn) Winn [60, left],
they have two. Two! Two superior prospects, both with legitimate
chances to be
star players…or more. I’ve not seen that here before. Ever.”
Masyn Winn was called
up from AAA
Memphis on August 18, and made his MLB debut vs. the NY Mets the next
day.
As a big leaguer, Winn has already dazzled
defensively and evidenced
repeated hints that he possesses the combination of superlative
athleticism and
baseball skills that together, along with his jersey number (0), offer
echoes
of another Cardinals player who wore jersey number 1, and played
shortstop in a
sublime (wizardly?!) fashion. Style and skills possessed by Wynn sell tickets…and
win
baseball games.
Masyn Winn (0) Busch Stadium (September
18,
2023) stlsports.com Offensively, Winn’s growth as a hitter is happening
as this
is written. The hesitation displayed in his initial big league plate
appearances is rapidly disappearing—the young man is learning fast and
is
likely to contribute in a significant way to the Cardinals 2024 batting
order.
Spoiler: Masyn Winn batted lead-off in more than one
2023
Spring Training game.
Meanwhile, the 21 year old Jordan Walker recorded
his 100th
major league hit in mid-September of this, his rookie season. Wearing
#18, Walker
has settled into right field rather nicely.
Jordan Walker
(18) Busch Stadium (April
3, 2023) stlsports.com Whenever Winn is slotted in the line-up immediately
behind
Walker in Cards manager Oli Marmol’s batting order, I am reminded of
Hummel’s
words about the young duo, and their future possibilities as Cardinals.
It is a pleasant thought.
IV. Rick Hummel and Tony La Russa: A Peek Behind
the
Curtain
Watching the man at work, it seemed to this observer
that Rick
Hummel viewed his job as one of gathering information while remaining
as
invisible as possible, a perspective that put Hummel in good stead as
far as
his sources were concerned.
Considering only the 21st century work of
Rick
Hummel: headline makers such as Jim Edmonds, Albert Pujols, Yadier
Molina and Adam
Wainwright; decision-makers such as former and current Cards executives
Walt
Jocketty and John Mozeliak; former and current managers Tony La Russa,
Mike
Matheny, Mike Shildt and Oli Marmol; as well as dozens of
rarely-heard-from-again
September call-ups…when Hummel needed a quote, he usually got what he
needed
from these gentlemen.
But in what should not qualify as news, not all big
league
ballplayers want to be quoted by sportswriters, even those with the
pedigree
and reputation of Rick Hummel.
For example, a half-hour or so after a spring
training game
in the early 2000s, Hummel entered the office of Tony La Russa, a
modest room
immediately adjacent to the team’s home clubhouse at Roger Dean
Stadium. There
was only one other visitor in said office at the time of Hummel’s
entry: yours
truly.
After a bit of small talk, Hummel shared with La
Russa his
reason for chatting: he desired some quotes from a player (Player X),
and Player
X, a rising part-time player the previous year who was thought to be
ready to contribute
as a regular in the upcoming season, was not cooperating. No doubt a complicating factor was that English was
not the
first language of Player X.
As if he was shot out of a cannon, La Russa sprung
out of
his chair while telling Hummel, under his breath, that he would ‘take
care of
that.’
Hummel responded with a smile, a nod, and a ‘thank
you.’
La Russa left his office for the clubhouse (leaving
Hummel
and I alone there) and returned, grinning, to the seat behind his desk,
after
only a couple of minutes.
Quotes from Player X were in Hummel’s Post-Dispatch
piece the
next day.
V. My Mother-in-Law Has Something In Common with
Tony La
Russa?
(AUTHOR’S NOTE: Dear reader—stay with me here!)
More than two decades ago, it became apparent to me
that Betty,
my mother-in-law, was a lot smarter than she let on.
For me, what tipped it in was when I figured out the
genius
of one of Betty’s favorite conversational techniques.
It goes like this:
If everyone in our group was ready to leave for a
restaurant
except for her husband Bob, who might have been in an upstairs bedroom
getting
ready…what did Betty say to the rest of us?
“Bob’s making himself even more
handsome.”
Similarly, when her daughter or a granddaughter were
a bit
behind schedule for an event, what might she be doing? The young lady in question was not said to be
brushing her
hair. Nor was she was applying make-up, fixing her coat, or maybe,
dressing a
child. Instead…“She’s making herself even more
beautiful.”
Betty’s explanations, always delivered with a sly
smile, accomplished
multiple goals.
After a while, the overall utility of “She’s making
herself
even more beautiful” came to mind whenever I thought of former Cards
manager
Tony La Russa uttering the phrase “Tied for first.”
And at times it seemed as if La Russa utilized this
phrase a
couple of times a month.
What happened was this—back in the heyday of major
metropolitan daily newspapers and their deadlines, a given paper’s
sportswriters needed quick post-game quotes from significant players as
well as
the team’s manager. Every night. After every game. Over and over.
As a result, a short-hand developed—if Player Y made
a
spectacular defensive play, the writer might say to the manager: “Talk
about
Player Y. Was that the best play you’ve ever seen?”
And the response was usually a ready-made quote for
that
night’s game story.
I first witnessed how this played out with Tony La
Russa
early in the 1996 season, his first as the St. Louis manager. Remember, Tony La Russa had managed over 2,500 (!)
baseball
games prior to his hiring as the Cards manager.
As a result, La Russa’s standard answer to that sort
of
question was a bit different than most. Respecting his former players
and their
accomplishments seemed important to him. Therefore, he seldom referred
to a
given play made by a current player as THE best he had seen, but
instead made
nice with his current players while mentioning his former players as
well…by
uttering the phrase “Tied for first.” So mother-in-law Betty (“She’s making herself even
more beautiful.”) has something in common with Hall of Fame
manager
Tony (“Tied for first.”); they’re wordsmiths!
I must admit that, over the years, I’ve appropriated
both of
these phrases and used them as my own. My oh my.
VI. A Wedding: Tied for First
Early last month, oldest daughter Emma and Eric were
married
in a ceremony that took place a few short blocks from Chicago’s United
Center.
During the wedding ceremony, new bride Emma
delivered heartfelt
words to her invited gathering of nearly 200 family and friends.
She described the best days of her life and stated
that there were two: the current day (her wedding day), and the day
that her sister Hannah was born.
Knowing the room and her (mostly) Chicago audience,
she reviewed the managerial career of Tony La Russa—starting and ending
with Chicago’s own White Sox, stints which surrounded his decades
managing the Oakland Athletics and the St. Louis Cardinals. Emma had read the room correctly as it seemed most
listening
had at least some awareness of the man.
She then explained La Russa’s usage of the phrase
‘Tied for
first.’
I had not seen a word of her remarks in advance of
the
wedding ceremony…but I knew what was coming.
Emma said that these two days were ‘Tied for first.’
Emma’s words brought tears to my eyes.
My oh my.
Real life and sports.
Tied for first.
My oh my.
A Busch Perspective... September 10 Frequent visitors to
this little corner of cyberspace may recall that back in the day this
bureau worked as an usher for about ten years at Busch Stadium II and
the St. Louis Arena. While it was a fun way to earn a few bucks for
college, gasoline and beer, the employment time period was during the
1970s/ Aside from Lou Brock and Ted Simmons, Baseball in St. Lou back
then was not really good.
This bureau always enjoys chatting with the current Busch III ushering staff. To that end, while walking to the Press Gate prior to the finale of the Labor Day weekend series with the Pittsburgh Pirates, we chatted with an older usher who shared a tale. The night before the Red Birds blew another 9th inning save/opportunity that led to a loss. As the bottom of the ninth ended, the older usher said he thanked the departing fans for attending, reminded them to drive home safely and sked if they would see them tomorrow. When we asked the usher if the departing fans politely declined to returning the next day, the usher replied, “Actually, the fans didn’t say no” “They said, Hell No”. My, oh my This bureau has often questioned the real passion of the self-proclaimed Best Fans in Baseball. Naturally, loads of folks show up on Opening Day and appear during the playoffs. But it’s during tough time when the dedication is challenged. The summer of 2023 has indeed been challenging in the 314. Despite winning two straight in National League leading Atlanta, the local nine are still in last place in the Central Division at 61-78. Four more losses would guarantee the team’s first losing season since the Clinton Administration. At this writing, as a Big-League Manager Oliver Marmol has compiled a 154-146 win/loss record. Even the national pundits are noticing. In its recent Power Poll, The Athletic ranks St. Louis 26th of the 30 MLB teams with this review: “The Cardinals are not in a position to tear down and rebuild. They don’t really do that in St. Louis. The losing this season has been a shock to the system, but there’s always next year, and Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak has emphasized that starting pitching will be a priority moving forward. The Cardinals could look to move some of their excess position-player depth. They could dip their toe into free agency. There are options. But one thing is clear: St. Louis’ pitching staff ranked 25th in ERA, and things have to be better than that.” Yeah, Self-proclaimed Baseball Heaven has not been the happiest place on earth this summer. In past seasons, the Cardinals success was directly proportional to a winning record against Divisional foes. But in 2023, not so much. At this writing St. Louis is 15-24 against NLCD foes. That includes the Red Birds going 4-9 against the Pirates and 5-8 against the Chicago Cubs in 2023. At thus writing the local nine is 12-24 in one-run games and are 17-53 in games when the opposition scores first. So, it has been a rough summer if you are a Cardinal fan. And it’s starting to show at the gate. With ten home games remaining, the Red Bird Official Home attendance is 40,120 per game. Now it should be noted that the “official attendance” does not equal the actual turnstile count or the “eye test”. Viewing the rows of empty seats from the Press Box while hearing the official attendance total, this bureau was reminded of that famous line of a song by the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Eagles: “You can’t hide your lying eyes”/ Regardless, let’s examine that 40,120 number. Ten home games remain. Even with an expected large crowd for Adam Wainwright Day, that 40,120 per home game total likely will not get much better. How does that compare to past seasons? In 2022 the Cardinals drew 40,994 per home game. In the pre-COVID seasons of 2019 and 2018, the average per game attendance at Busch Stadium III was 42,967 and 42,019, respectively. Any way you slice it, the trend is moving the wrong way for for the home. Team. A deeper 2023 dive is more concerning. From August 1 through Labor Day, the Cardinals played nineteen home games. In those nineteen games, only three of them announced an official attendance total over 40,000. We repeat, Memo to the suits at 700 Clark Street: are you paying attention? Under this ownership group, the Cardinals have consistently been successful in the field. That on-field success translated to success at the gate, television ratings concessions and license merchandise sales. During their tenure, the current ownership group should be proud their franchise year in and year out has been in the top five of Major League home attendance. That has been the real Cardinal Way. At the core of the Red Bird business model is success on the field which translates to butts in the seats. Winning baseball brings fans and their discretionary cash downtown to purchase tickets, beers, sodas, hot dogs, souvenirs, parking and perhaps even enjoying all the fun at Ball Park Village. But last place Baseball will obstruct those plans: especially so in this red state where folks can sometimes be set in its ways. It sure looks like the fans are speaking: “Actually, the fans didn’t say no” “They said, Hell No”. Memo to the suits at 700 Clark Street: are you paying attention? =====
Thoughts
of Footwork and Masyn Winn When the St. Louis Rams first ‘hit’, in
the fall of 1999, it was a sight to behold. =====
Defensively, the man looks just about
ready to play shortstop at the major league level.
Wisdom and Projections: Miles Mikolas, Jordan Walker & Paul DeJong It Is Why We Watch
February 16
Three
names come to mind to most St. Louis sports fans when thinking of this
sort of stuff.
Back
to wisdom and projection.
In
fact they drafted Patrick Wisdom in the 2012 Amateur Draft.
October 13
With the aid of the internet, I've attempted to reconstruct some of the details surrounding our conversation...thirty-six years after it occurred. The year was 1986. The month was April--probably (almost certainly) late-afternoon, Thursday, April 17. And the place was, I think, the lobby of The Hotel Pennsylvania, deep in the heart of New York City. If it wasn’t the Hotel Penn’s lobby, it was a hotel lobby like it—both in appearance and location (very close to, if not virtually inside of, New York City’s Pennsylvania Station). I was in NYC for a meeting…[not baseball-related(!)]…and at the conclusion of the meeting, needed to return home to upstate NY, by train—and Penn Station was the starting point for almost all things Amtrak in NYC. ===== Back in those days, MLB’s two leagues were each split into two divisions (East and West). In 1986, teams in the National League’s Eastern Division (including the defending NL Champion Cardinals and the Mets) were scheduled to play each other 18 times [18 x 5 = 90 games] and the six teams in the NL’s Western Division twelve times [6 x 12 = 72 games]…and 90 + 72 equals one regular season: 162 games. In a game started by current broadcaster Ricky Horton (7 innings pitched, 2 hits, 1 earned run), the Cardinals defeated the Mets that day, 6-2, in 14 innings.
Weather
data indicate that New York City recorded four inches of rain for
the three
days following Opening Day (April 15-17)—so what was originally
scheduled as a
three-game series for the Cardinals was shortened to one game (because
of rain)
prior to the Redbirds trip north to Montreal for a three game series in
Olympic
Stadium that commenced Friday, April 18.
Therefore, Games Two (April 16) and Three (April 17)
of the
three game Cards-Mets series in April were postponed…necessitating a
mid-August
six game series between the two teams, with two doubleheaders (August
14 and
August 17) bookending two single games (August 15 and 16).
So it was likely that, instead of playing the Mets,
at Shea,
on the afternoon of Thursday, April 17…that day’s game was postponed
early Thursday
am, enabling the Cardinals entire travel party to depart directly from
the
Hotel Penn (via bus to the airport), avoiding a Thursday late pm/early
Friday
am flight to Montreal.
All of which means that when I walked through the
lobby of
the Hotel Penn on Thursday afternoon, April 17, 1986 (in search of Penn
Station
and the ‘gate’ for the train ride return to Schenectady), I ran into a
bunch of
athletes in a public area of a major NYC hotel, literally waiting for
their
ride to the airport.
It was my aim not to gawk—I think I was successful
in that I
didn’t realize that I was observing the defending National League
champions until
I noticed a face and head of hair I couldn’t help but recognize:
Cardinals
broadcaster Jack Buck, sitting on a chair at the edge of the baseball
crowd.
I introduced myself, explained why I was there and
what I
was looking for…and he directed me to the train station.
I then stated that my parents were St. Louis
natives, and
that the end of the most recent World Series, the 1985 World Series,
was a
bitter pill to swallow for our entire family.
It was then that Buck, a living baseball
encyclopedia with
decades of personal experience with the sport, looked me straight in
the
eye…and said: “But it was a very
good year…a great year, in fact.
Don’t ever
forget that.”
=====
I remembered those April 1986 words of Jack Buck
when
thinking about the just-concluded 2022 MLB Cardinals season, a season
that
ended with a pair of Busch Stadium losses to the Philadelphia Phillies.
What at first glance seems like an upset (the Wild
Card-qualifiers defeating the NL Central champions) really is not, when
considering that the Cardinals were twenty games over .500 vs their
four NL
Central opponents (and twenty-four games over .500 overall), while the
Phillies
were only six games over .500 vs their four NL East opponents (and
twelve games
over .500 overall).
In other words, the Cards played 76 games versus the
relatively
weak NL Central (W/L 48-28 total; Cubs, Reds, Brewers and Pirates)
while the
Phillies played 76 games versus the stronger NL East (W/L 41-35 total;
Braves,
Marlins, Mets and Nationals).
So the Cards Phillies Wild Card Series outcome is
not really
a surprise.
No matter: the 2022 Cardinals season was a great
year.
The reasons are numerous…and the 2022 Cardinals
season
overview includes a variety of tantalizing storylines:
*iconic cornerstone veterans: Yadier Molina, Albert
Pujols
and Adam Wainwright—A Season to Remember
*superstar corner infielders: Nolan Arenado and Paul
Goldschmidt (Pujols)—MVP Candidates
*rising middle infielders: Tommy Edman, Nolan Gorman
and
Brendan Donovan—Young and Talented
*quality starting pitchers: Jack Flaherty, Dakota
Hudson,
Matthew Libertore, Steven Matz, Miles Mikolas, Jordan Montgomery and
Jose
Quintana (Wainwright)—A Mix of Youth and Veterans with
Obvious Upside
*quality relief pitchers: Genesis Cabrera, Giovanny
Gallegos, Ryan Helsley, Jordan Hicks, TJ McFarland, Packy Naughton,
Andre
Pallante, Zack Thompson and Jake Woodford—Young Arms and Lots of Them
*promising outfielders: Dylan Carlson, Corey
Dickerson, Lars
Nootbaar, Tyler O’Neil and Juan Yepez—Promise and Potential; Hints
of High
Ceilings, Additions are Likely
*catchers: Andrew Knizner and Ivan
Herrera (Molina)—Change Is In the Air
*a competent front office, manager and coaching
staff—John
Mozeliak, Mike Girsch, Oli Marmol, Skip Schumaker, Jeff Albert and Mike
Maddux
and a cast of dozens (?!)—Beginning with the 2000 Season, the
Cardinals Won
90 or More Games Thirteen Times, and Only Once Suffered a Losing Season
*a pipeline of major league prospects—lists supplied
by Derrick
Goold and Rob
Rains
=====
Indeed, 2022 was ‘A Great Year’ for the St. Louis
Cardinals.
With some roster movement inevitable (OF and C moves
are
likely), the team’s first spring training game (Friday, February 25 at
Jupiter
vs the Washington Nationals) is closerthanthis.
The baseball future,
2023 and beyond, is bright in St.
Louis.
More to follow. =====
====================
Memories of Place, Practice & Championships: Mike Shannon and DeAnna Price July 26  --->DeAnna Price: Off to Tokyo<--- ============================================
A Baseball Mini-Series in Seven Parts: “So You’re Yadier Molina: What Would You Do?” July 14 I. The 2021 Chicago White Sox
Baseball’s All Star break, while thought of as a
line of
demarcation between the regular season’s first and second halves,
really isn’t
that: while the Cardinals have played 90 games thus far in the 2021
regular
season (44-46 record; T3; 8 GB first-place Milwaukee), they have but 72
games
remaining.
July 30 is the so-called 2021 MLB Trade Deadline,
and while the
Chicago Cubs are likely to be active participants (as sellers) at the
end of
this month, the other team in Chicago (the White Sox) are likely to
participate
in this year’s trade market as buyers.
The White Sox are currently in first place in the AL
Central…a
full eight games (seven in the loss column) ahead of second-place
Cleveland. Injuries have presented themselves as the primary
challenge
for the White Sox and manager Tony La Russa. The latest significant
injury to a
White Sox player occurred on July 5, when, with one out in the top of
the 6th
inning vs the Minnesota Twins, Grandal suffered a torn tendon in his
left knee while
attempting to check his swing.
Two days later (July 7), it was announced that
Grandal
underwent knee surgery to repair the tendon. The White Sox also
announced that
Grandal is still expected to play again in 2021, and in a statement
mentioned
that an ‘updated timeline’ would be forthcoming, a timeline that might
require
some adjustment to the initial four-to-six week estimate for the length
of time
that Grandal would be out of the line-up.
Grandal’s mid-July replacements in the line-up of
manager Tony
La Russa? 26 year old Zack Collins (career stats: 83 games
played;
2021 stats: .230 batting average; 3HR; 21 RBI; 29 stolen base attempts;
5
caught stealing) 27 year old Seby Zavala (career stats: 8 games
played; 23
at-bats; 14 strikeouts; 0 HR&RBI
II. The White Sox 1979-1986 and Carlton Fisk
Most reading this are well-aware that his current
work as
manager of the White Sox is Tony La Russa’s second tour on Chicago’s
South Side—he
was first hired to manage the Pale Hose by Bill Veeck…late in the 1979
season.
In La Russa’s first full season (1980), the White
Sox employed
at least four catchers, including Bruce Kimm (the nominal starter) and
backups
Marv Foley, Glenn Borgmann and Ricky Seilheimer.
In one of the most significant early moves of Jerry
Reinsdorf’s ownership of the White Sox, in 1981 Carlton Fisk changed
the color
of his Sox from Red to White…and the Hall of Fame catcher, after
playing 11
seasons in Boston, finished his career playing 13 seasons in Chicago.
Fisk’s signing was a huge move for the White Sox
franchise,
and for Tony La Russa, who along with his pitching coaches demands a
lot from
his catchers. And Fisk was up to the task, burnishing his Hall of
Fame
credentials with a 37 HR/107 RBI season in 1985.
III. The Oakland A’s (1986-1995) and Terry
Steinbach
Mid-season 1986, rookie White Sox GM Ken (Hawk)
Harrelson
fired La Russa, who quickly found work as manager of the Oakland A’s,
where he
managed for ten seasons. During those years, Terry Steinbach served as
the A’s
starting catcher, with at least 83 games played as catcher per season
(commencing with La Russa’s first full season as manager: 1987).
Steinbach was a three-time All Star.
La Russa’s last season as the A’s manager was 1995;
in the ’95-‘96
off-season he was hired by the Cardinals, where he managed from 1996
through
2011.
IV. The St. Louis Cardinals (1996-2004) and Mike
Matheny
The primary catchers for the early portion
(1996-1999) of La
Russa’s tenure in St. Louis?
Tom Pagnozzi, Mike Defelice, Tom Lampkin, Danny
Sheaffer,
Eli Marrero, and Alberto Castillo. In the 1999-2000 off-season, the Cardinals signed
Mike
Matheny, who had been released by the Toronto Blue Jays. Matheny served
as the
Cardinals primary catcher for five seasons, catching at least 100 games
in each
of those seasons.
V. The St. Louis Cardinals (2005-present) and
Yadier Molina
Then, late in 2004, and commencing for real in
2005…Yadier
Molina happened.
And it was quite a happening.
First Molina happened for La Russa, who retired in
2011.
Then Molina happened for Matheny, who replaced La
Russa and
managed the Cardinals from 2012 until he was fired mid-way through the
2018
season. Molina was replaced by Mike Shildt, who remains in place as the
Cardinal
manager.
VI. Setting Up the Conclusion to “So You’re
Yadier Molina:
What Would You Do?”
In 21st-century parlance, during Tony La
Russa’s Hall
of Fame managerial career, he has been ‘blessed’ with (at the very
least) steady,
(occasionally) stellar, and quite often Hall-of-Fame credentialed
catchers on
his rosters…in Chicago (Fisk), Oakland (Steinbach) and St. Louis
(Matheny and
Molina).
La Russa is well-aware of the position of catcher,
as far as
regular- and post-season success is concerned.
And Tony La Russa knows Yadier Molina.
The traditional second-half of the 2021 MLB season
is about
to commence. The Chicago White Sox employ, in their two-man
catching
rotation, two players with a combined total of 91 MLB games career
played.
At the very least, La Russa is likely to prefer a
more
experienced player as catcher, as the White Sox begin to finish up the
end of
July and enter the dog days of August…all with an eye on post-season
play.
It the wake of Grandal’s injury and the surgery the
followed, is a virtual certainty that Tony La Russa and the White Sox
hierarchy
have discussed, in-house, obtaining a veteran catcher.
With zero factual knowledge on the part of yours
truly, I
believe it is likely that the White Sox have also communicated their
desire to
upgrade their own catching position to other teams…including the
Cardinals.
I also believe that the Cardinals have communicated
their White
Sox communications with Molina, but that the situation prior to the
start of
games post-All Star break remains too fluid for a move at this time.
Finally, I believe that Cardinals management would,
in a situation
like the one described here: completely defer to Molina’s wishes.
As this is written (July 14), several questions
remain:
*How important is it, to Molina himself, that he
finish his MLB
career as a ‘lifetime Cardinal’?
*How important is it, to Cards owner Bill DeWitt
Jr., that
Molina finish his MLB career as a ‘lifetime Cardinal’?
*How important, to Molina, is the possibility of
another
World Series appearance or two?
*What is the prognosis for the return of Yasmani
Grandal to
the White Sox lineup?
*How well will the current Chisox ‘regular’ catchers
perform, both offensively and defensively, in what is clearly a trial
period?
*What would the White Sox be willing to trade to St.
Louis?
*And finally, how would ‘Cardinal Nation’ react to
the trade
of perhaps the most beloved Cardinal of the 21st Century…or
maybe,
as Tony La Russa might say, in this category, Molina and Albert Pujols
are ‘tied
for first’
VII. “So
You’re Yadier Molina: What Would You Do?”
I believe Yadier Molina will be offered the chance
to finish
his playing career as a member of the Chicago White Sox. So…let’s say you are
Molina. What
would you do? The Halfway Point July 2 At the 2021 halfway point, the Cards are a .500 baseball team (40-41). And while St. Louis is said to be the home of ‘Baseball Heaven’, the official National League Busch Stadium attendance for Game #81 (27,235) was optimistic in that the end-of-the-sixth inning infield crew seemed all alone as they made the Busch infield ready for Nolan Arenado et al. I cannot remember seeing the Busch bleachers so vacant on what used to be called a ‘Businessman’s Special’ weekday afternoon.  Busch Stadium Between Innings 6 & 7;
Wednesday Jun 30 2021
And if the Best Fans In Baseball (BFIB) aren’t in (bleacher) heaven…where the hell are they!? No doubt the business side of the ballteam is doing market research to find out whether the BFIB are staying away because of their fears of COVID, an unsafe downtown area, and/or something simpler (and much easier) to explain: a mediocre Cardinals squad. This is a sports column…so: A few observations based on in-person viewing of Game #81, a 7-4 victory over the Arizona (completing a three-game sweep over the hapless Diamondbacks). *In the second inning, Arizona LFer Josh Rojas ran down (and caught) an oh-so-deep fly ball to left-center field struck by Tommy Edman in part because he was positioned only a few steps from the warning track as the ball was pitched. This observer believed he was playing too deep! *Two batters later, Rojas moved in several steps when Cards pitcher Kwang Hyun Kim came to the plate. Bad move as Kim hit a double over the head of Rojas…plating the first two runs of the game. Virtually every game opposite-field home runs are hit. All big league outfielders play deeper than ever. My explanation: the baseball used in MLB these days is harder than ever. *MLB has a very real problem with what is referred to as ‘pace of play’—too many walks, strikeouts and home runs…all outcomes that do not result in a fielding play. You can add to that the act of a batter hitting foul balls. This bureau is convinced that hitters are more proficient at fouling off good pitchers than they used to be. This bureau tossed around the press box the notion that perhaps a batter should only be allowed a certain number of foul balls before he is called out. I suggested four; fifty-year Post-Dispatch baseball writer Rick Hummel thought five fouls was more reasonable (before calling the batter out). Interestingly, he did not dismiss the notion out of hand. *A likely part of the reason hitters are better than in the past (at spoiling good pitches with foul balls) is the proliferation of batting cages and the pitching machines found within those batting cages. Perhaps when COVID etc quiets down I’ll ask Hall of Fame catcher Ted Simmons whether or not the batting cage/pitching machine notion has any credibility—you can be certain Simmons will have an opinion on the subject. *Baseball is a funny game, right? In the previous observation I stated that today’s hitters are ‘better’ than ever. Yet the highest batting average in the Game 81 starting lineup is….271 (Arizona’s Josh Reddick). I guess I’d better describe what I mean by ‘better’! *Back to the attendance issues at Busch. The recent Giants-Dodgers series drew very well at Chavez Ravine. Both teams are likely to be in contention for the NL West title this year. Can the same thing be said for the Cardinals? One (now-injured) player’s name comes to mind when aiming to evaluate the first-half performance of the 2021 St. Louis Cardinals: Jack Flaherty. The absence of Jack Flaherty has been duly noted, as the 2021 Cardinals have not been able to find a modern version of Nelson Briles...who after Bob Gibson's left ankle was broken by a line drive off the bat of Roberto Clemente on July 13, 1967, stepped into Gibson's place in the starting rotation and finished the regular season with a 14-5 W-L record (2.43 ERA) and was the starter and winner of Game 3 in the '67 World Series.
====================
Rosters They Are a Changin':
June
19
Amid seemingly
endless COVID-19 news, the press
release ("Saluki Volleyball
Announces 2020 Schedule") that arrived via
email earlier this week was a welcome relief.
Games! A schedule! Sports!!! If only for a moment, COVID-19 and its politics were shoved aside. At least in my head they were. Buried deep in the release are two sets of intel: ===== (1) "SIU returns 10 letterwinners from a year ago, which includes six that played at least 100 sets a season ago. The returners are led by all-conference returnees Hannah Becker and Rachel Maguire." ...and...
(2) "Southern will also welcome a talented group of 10 newcomers to the mix in 2020." ===== So Saluki volleyball coach Ed Allen has joined SIU's MBB coach Bryan Mullins in reshaping his roster prior to his second season as head coach in Carbondale. In his first year at SIU, Allen enjoyed some success as the 2019 volleyball team posted a win total nine greater than the 2018 squad, and ten of their 32 matches extended to five sets. In an effort to get to know Allen, his team and his coaching staff, yours truly attended several practices as well as a handful of both home and away matches. The result of those efforts? Yes it is obvious, even to a neophyte observer of volleyball, that Ms. Becker and Ms. Maguire were deserving of MVC recognition. They both can play, and as upperclasswomen, more is expected from both in the upcoming season. Going out on a limb a bit...it is also apparent that Alex Washington is the team's high ceiling player in that in addition to obvious hitting skills--the ball seems to find her at important moments in a match. Due to what was thought to be a foot injury, Washington appeared in only nine 2019 games as a freshman before being granted a red shirt year. Also obvious is the respect that Allen seemed to have earned from his players--to my eyes it appeared to be genuine and oh-so-important in these days of college athletics. With ten (!) new faces in 2020, the process of in-person team-building will have to begin again...whenever SIU volleyball starts up and the entire roster is on campus. No amount of video-chatting via Zoom, Skype or Google hangouts equals real 'Facetime' as far as that thing that 21st-century coaches call 'culture' is concerned. We'll look for announcements and post them here.
=====
Mark
Bausch
====================
Decisions Decisions
June
14 Coaches, seasons, games and press conferences all run together after awhile. But if you listen carefully (and you the reader can see and hear virtually all of SIU head football coach Nick Hill's Q&As at siusalukis.com), some things stand out so much that even in the middle of a pandemic...the brain plays like Arnold Schwartzenegger and has 'Total Recall' (or nearly so). In what I believe was the primary mid-week media event prior to the SIU-Ole Miss 2018 early-season game, Hill was asked about a player whose name was (and remains) distinctive: Jordan Ta’amu, the Mississippi starting quarterback. Hill's response was rather direct (paraphrasing): "We've seen him on video. I think he's better than the guy that transferred." On the one hand, Hill's comment on Ta'amu wasn't surprising--most college football coaches know the Lou Holtz pre-game routine ('...our next opponent could compete in the NFL--we don't have much chance'). So pumping up the QB skills of SIU's next opponent is fully expected--every single week. But I filed the comment away, because from a distance yours truly has followed Michigan football rather closely for several decades...and 'the guy that transferred' (Shea Patterson) left Mississippi after the 2017 season to join Jim Harbaugh in Ann Arbor. Heading into the 2017 season, Patterson (a sophomore) won the starting QB job at Mississippi for coach Matt Luke. Ta'amu (a junior) served as Patterson's backup. But in the Ole Miss-LSU game (the season's seventh), Patterson suffered a serious knee injury, and Ta'amu replaced Patterson as the starter. Ta'amu played well in his five 2017 starts. That combined with impending penalties for recruiting violations at Mississippi (resulting in transfers from Ole Miss not having to sit out a year), and Harbaugh's QB needs at Michigan, led to Patterson's decision to enroll at the University of Michigan. All of which means that in Nick Hill's preparation for the SIU-Ole Miss 2018 game, he and his staff reviewed game action for both Jordan Ta'amu and Shea Patterson. And Hill's comparison was clear: in his mind, Ta'amu was the better player. Hill was right, as Ta'amu was perhaps the best XFL QB in that league's truncated first (and only?) season. And Shea Patterson served as the starting QB for Michigan for the 2018 and 2019 seasons. He was good but not great...at times not even good. A data point, an NFL roster oddity, an SIU QB roster summary...and a question all follow: *The data point: After trailing SIU at the half, 38-35, Mississippi outscored the Salukis 41-3 in the game's second half, winning 76-41. The Jordan Ta'amu stat line: 23/33, 448 yards, 5 TD. **The roster oddity: NFL QB whisperer Andy Reid gets a shot at comparing Ta'amu and Patterson, as the Chiefs signed both as free agent quarterbacks. They will compete for the clipboard position at KC, as Chad Henne is returning (contract in hand, and aanother Michigan QB) as the team's backup. ***SIU QBs: A glance at SIU's roster reveals nice balance in the QB room, with senior Karé Lyles as the returning starter, backed up by junior Stone Labanowitz (who was the 2018 starter before injury), sophomore Nic Baker, red-shirt freshman Zach Zebrowski and 'true' freshman Jaylen DeVries. Sophomore jack-of-all-trades Javon Williams is likely to see significant action as a wildcat QB as well. ****And the question: Pandemic-related uncertainties aside, the elephant in the room as far as SIU football is concerned is centered on QB, and Nick Hill's decision about who will start at the most important position on the field: With his squad's improved defense and running game in place, can Nick Hill FINALLY find the 'right' mix at quarterback at SIU in what may be a pivotal season for Hill as far as his coaching future at SIU is concerned? A bit melodramatic, eh?! It's just the future of SIU football...that's all! =====
====================
Rich Herrin, Aaron Cook
April
10
It was a light-jacket kind of day in Carbondale, and
early
spring was in the air on what was probably a mid-February 2019
afternoon. While the vultures in southern Illinois were
circling around
head coach Barry Hinson for much of the 2018-19 season, on this day
local media
were waiting for the start of one of Hinson’s on-campus mid-week media
events,
as a player or two had already finished with their press obligations. I left the conference room, strolled around the
athletic
complex, and ran into a surprise visitor: Rich Herrin. I (re)introduced myself to Herrin, as we had not
spoken in (yikes!)
two decades. I reminded him that, late in the 20th century,
he had
joined me on my radio show, in-studio, for a conversation about SIU
basketball.
A highlight of the interview was when (the now-deceased) Charlie
Spoonhour
joined us live (via telephone) on the air. It was not obvious that
Herrin
remembered the interview. Mid-way through my February 2019 on-campus
conversation with
Herrin, Barry Hinson emerged from the stairway. He saw yours truly and
Herrin chatting,
and made what seemed to me at the time to be a rather curious decision:
the
normally voluble Hinson did not stop and say hello. Not to me, and not to Rich Herrin, either…who, as
Hinson
walked away, more-or-less raised an eyebrow. Of course, Hinson had a press conference to get
ready for. I still wonder what Herrin was doing in the building
that
day. The most significant portions of my discussion with
Rich Herrin
concerned his views on (a) who, in his view, was the most talented
Saluki to ever
play for him, and (b) the pace of play in both college basketball in
general
and specifically, the Herrin-era and Hinson-era Salukis. I was delighted when Herrin agreed with me after I
suggested
that Missouri native Marcus Timmons was my choice as ‘most talented
Herrin-era
Saluki’. “I think Marcus Timmons may have just been the most
talented
player I ever coached here,” said Herrin. Herrin’s choice of Timmons was no surprise, as
Timmons, a Missouri
native, was ticketed to attend Mizzou until that particular Norm
Stewart team
was hit with NCAA-mandated sanctions (recruiting violations). Herrin and SIU swooped in with an offer and presto
(!),
Marcus Timmons was a Saluki, and four years of really good…and really
entertaining basketball was on display at SIU’s Arena. In 1994-1995 (Timmons’ senior year, 35 second
shot-clock), the
Salukis averaged about 78 points and 61 shots attempted per game. [EDITOR’S NOTE: In
SIU’s just-completed
2019-2020 season (Coach Bryan Mullins’ first year, 30 second
shot-clock), the
Salukis averaged about 65 points and 51 shots attempted per
game.] Timmons excelled at this type of basketball—not
run-and-gun
but certainly appropriately quick. At SIU, Marcus Timmons was an all-around player with
virtually no weaknesses. He was not a score-first talent…instead he
often used both
his superior passing skills and court vision to orchestrate his team’s
play in
the offensive zone. In that way (especially his passing skills), the
basketball
skills and basketball IQ possessed by Peoria’s Shaun Livingston (whose
NBA
career spanned a decade-and-a-half, and concluded with a run of NBA
championship teams at Golden State) always reminded me of Marcus
Timmons. I had wanted to speak with Rich Herrin for several
years,
actually…so I had a bit of a mission in mind when I suggested that
Marcus Timmons,
without playing out of control, enjoyed playing at a quick pace. Not
fast, mind
you…but quick. I asked Herrin how Timmons, or a player with his
skills,
would look in today’s ‘value each possession’ era of college basketball. I pointed out that Barry Hinson’s SIU teams seemed
to enjoy
milking the shot-clock on most possessions. Without directly addressing Hinson, Herrin was
pointed in
his comments: “You’ve got to let’em play. It is what they want to do.
They have
to be able to have fun playing the game of basketball.” ===== I thought of this conversation with Rich Herrin when
Aaron
Cook’s recent decision to spend his graduate transfer year (the
2020-2021
season) at Gonzaga became public. I daresay that young Mr. Cook felt like he won the
lottery
when he agreed to play for Mark Few. Gonzaga is the best-of-the-best as
far as non
Power 5 conference men’s basketball is concerned, and way-too-early
2020-2021
polls have Gonzaga rated as a Top 5 team. So Aaron Cook will most likely experience March
Madness for
the first time as a player—reason enough for a modestly-recruited kid
from St.
Louis to make the not insignificant move to Gonzaga and the state of
Washington. On top of that, Gonzaga’s pace-of-play statistics
are, in my
view, more in line with the style of play that Aaron Cook believes he
plays his
best basketball. The exact date (but it was a Hinson-era season)
escapes me,
but there was a post-game media session after a win a couple or three
seasons
ago at SIU’s Arena in which Cook and Eric McGill were asked, point
blank—‘Do
you like playing fast?’. Both players smiled broadly, and shook their heads
in a way
that was spoke volumes: they felt like their skills were best utilized
in a
system that allowed them more freedom of movement. Fast forward to the present. For the (abbreviated) 2019-2020 season, Gonzaga/SIU
averaged
62/51 shots attempted and 74/66 possessions per game. It will be fun to watch Aaron Cook, playing hard and
playing
fast, in a Gonzaga uniform. No doubt the winning tradition and
post-season opportunities
at Gonzaga were of primary import to a player who counted DePaul and
Arkansas
as other possible destinations for his last season of NCAA eligibility. But don’t discount the relevance of pace of play,
either.
Aaron Cook had a courtside seat for much of the 2019-2020 Saluki
season, a
season in which SIU’s 66 possessions per game was greater than exactly
three
other NCAA Division I men’s basketball teams. In other words, 349 out of 353 D1 men’s squads had a
larger
number of possessions per game than Bryan Mullins’ initial SIU team. It will be interesting to watch Bryan Mullins fill
out the roster
for the 2020-2021 SIU season, as Aaron Cook was not the only Saluki
with
remaining eligibility to request a transfer. It will be interesting to watch his second-year team
play,
not only in terms of wins-and-losses…but also HOW they play. Stay tuned. And
remain virus-free. ===== Mark
Bausch
====================
Batting Orders on the Eights:
1978, 1998 and 2008. 2018? posted July 24 Let’s pick an
arbitrary year in major league baseball—1978.
In 1978, Vern Rapp, Jack Krol and Ken Boyer served as manager of the Cardinals. The batting orders for all 162 Cardinals games that season ‘featured’ a pitcher in the ninth spot in the lineup. Rapp, Krol and Boyer were following baseball’s 1978 lineup norms: a given team’s pitcher nearly always batted ninth in his team’s lineup. One year later (1979), Tony La Russa began his baseball managerial career when he was hired to manage the Chicago White Sox. Fast forward about twenty years to 1998. During the 1998 season’s All Star break, then-Cardinals manager Tony La Russa, with nearly two decades of major league managerial experience already under his belt, dispensed with the pitcher-must-bat-ninth ‘wisdom’. And for the balance of that ’98 season, La Russa broke with tradition and wrote lineup cards in which his starting pitcher was listed in the #8 spot in his lineup. Recall two salient facts about La Russa’s 1998 Cardinals squad: (1) the team was average (83-79 final W-L record; third place in the NL Central) (2) in 1998, Mark McGwire (after hitting 58 homers while playing for Oakland and St. Louis in 1997) was engaged in a historic season-long chase to eclipse Roger Maris’ single-season record of 61 home runs Perhaps La Russa felt an obligation to McGwire, who traditionalists viewed as a prototypical clean-up hitter…to get Big Mac as many at-bats as possible, to enhance his chances to break the record. The move also served as an attention-grabber, and diverted fans (and media) from the rather obvious fact that the Cardinals 1998 team, as a whole, was not a strong contender for post-season play. Whenever asked, La Russa pointed out that with a ‘hitterish’ position player batting ninth (instead of a weak-hitting hurler), McGwire, in every inning except the first, essentially could be thought of as a clean-up hitter—thus at least partially satisfying baseball’s old-school thinkers. So the debate began in 1998—where should the pitcher bat in the lineup? Ten years later...in 2008, La Russa revisited the issue, when future Hall-of-Famer Albert Pujols hit third in the Cardinals order. In this case, La Russa aimed to enhance the run production of his line-up by enabling ‘The Machine (Pujols)' to see more runners on base. Fast forward ten more years--to 2018. The debate concerning La Russa’s ‘innovation’ continues, with Cubs’ manager Joe Maddon among many of today’s MLB managers who have dabbled with ‘hitting the pitcher eighth’. With every MLB team accessing supercomputers on a daily basis and hiring ‘quants’ to program those computers to their specifications , you can be certain that literally millions of line-up combinations have been simulated...and everybody from the geekiest team employee to the owner has an opinion based on those ‘data’ that aims to answer the question—should a pitcher always bat ninth in the lineup? Well, if there was ever a line-up that might see benefits from a position player with some ‘pop in his bat’ hitting ninth...not three positions in front of #3 hitters such as Mark McGwire and Albert Pujols, but directly in front of baseball’s hottest hitter (Matt Carpenter), had the new Cardinals skipper given any thought to what, twenty years ago, was a St. Louis innovation? In the Great America Ball Park visiting dugout, I asked Cardinals interim manager Mike Shildt that very question prior to today’s game (July 24) vs. the Reds, one day after his squad lost to the Reds...2-1 in walk-off fashion.  You can listen to Shildt’s response here (along with Talking Heads and Pretenders music in the background...1978?!) or go old school yourself and scroll down for the written word. Either way, check those box scores, folks. ===== Q: There's a twenty year history in St. Louis, going back to '98, of the pitcher hitting eighth in the batting order. Your best hitter is...leadoff. Does that cause you to think about batting order a little bit? Mike Shildt: It is food for thought. It's not anything traditional I've done. I'm still trying to get my head around, quite honestly, what that looks like, and the reasoning behind it. I know there's different reasons for and against, clearly...to point out to make a commitment to what that looks like. To your point about Carp leading off, as productive as he's been, to get somebody in front of him...it kind of backs up a couple of days ago what you're thinking about. You know we hit for Miles [Mikolas] the other day, in the fifth inning, or the top of the sixth inning, rather, in Chicago, you know when he still had some pitches on the table. And I didn't communicate as well as I'd like to after that game. It is also a decision based on, if we get Jed [Gyorko] on at that point, now we get Carp up, and that's a chance to break the game open. So there is some methodology to what that looks like. ===== Thanks for reading. |
Yours truly: “Rick, if you include some of
the young players who made their first contributions last year (2022),
I don’t
think I’ve ever seen the Cardinals as well-stocked as they are now, in
terms of
prospects who look like they can really play. And some of these guys
look like
they will hit.”
-----
|
=====
Last
Saturday (March 1), Harry Caray would have been 100 years old. No
kidding: It might be—it could be—it is: a century For
those of us baby boomers that grew up in the Gateway City, state of
Missouri, the Ozark region or throughout the Midwest, Harry Caray was
the soundtrack of summer. For a quarter century, Caray was the voice of
the St. Louis Cardinals. His style was unique and no holds bar. His
voice boomed describing the exploits of Stan Musial, Red Schoendienst,
Lou Brock, Bob Gibson and others. For twenty-five years, Harry Caray
was the sound of St. Louis baseball. In
the world where one can be immediately identified by their first name
(Elvis, Ozzie, Madonna, etc), if back in the day you said that “Harry”
was on the radio, you knew exactly who was on the air. For many of us
growing up in the 1960s and earlier, Caray’s familiar, bold and
dramatic musings heard through a transistor radio muffled under a
pillow (as we were hiding it from our parents after being sent to bed)
created the perfect ending to a summer’s evening. Born
Harry Christopher Carabina from Italian and Romanian parents, he grew
up on La Salle Street on the near south side of St. Louis on 3/1/1914.
Caray’s father died when he was an infant and his mother died when he
was around eight years old. In essence he grew up as an orphan. In
his youth Caray played semipro baseball before auditioning for a radio
job at age nineteen. It was then when young Harry found his calling. He
would cut his teeth in the radio business in markets such as Joliet,
Illinois and Kalamazoo, Michigan before returning to his home town. He
joined the Cardinals radio broadcast team in 1945. It was here in St.
Louis and particularly behind a hot KMOX radio microphone where the
legend of Harry Caray evolved. It
was Caray’s voice that narrated the stories of the successful seasons
of the mid/late 1940s, the challenging 1950s and the memorable 1960s
for the Cardinals. But it was during the down years of the 1950s when
Caray’s career rose to prominence. In February 1953, August A. Busch,
Jr. convinced his Anheuser-Busch Board of Directors to purchase the
Cardinals from Fred Saigh. The Big Eagle and Harry Caray were both cut
from the same cloth. Both wanted to be the center of attention. Both
appreciated pretty girls. Both were Type-A. Both were highly
competitive. But
most importantly, both could sell beer. That alliance would make Harry
larger than life. Over the KMOX airwaves he was an unabashed homer. But
above all, he could sell beer. Busch once referred to Caray as his best
beer salesman. The bond was then formed. Behind
Busch’s influence, the powerful KMOX signal and Caray’s bombastic style
the Cardinal radio network became the largest in the Major Leagues.
Prior to 1957, St. Louis was the westernmost franchise. Cardinal fans
were emerging west of the Mississippi. Caray was the evangelist. Casual
and non-baseball fans listened to the games only to hear what Harry had
to say. During it all, he promoted and pushed Budweiser. The match
seemed made in heaven. The
Cardinals went to the World Series three times during the 1960s:
winning it all twice. After advancing to the series in 1967 and 1968,
St. Louis was expected to make it a three-peat. It didn’t happen. In
1969 St. Louis finished a disappointing third in the newly created NL
East. But days after the final out, a bombshell was dropped in the
Gateway City. Harry Caray and the Cardinals parted ways. The larger
than life broadcaster was out as Cardinal broadcaster. There
have been many of urban legends as to what led to the split. We’ll
never know for sure. But we did observe in a pre-cable, pre-internet
era, that the divorce was far from amicable. Leaving
St. Louis, Caray took his talents to Oakland where he spent one season
working for the colorful Charles O Finley’s A’s. One year later, Caray
was signed as an announcer by legendary owner and promoter Bill Veeck
of the Chicago White Sox. It would not take long for Harry to discover
that Chicago was indeed his kind of town. During
Caray’s tenure on the south side, the White Sox were not very good. In
his first season the Sox went 56-106. The
high water mark was 1977 when they won 90 games. During Caray’s time on
the South Side, the Sox had a losing record in eight seasons. But
despite the ineptness on the field, fans listened to the White Sox
games because of Harry Caray. Partnered with the colorful and
unpredictable Jimmy Piersall, the broadcasts were more entertaining
than the games. Caray introduced Comiskey Park fans to the familiar
chant from the musical group Steam as pitchers were removed from the
game or when the Sox were going to win:
“na-na-na-na---na-na-na-na-----hey, hey, hey---Good Bye”. Caray
and Piersall would broadcast games from the bleachers. On July 12, 1979
Harry spoke over the Comiskey Park PA pleading for calm on “Disco
Demolition Night” where the Sox had to forfeit the second game of a
doubleheader. Fans rushed the field causing extensive damage. Yep,
the White Sox were not very good then—but it was sure fun to listen to
the games. In
1982, Caray moved to the north side of Chicago: signing a contract to
broadcast games for the Cubs. It was there through the magic and power
of the WGN-TV Superstation signal where Harry Caray would be introduced
to a new generation of baseball fans. The Cubs turned Harry loose over
the airwaves and it proved to be reality television at its finest. The
Cubs were not very good. But just like when with the White Sox,
baseball fans tuned in to hear Caray offer his insight and opinions:
from trying to pronounce player’s names backwards to welcoming who at
the ball park that day to saluting the smallest towns throughout the
fruited plain. During
his stay with the Cubs, Caray introduced his trademark: the seventh
inning stretch singing of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”. Regardless of
the score or the loyalty, Wrigley Field fans sang along with Harry: as
Caray, then in his 70s, used his microphone as a baton. My
last conversation with Harry was in 1996. It was during a Saturday
afternoon game at Busch Stadium II between the Cardinals and Cubs.
Prior to the game, I was in the press lounge. Sitting very quietly in
the corner was Harry Caray watching the Fox Network pre-game show. On
the screen was his grandson Chip. As I passed his table, Harry smiled
and said to me, “isn’t he great?” I politely smiled, agreed continued
some small talk. During it all Harry just kept smiling. So
here is this larger than life personality I grew up listening to via a
transistor radio under my pillow savoring the moment as a proud
grandfather. I started smiling also. In
1989, Harry would be inducted into the Broadcaster’s wing of the
Baseball Hall of Fame and a year later, into the National Radio Hall of
Fame. He suffered a stroke in 1987. But Caray would not leave the
broadcast booth. Then in February 1998, Caray fell at a restaurant and
suffered a head injury. He died February 18, 1998 of cardiac arrest
with resulting brain damage. 1998
was the season of the great Home Chase that rescued baseball from the
1994 Work Stoppage. The Cardinals’ Mark Mc Guire and the Cubs’ Sammy
Sosa would blast long flies in pursuit of Roger Maris’s single season
home run record. It would have been fun and perhaps fitting had Harry
hung around one more year to describe those events as only he could. Today,
television (particularly cable television) is the primary outlet for
baseball. The legendary baseball voices from past years have been
replaced by some combination of blow-dried polished announcers and
former ball players: each parroting team written talking points and are
nothing more than an extension of the team’s marketing department. You
know: always remember that good seats are available, always look for
the positives and never criticize the Home Team. I
wonder if Harry Caray would have been hired as a broadcaster in today’s
environment. My thinking is probably not. And that’s too bad. Games
were sure more fun during Harry’s day. Last
Saturday (March 1), Harry Caray would have been 100 years old. Holy
Cow. =====
On the same date the
Beatles made their appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show a half century
earlier, this Sunday will also mark the twenty-fifth anniversary
of the death of long-time St. Louis Blues broadcaster Dan Kelly. He
once was called the "purest, most knowledgeable, most accurate" voice
in hockey. Kelly was 52 years old when he died at his Chesterfield home
after a five-month struggle with cancer. |
...from
the stlsports.com archives:
Check it out!
Editor originally
posted June 17, 1995
In a nutshell, the guy has as much talent as any young broadcaster, since, say, a youthful Bob Costas. Most St. Louis Sports Online readers surely recall that Costas, fresh out of Syracuse University, took St. Louis, and then the country, by storm. In
thinking about Joe Buck and the kinds of questions I would ask, two
things came to mind. First, I hoped to bring StLSO readers some new and
timely information about the Cards young broadcaster. On this point I
feel reasonably confident. In that regard I failed, as Joe Buck played all Shannon-related questions straight down the middle, earnestly saying that “Mike has been extremely helpful to me just starting out in this business.” Prior to a recent Cards-Braves game, Buck and I sat down in the dining room behind the Fulton County Stadium press box. He is 26 years old...and looks young enough (and fit enough) to be part of a double play combo with Cards shortstop Tripp Cromer. Indeed, Buck said that the Cards had thoughts of drafting him right out of high school. I should have reminded him that the Cardinals drafted Paul Coleman right out of high school, too. It should
surprise no one that Joe Buck, who makes his living as a play-by-play
sportscaster, is a verbal individual. But I was surprised to find Buck
to be extremely intelligent, as well. Throughout the interview he
listened very intently to the questions, and at times, gave quite
specific and carefully worded answers that sort of demanded that the
original question be rephrased. When a tough question was posed, he
wouldn’t give an inch. In other words, the guy is good...and, at least
in this interview, didn’t really let down his guard too much. In
retrospect, perhaps I could have done a better job interviewing him. And before
we started, Buck was kind enough to remind me to turn on the recorder...
=====
Editor There's
always good radio to be found the day after the Philly Eagles lose.
That's because 97.5 The Fanatic employs long-time sports-talk radio pro
Tony Bruno, who, with wit and wisdom and alacrity, persuades most (but
not all) of his ever-insufferable listeners not to jump from the top of
the nearest tall building. The wonder of the internet brings Bruno and
his Philly-based station to anyone looking for an entertaining
listening experience. WDBX Sunday Sports Review |
...from
the stlsports.com archives:
Read on...
Reluctance
& Mystery,
Talent & Expectations: A Conversation with Rick Ankiel originally posted June 28, 1999 Rick Ankiel is the brightest lefthanded
pitching prospect in all of baseball…and at 19 years of age, is gaining
maturity on and off the field…
Reluctance
Earlier this month, Thomas Harding, the Memphis Redbirds’ beat writer for the Memphis Commercial-Appeal, asked yours truly a simple question. It was a question I’ve heard before. But admittedly, the sports context of his question...was new. Certainly, though, Harding’s query brought a smile to my face. His question was this: “How was it for you?” The context? Harding, a friendly bloke, wanted to hear about the Rick Ankiel interview I had conducted earlier that evening in the Redbirds’ dugout. My answer was polite. “He was...uhhh...reluctant.” “Good answer!” said the beat writer, making like game-show host Richard Dawson. Generally speaking, if you want to know something about a professional baseball player, talk to his beat writer. Evidently, my description of Ankiel squared with Harding’s view of the youngster: reluctant. Mystery
But
the
reluctance that Rick Ankiel displays, in his interviews, only adds to
the mystery that surrounds him. Here’s an analogy. Think back to when you were fifteen or sixteen...a freshman in high school. Wasn’t there a pretty girl, a graduating senior girl, that you found mysterious? Wasn’t she difficult to approach? And wasn’t she hard to talk to? But from a distance...wasn’t she fun to watch? That’s one way to view the mysterious side of Rick Ankiel. ----- The first thing you notice about Ankiel, up close, is his demeanor. No, that’s not exactly right. It’s the combination of his demeanor and his appearance that is so striking. It’s like one of those “What’s wrong with this picture?” features, where one thing is out of place in a photograph. That’s because, while Ankiel is only 19, and his face and body have the unfinished look of a 19 year old, his outward disposition appears to be that of a veteran (or maybe a teenager trying to act like a veteran). In this reporter’s opinion, an opinion based on a limited set of observations, Ankiel’s disposition displays equal parts detached arrogance and active intimidation. And as the recent pre-game beaning in a collegiate baseball game evidenced, there is a substantial intimidation component to pitching . (Don’t believe that? Step into a batting cage and dial it up to 80 MPH. You’ll get the picture...and don’t forget your helmet.) So, for what it’s worth, Rick Ankiel appears intimidating...and mysterious. Talent
From
a
distance, though, Rick Ankiel’s pitching talent is obvious to anyone
with even a modest knowledge of baseball.For starters, Ankiel’s delivery has a bit of (ex-Met lefty) Sid Fernandez flavor to it. You remember El Sid--he hid the ball behind his front hip and leg for what seemed like an eternity, before projecting an above-average fastball toward the batter. Ankiel’s trickery isn’t as pronounced, but it’s there, and he uses it to his advantage. As a result, Ankiel’s fastball seems to handcuff hitters in a way that adds a few MPH to its 91-92 MPH velocity. Ankiel’s breaking pitch looks more like a curve ball than a slider. Its effects are best observed by observing the helpless, weak-kneed batter, who often looks like a Little Leaguer watching his first roundhouse. That’s because Ankiel can throw his sharp-breaking curve for strikes...which, when combined with his heavy fastball, leads to stupendous strikeout totals. But that’s not all. Ankiel’s change-up, though harder to spot from the stands, is apparently well developed, too. So where do those strikeouts come from? In the words of Cardinals minor league pitching coordinator Mark Riggins: “He has a very deceptive fastball...the ball jumps...it explodes at the plate. “He can pitch up in the zone...and the ball just jumps by the hitters’ bat. He can use his change-up to strike guys out...he can use his curve-ball to strike guys out...he has weapons that produce strikeouts. He’s a gamer. He’s an intense guy. When he has two strikes on a guy he tries to strike him out and he has the weapons to do that.” Riggins continues: “It’s amazing that [Ankiel] has the breaking ball and the change-up at 19 years of age. “We have guys in our system at the AAA level that we’re still trying to teach the change-up to. Rick has all of those pitches already. It’s just a matter of consistency and getting those pitches in the locations he needs to...all the time.” Which leads to... Expectations
Ankiel
is
19 years old. The last 19 year old pitcher to make a big splash in the
big leagues was Dwight Gooden.Is it unreasonable to compare Ankiel, the summer 1999 Ankiel, with Gooden? “I think so,” said Riggins. “You don’t want to put that much of a burden on him. We as pitching coaches treat every kid the same...whether he was a number one [pick] or a free agent...whether he is 8-and-1 or 1-and-8... “We treat all these guys the same...and try not to put the pressure on him...that’s created more by the media.. . “The expectations are also created by the fans,” continued Riggins. “That’s great...I love that stuff. But we shouldn’t put that much of a burden on Rick right now. He’s still a young kid trying to develop his stuff.” And a young kid that, at 6-1 and 190 lbs, still sometimes looks like the teen-ager that he is. Yet one final word from the Cardinals minor league pitching coordinator, Mark Riggins. “His body is still growing. Usually at 21 or 22 years old...they fully develop. He’s got a couple more years...and may grow an inch or two…and his body will harden up,” Riggins said. “When we signed him he was just a soft kid...a little overweight for his age... “Last year in Peoria...Rick was very low on a test administered by our minor league strength coordinator. “Rick, he was very low in the group of pitchers. That really stuck in his mind...but the very next day he was out early, running... “By the end of the year, last year, he had grown into a man and he’s still growing.” The Last Words
And
how
might Rick Ankiel finalize his development?Recently, it was suggested to Cardinals pitching coach Dave Duncan that a pitcher combining the veteran moxie of Kent Bottenfield with the talent and tools of a Rick Ankiel would be a superstar pitcher. Duncan’s response? “That would be a nice combination,” Duncan replied. “Hopefully that’s what Rick Ankiel will be when he gets to the big leagues. He’ll have his physical skills so that he can execute and the only thing that will be missing is what you gain with experience at this level. “And that’s knowing the opposition and knowing what you have to do to be a successful major league pitcher. He is 19 years old. There’s no getting around that,” Duncan said. “I think he’s a mature 19 when it comes to baseball...he has a very good idea what he’s doing. He pays attention...he’s been a very coachable athlete and he’s learned a lot in the short time he’s been playing professional baseball.” And Cardinals GM Walt Jocketty‘s view on Ankiel? “Rick Ankiel is a young man who just needs a little more seasoning. He’s going to get better with experience. He’s got great ability and great pitches...he has to learn how to get hitters out at the higher levels...how to set up guys....everything comes easy for him right now but it’s going to get tougher as he moves up. But I think he’s very capable of making the adjustments.” Jocketty’s parting shot, issued in March of 1999? Not a promise or a commitment; just a declarative sentence. “I don’t think it will be very long before he gets to St. Louis.” The Conversation
[recorded
June 12, 1999]
StLSO: We’re here in Nashville, Tennessee, visiting with Memphis Redbirds lefthander Rick Ankiel. Good afternoon, Rick. Ankiel: Hi…how you doin’? StLSO: We’re doing all right. Rick Ankiel…you’re 19 years old…you finished high school…two years ago? Ankiel: Yeah, I believe so. StLSO: That’s not too long ago. Fans are interested in your pitching ability and they are interested in some other things about you. Your pitching ability has brought you along way…do your high school days seem like a long time ago…or just yesterday? Ankiel: It seems like a long time ago…to be honest. Last year was a long year, this year has gone well and has been flying by and I hope it will continue to be the same. StLSO: What kinds of experiences from your high school days directly apply to what it is you’re doing now? Ankiel: What do you mean? StLSO: What I mean is…did you feel like your pitching skills were pretty well formed as a senior in high school…or not? Ankiel: I don’t think so. [In high school] I just went out there and threw. I’ve started to learn a lot about pitching rather than just throwing the ball by people. I’m learning a lot and it’s a lot of fun right now and it couldn’t be better. StLSO: It couldn’t be better…I guess you had a satisfactory for yourself last night…you feel pretty good about your performance yesterday? Ankiel: I think last night was probably my worst performance of the year. StLSO: In what way was it not as good as you would like? Ankiel: In every way…in five innings I threw 92 pitches. As a starter, you’re not going to be able to stay in the game and help your team. As a starter, you just can’t pitch like that. StLSO: We cover 40 or 50 games with the Cardinals every year…and you can hardly do a post-game interview with Tony La Russa and Dave Duncan without either of them using words like ‘adversity’ and people being able to come back from adversity…was yesterday as adverse a set of conditions that you’ve faced as a minor leaguer? Ankiel: I don’t know as a minor leaguer…but definitely this year. It just wasn’t a good outing…I couldn’t really find a zone and things just didn’t really go too well. StLSO: Rick, what is it that you like best about minor league baseball at this point…your teammates, the traveling…or not? Ankiel: Everything…I mean…you’re playing something that you love to do and you’re playing in a dream when you’re doing things like that. StLSO: So things are in a real positive sense for you…you’re happy where you’re at, biding your time, and looking to make good pitches… Ankiel: I guess so. StLSO: I’m wondering if there’s something I can ask you outside of baseball…that you’d be interested in talking about…high school…favorite classes…something you were interested in or not? Ankiel: No man…baseball…that’s it. StLSO: When you were eight, when you were ten, when you were twelve…you wrote on a paper somewhere that you wanted to be a baseball player…how long has this been a dream of yours? Ankiel: I think, like, most kids in America, just growing up…it’s always a dream…for me, I don’t know. I guess ever since I’ve been little…right now, I’m trying to fulfill that and just keep focused on baseball. StLSO: Do you have any sense of the anticipation that the folks in the city by the Arch, St. Louis, have for you? Ankiel: I don’t pay attention to that…I leave that up to you guys…I just try to stay focused on pitching…and not worry about media…and other outside influences. StLSO: Frankly, we’re interested, in the media, as well as the fans, in seeing that, that can happen for you, Rick Ankiel…good luck the rest of the year. Ankiel: Thank you. ===== =====
Editor
Out on a Limb?
posted August 27. 1998A look at the way the St. Louis media handled the publicity surrounding Mark McGwire’s use of androstenedione
SUBJECT:
DATE:
August 27, 1998
....on
KMOX radio,
Hall-of-Fame sportscaster Jack Buck said it
was a “non-story”, and pledged not to
talk about the Mark McGwire androstenedione controversy. Ex-St.
Louis Sports Online contributor Randy Karraker, ably
working the KMOX mike
alongside Buck, agreed. KTRS’
Kevin Slaten pitched in with his own
bombastic opinion,
saying that the original AP account of the story, and the front page
androstenedione follow-up by the Post-Dispatch,
only confirmed his own view that print journalists, and sportswriters
in
particular, are the lowest form of life on this planet. In
essence, Slaten completely
agreed with the stated Buck-Karraker on-air opinion, saying that the
whole
Mac-andro affair was a “non-story”. On
KFNS AM-590, host Frank
Cusumano expressed
his view that “it’s legal, and therefore I don’t have a problem with
it”. St.
Louis media veteran Scott
Simon, another former St. Louis Sports Online
contributor who now plies his
trade at Kansas City’s CBS AM outlet, KMBZ, informed yours truly that
the story
was overblown...that he himself suffers from asthma, and the medication
that he
takes to control his condition renders him ineligible for the Olympics. (EDITOR’S
NOTE: I’m thinking
of the Jamaican bobsled team...Mr. Simon.) Post-Dispatch columnist Bernie Miklasz, a recent guest of
the
Saturday Sports Review, chimed in with a rather balanced view of the
McGwire andro
connection, noting that (1) the Olympic ban of andro can’t be taken too
seriously in light of the IOC’s banning of various over-the-counter
medications
(such as Sudafed); and (2) the NBA ban of andro is ridiculous, too,
since pot
is not on the league’s list of banned substances. But
Miklasz covered all bases
by espousing the view that androstenedione is legal, considered to be a
nutritional supplement, and not banned by baseball’s establishment. In
other words, it’s OK to
take andro because it’s not against the rules to do so. KFNS’
Brian Stull, yet another former St. Louis
Sports Online contributor, noted that
the current media attention to Mac’s andro usage is, in his view,
overblown,
since Stull claims that McGwire openly discussed his use of supplements
on at
least two occasions in the weeks prior to the AP “scoop”. And
in their initial comments
on the McGwire story, which were apparently based on early media
accounts of
the controversy, St. Louis Sports Online
columnist (and WGNU sportscaster) Mike Huss, and St. Louis Sports Online photographer Eric Niederhoffer both
leaned toward the view that the story was
overblown...and that a possible driving force for the story was the
media’s incessant
desire to tear down the heroes that they themselves elevate. So,
despite all those
opinions, all which sound logical in one way or another... …why
does McGwire’s use of
andro leave a funny feeling in the pit of the stomach of this observer? I
don’t know. Well,
maybe I do. Maybe
it’s because all of
Mac’s defenders sound, to my ears, a lot like President Clinton’s
defenders. Literally
straining to defend
their man. Parsing
their words. And
sounding like lawyers. The
Clinton defenders...and
the McGwire defenders...their statements sound OK...they just don’t
sound right. Complicating
issues include
the fact that yours truly voted for Clinton. Twice. And
McGwire’s mammoth home
runs have lit up summer for this particular sports consumer like no
other recent
time in sports. But
one thing seems certain. In
the 1998 baseball season,
there is almost nothing connected with Mark McGwire that can be
referred to as
a non-story. And
the
McGwire-androstenedione connection is, in fact, a huge story. And,
to this observer, it
seems wrong to blame the media for publishing a story that, in more
than one
aspect, defines sports in the ‘90s. We
haven’t heard the last of
Big Mac and androstenedione. It
does seem unfortunate,
though, that in this one-in-a-lifetime baseball season, that Mark
McGwire’s
historic chase has been tarnished. One
more thing, though. Recall
that longtime St.
Louis baseball observers--guys like Bob Broeg, Red Schoendienst, George
Kissell, and the aforementioned Buck
(that’s about two centuries worth of baseball there, folks)--all grin
and utter
more or less the same line, when asked about McGwire. “I’ve never seen
anything
like him.” |