Baseball DIY

Not that there has been much activity around here lately anyway, but I just wanted to make it official: This blog will be no more. Thanks to all who read it through thick and thin.

If you just can't get enough of my thoughts on baseball, you'll be able to read them on sportingnews.com beginning in June.

Again, thanks for reading.

Eric

I recycle. I try to conserve gasoline. I care about the environment.

But I can't help thinking that aluminum bats are the work of the devil.

How do I reconcile my ecological concerns with my preference of wooden bats?

Jill and I are part of a Cardinals partial season-ticket plan with another couple. Due to my schedule, we were unable to make the unveiling of Busch Stadium III (some people will try to tell you it's Busch II, but they're wrong). Our first trip to Busch took place last night.

It is beautiful.

It's not completely done; there are some nosebleed seats in left and along the third-base line that have yet to be installed. There's still a massive crater where the old Busch used to be, which at some point in the future will house some vague notion currently known as "Ballpark Village."

What I saw of the new ballpark, though, pleased me greatly. Lots of brick. A nice view of the Arch and some of the St. Louis skyline (although, as it is now, part of that skyline consists of a five-story parking garage ... I believe Ballpark Village will block that out eventually). Lots of little touches to remind you where you are, like Cardinals painted onto the end of seat rows and "StL" logos in even the most trivial locations.

My top 5 features of the new Busch:

1. Germ-X in the bathrooms. Do other ballparks have this? Maybe we were just a little behind the times. It made me feel a whole lot more comfortable using the bathrooms to know that I could disinfect myself. Also, the bathrooms didn't feel quite so cavernous and depressing as the old ones. And there was no waiting for urinals. That's right, I said "urinals." This ain't 1952.

2. The scoreboards. You could find out what the batter's fielding stats were (assists, putouts, etc), what his OBP and SLG were, as well as the usual AVG/HR/RBI information. Underneath the upper deck in right, there was a skinny scoreboard that showed how many pitches a pitcher had thrown, how many were balls and strikes, and what the velocity was for his last offering.

3. Circulation. Busch II allowed for minimal breeze, unless you were sitting at the very top, due to its bowlish design. The superstructure of the new ballpark is open from power alley to power alley, which makes a big difference in terms of air movement and perceived atmosphere. I felt more "outside" at the new stadium than I did at the old one.

4. The Stan Musial statue. Had the Cardinals, for some incomprehensible reason, chosen not to move the statue from Busch II to III, I would never have gone to a Cardinals home game again. They're not that stupid. Stan the Man will continue to be the preferred rendezvous point for fans meeting up at the game. With so many people meeting there, of course, people would be better off meeting elsewhere. But then they wouldn't be meeting at the statue. I understand completely.

5. The scoreboard from Busch II. It stands in the main concourse somewhere between right field and home plate, like the giant penny in Batman's cave.

Busch III isn't a revolutionary ballpark. HOK built it, along with most of the other stadiums that have opened within the last decade, so you might justifiably call it a new kind of cookie-cutter ballpark. Bricks and steel? Check. View of the skyline beyond the outfield? Check. Seats perched more "on top" of the action? Check.

Complaining about that is like complaining about a rock band composed of guitar, bass, and drums. Would you prefer an accordion, harmonica, and triangle?

Busch III has all the right ingredients to become "Baseball Heaven," as the Cardinals marketing department has decided to prematurely promote it. Given time and repeat visits, I'm convinced that I will be sad when the next Cardinals ownership group inevitably knocks it down in favor of Busch IV.

Like most Cardinals fans, I was shocked and appalled when the Cardinals announced that they were ending their 51-year relationship with KMOX, a station that can be heard all the way from Iowa to Mississippi, in favor of KTRS, a station that doesn't have the power to cover the entire St. Louis metro area. The Cardinals and the station (of which the team now owns 50 percent) assured the frazzled masses that they would address the situation by adding affilliates to their radio network.

This much is clear: The St. Louis Post-Dispatch isn't buying what the Cardinals are trying to sell. Post-Dispatch sports media critic Dan Caesar wrote an excellent article on Sunday detailing the problems that have resulted from the move. Two days later, the paper ran an article titled "Can't hear the game? Tell us about it," and now the people have spoken.

"I had static until it started getting dark, and now I have nothing." This from a man who lives about 18 miles outside of St. Louis.

"I'm 12 miles from the Arch," (one listener) said. "The signal I get is what you'd expect to hear tuning in Chicago."

There are few things that please me more than seeing the poor planning of rich and powerful people blow up in their faces. I'm not even mad that the Cardinals left KMOX; I understand that if you can get a better deal, you take it. But when you go into a deal with a radio station that doesn't cover as much area as a baby blanket, you deserve what you get.

On the brighter side, I'm enjoying the addition of John Rooney to the booth, another offseason move made by the Cardinals. Wayne Hagin always seemed like too much of a Ned Flanders, so it's fitting that he's now paired with Rick Horton on WB11's weekend broadcasts.

And then there's Mike Shannon, who's already in midseason form. He's not the most accurate play-by-play man, he doesn't know how to pronounce a lot of the players' names (he still calls Greg Maddux "Greg Mad-ox"), his stories tend to wander aimlessly, his jokes seldom have punchlines, at times it's hard to even figure out what the hell he's talking about, and sometimes you wonder if he's fallen asleep at the microphone. But he's got the best laugh in the business, and you can tell that he loves the Redbirds. That's all I ask for, really. If you're a Cardinals fan, you can tell that he's on your side.

If only I could say the same thing about the Cardinals ownership.

I think I’ve said it here before, but it bears repeating: My wife is the effing coolest girl on the planet. Further proof: Jill and I will hit a trifecta of baseball shrines beginning May 9.

Dubbed the East Coast Family Vacation because we’re old enough to remember “Motownphilly,” our trip starts with two days in Cooperstown, New York, home to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. From there, we will travel to a little town called New York City, where we will take in the sights before attending a game betwixt the Yankees (some of you may know them better as the Highlanders, but you’d have to be really, really old) and Cornelius McGillicuddy’s Philadelphia-Kansas City-Oakland Athletics. But it takes three to trifecta, so we move from New York to Boston, and not just because it gave birth to such bands as the Pixies, the Lemonheads, and, well, Boston. While in Beantown, we will walk the Freedom Trail and take in a game between the Red Sox and the Texas Rangers (though they’ll always be the Washington Senators II to me) at Fenway Park.

Every time I think I know which part of the trip I’m most excited about, I change my mind. Right now, it’s Fenway, but I’m sure it’ll be Cooperstown before the night’s over. And as I learn more and more about Babe Ruth (he was a pretty good ballplayer), the more I want to go to the stadium where he did most of his damage.

Not everyone gets a chance to do something like this, so I really want to make the most of it and experience as much as I can. I want to take as many notes, pictures, and “souvenirs” as I can. I might even buy a Yankees cap.

The only thing that keeps this trip from absolute perfection is that I won’t be taking my dad or yet-to-be-conceived kid with me, but that just gives me an excuse to do it again.

Boy - have I ever been hiding under a rock! Lots of baseball stuff happening in the literary world (and not just that book we all know about). First up though, take a look at the literary magazine Hobart. The latest issue is all baseball, all the time - although I can't imagine why anyone would want to write about Johnny Damon.

And no, if you're wondering, I'm still not over it.

More to come....

It's not too late to make your predictions for how the standings will look at the end of the season.


NL Central
St. Louis
Houston
Milwaukee
Pittsburgh
Chicago
Cincinnati

NL East
New York
Atlanta
Philadelphia
Florida
Washington

NL West
Los Angeles
San Diego
San Francisco
Arizona
Colorado

AL Central
Cleveland
Chicago
Minnesota
Detroit
Kansas City

AL East
Boston
New York
Toronto
Tampa Bay
Baltimore

AL West
Oakland
Los Angeles
Texas
Seattle

POSTSEASON

ALDS
White Sox over A's, Red Sox over Indians
ALCS
Red Sox over White Sox

NLDS
Cardinals over Braves, Mets over Dodgers
NLCS
Cardinals over Mets

World Series
Cardinals over Red Sox

Sometimes bad things happen to good baseball players.

Fans around the St. Louis area have known this for years. In 2000, Cardinals catcher Mike Matheny severely cut his hand opening a hunting knife that he received as a gift, ending his season and keeping him out of the playoffs. On at least one occasion, J.D. Drew hurt himself on the dugout steps during his tenure in St. Louis. The 1985 Cardinals were without the services of speedster Vince Coleman in the World Series thanks to an unfortunate run-in with an automatic tarp machine. And though this may not count as an honest-to-goodness injury, Cardinals hurler Flint Rhem missed time during the 1930 pennant race because, he alleged, gamblers kidnapped him and forced him to drink bootleg whiskey for two days.

Now the St. Louis Unions have been dealt their first dumb-luck injury, and it couldn’t have happened to a better ballplayer. Private Matt “Scoops” Lurk, 2005 recipient of the Unions’ Silver Striker Award and superlative shortstop, was unintentionally struck on the right hand by an aluminum bat-wielding youngster at a batting cage on March 18. The blow chipped a bone below the knuckle of his little finger.

Lurk is expected to be out of action for four to six weeks, which puts him on schedule to return on May 6 against the Murphysboro Clarkes. A platoon of Corporal Eric “Buttermilk” Ferguson and others will hold down the fort at short until Scoops’ return. How the Unions will compensate for the lack of his offensive skills remains to be seen.

Though the injury could have been worse, in terms of both damage done and time missed, it serves as a reminder of the necessity of proper safety measures in baseball. The St. Louis Unions remind all baseball players to use the proper caution and common sense whenever they handle a bat, whether it be wooden or (if absolutely necessary) aluminum.

A career American League pitcher except for 10 starts with the San Francisco Giants in 2003, (new Cardinals pitcher Sidney) Ponson admitted Monday that he had never slid into a base.

In the same article: Could the Cardinals be trying to swing a deal for Alfonso Soriano? They play the Nats today ...