[« Speaking of Archaeologists and Middens...] ["I say...I say...That's a Joke Son..." »]
08/09/2005: We get more comments....
And it's heartening to know that despite the divides between us in some matters, where The Important Things In Life Are Concerned there are still areas where we can come together:
In more important matters, the Cards are looking awfully tough this year. Like Goose, I'm Cubs fan, but since I resigned my hopes to a wild card spot early in the season I'm able to cheer for the Cards now... at least until October.Ok, so maybe I want to take the opportunity to do some random baseblogging; it's my blog and I can do that if I want to.
Actually, vis a vis the Great Cardinals-Cubs Rivalry™ is concerned, I'm not quite a typical Cards fan. I spent three years in Chicago, as I mention from time to time, and in that three years one of my fondest memories is that of cutting classes to attend ballgames at Wrigley Field, which I tried to do as often as I could. For that reason, I don't have the immense animus against the Cubs that a lot of Cardinals fans have (that, however, doesn't prevent me from giving Karen ooodles of undeserved crap for being a Cubs fan, just because I can). I can bring myself to pull for the Cubs (as long as they're not playing against the Cardinals), and I can think of worse things happening than the Cubs actually making (or, perish the thought, winning) the World Series. (Actually, I didn't really mind the Red Sox winning the Series last year, for that matter, other than the fact that there were 16 other teams in the National League I would have rather seen them beat. And actually, even having the Sawx beat the Cardinals wasn't that bad an outcome; however I did want a bit closer and more exciting contest (particularly after such an exciting NLCS; beating a fully rested Roger Clemens in Game 7 of the NLCS portended more, one would think, than a 4-straight-game rout...).
But to address Haws's comment.... The Cardinals at this point in the season are looking surprisingly good, considering that we're not getting the breaks on injuries that we got last year. Last year, IIRC, we had practically nobody on the disabled list, and very few of the star players missing games unless Tony LaRussa elected to rest one of them. This year..... Well, one Cards blogger put it this way:
As i finished my last post I saw this news on MLB.comMy initial reaction was... "Wish this was a Memphis Redbirds lineup? For a couple seconds I thought it was the Memphis Redbirds lineup." Well, if you want to include last season as well, I remember seeing 6 of these 9 players ("J-Rod", Mabry, Gall, Seabol, Luna and Mahoney) play here, but with the exception of Mabry the rest have all done significant time in AutoZone Park this season. Right now we have Molina, Rolen, and Walker on the disabled list, with only Molina being likely to return soon (i.e., before September 1). And when Molina gets back, I am afraid that he won't be ripping the cover off the ball the way he was when he hit the DL. Not for a while at least....
Here is the new possible line up:
SS: Nunez
CF: Taguchi
LF: J-Rod
1B: Mabry
RF: Gall
3B: Seabol
2B: Luna
C: Mahoney
P: Marquis
Anybody else wish that this was a Memphis Redbirds line-up. Tony might have to consider batting Marquis 8th (or seventh, or sixth, or first.)
But in spite of that, the replacements from AutoZone have been doing a pretty damn creditable job. And that's a bit surprising because the word about the Cards farm system as long as I can remember is that it was pretty much a generator of loud sucking sounds (save maybe for the random pitching prospect like "WonderBrad" Thompson), owing to Walt Jocketty's SOP of using promising prospects as trade bait for the veteran retread assignments he seems to like so much (can anyone say "Daric Bolton, Danny Haren and Kiko Calero for Mark Mulder"?). But so far, the Memphis Redbirds who've gotten the callup have managed to do the job for us. And I'm grateful for that. I'm hoping that we can just avoid a total collapse (may not be likely, but then again the first season that I really remember was the infamous 1964 Phillies total collapse that let the Cardinals win the NL pennant on the last day of the season, IIRC, so I can be forgiven for being a bit paranoid), and maybe be at full strength for the postseason.
Len on 08.09.05 @ 06:31 AM CST
