La Pregunta De Los 64,000 (Question Of The 64,000)

El tercer manager con más victorias en Grandes Ligas anunció su retiro después de 33 temporadas dirigiendo clubes. Necesitaba 35 victorias para empatar a John McGraw en segundo lugar de todos los tiempos. El abogado logró construirse una historia por su inteligencia, incluso por tomar riesgos ante decisiones difíciles y esa fue su contribución al […]

BBA Names Arizona’s Gibson, Tampa Bay’s Maddon Top Managers

Top Blogger Organization Awards Connie Mack Award For 2011 Arizona Diamondbacks manager Kirk Gibson and Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon were named the 2011 Connie Mack Award winners today by the Baseball Bloggers Alliance.  The Connie Mack Award recognizes those considered the top manager for the season. Gibson took over an Arizona team that […]

Final Cardinal Cuts

I’ve had a wonderful run of luck with my prognostications lately.  Seems like anytime I say X, Y actually happens and fairly quickly afterwards. Yesterday was another of those days, as Fernando Salas was sent to Memphis and Bryan Augenstein made the team.  I will admit that when the Cards plucked Augenstein from the waiver wire, I just […]

Expectations Met

Well, it was a road game against a cellar-dweller.  Was there really any doubt how last night’s game was going to turn out? Just for kicks, here’s something interesting.  The last time the Cardinals won on Tuesday, they had a brawl during the game, as it was that sweep in Cincy that had everyone fired up. […]

“It Didn’t Look Like They Wanted To Come Out And Beat Us”

I think the title of this post says it all.  When a player on the opposing team questions the desire, there’s little else to say about the 2010 Cardinals. That was Geoff Blum’s quote to MLB.com after yesterday’s game.  “It didn’t look like they wanted to come out and beat us at all.”  We talked about […]

Cardinals Keep Destroying Hope

I wonder if any of his old friends in Cincinnati have called Adam Dunn and said thanks for the help. Since his home run on Saturday, the Cards have scored a total of two runs in 31 innings.  Since that moment, this team his hitting .152 against staffs that are on second-division teams.  Since that […]

Doing It The Hard Way

When I turned on the game a little late last night, I was well-pleased to see that the Cards had already been serious, putting up six in the top of the inning.  And even though Jaime Garcia allowed two runs of his own in the bottom of the frame, I figured the Cards were well […]

Card Shuffling Proves Effective

The big news prior to yesterday’s game was the fancy new lineup that Tony La Russa was running out there.  Matt Holliday was hitting second, Ryan Ludwick was hitting fourth and, to the great joy of some, the pitcher was hitting eighth. Now, it’s hard to know if the lineup switcheroo was at all to […]

Baseball’s Craftsmen

George F. Will’s “Men at Work” is a classic. Twenty years after the book stood at No. 1 on the NYT Bestseller list for 19 straight weeks, it’s back as a re-release. This week, for those of us who were too young to appreciate it the first time around, let me shed light on what […]

A Pain in the Back

The Cardinals split up the squad yesterday and wound up with two wins, including a huge eighth inning that brought them from behind against the Red Sox.  So what’s the major story today? Albert Pujols’s back, of course.  The man gets a hangnail, Cardinal Nation hyperventilates.  With good reason. This is starting to trouble me […]

Subtle Shifts

While no major news came out of Jupiter yesterday, there were a couple of things that could have an impact on the season to come. First, the Cards returned Ben Jukich to the Reds.  For a Rule V guy, he didn’t get a lot of looks in camp, only getting two innings in one game. […]

Garcia Makes a Statement

Even though the Cardinals lost to the Nationals yesterday, they were able to take something away from it.  Jaime Garcia isn’t interested in Memphis. Garcia struck out seven batters in three innings, allowing no runs and just one hit and a walk.  Of  course, you adjust that for competition, since the Nationals aren’t known for […]

Dealing With the “Rumor”

I guess not surprisingly, the biggest thing coming out of Cardinals camp yesterday was a Seinfeldian discussion about nothing. Look, no one took that “trade rumor” involving Albert Pujols and Ryan Howard the least bit seriously.  No one thought that it might happen, that the teams really had talked about it, etc.  I think most […]

Wounded Birds

While there was plenty of news from the game yesterday, the biggest discussion point probably happened before the first pitch was ever thrown. Albert Pujols and Matt Holliday were both scratched from yesterday’s game against the Nationals.  Pujols’s back still isn’t quite right and Holliday has a strained rib cage muscle.  A team that looks […]