It fucking owns you.

You spend too much money on it every year. You devout too much time to it, every day, from April to October. You obsess over it. Changing social plans and planning family events around it. It owns you. It encompasses your days at work, your nights at home. The first thing you think about when you wake up and the last thing on your mind as you slumber. It's an addiction, plain and simple. It's not your fault, it's probably in your genes. Your father had it. Your grandmother had it. Your great-grandfather used to stagger home down Grand every evening because of it. In no other terms, you are an addict.

It's Cardinals Baseball.

And you're an addict.

So, what's the point? You give you're heart and soul to the franchise, only to see your devotion hit you in the nuts with a proverbial fly ball in the ninth inning of the game of life. What was the point of spending countless hours since Spring Training broke in February, virtually befriending a group of strangers that you invite into your living room all summer long, only to see the hometown nine wilt in October?

Why do we do this? Why do I find myself sitting in the car, in front of my house, having a cigarette at nine o'clock at night, listening to sad The Band songs, trying to wind down before I walk into my house to see my wife and dog, so I don't sound like a fucking raving lunatic after watching a random sports game at a friends house? Why is a grown man, that I will probably never meet, missing a fly ball, the most heartbreaking moment of the year for me? Why should I care?

I care.

I care because of Skip Schumaker. A fourth outfielder that I, along with many, hoped would get a shot at playing second base last year (anyone can play second base, I said, much as Thom Yorke assures us anyone can play guitar) and who finally got a last second shot at being a regular in the 11th hour before Spring Training this year and worked his ass of to become a serviceable second baseman and continued to be a serviceable leadoff man, all on the cheap. I care because he cares.

Chris Carpenter cares. He could have packed it in a year ago and lived off his giant contract, but he cares. He lives to get mother fuckers out, not to rehab. And after two years of rehab for this, rehab for that, he got mother fuckers out all year.

Adam Wainwright is fucking brilliant. He cares. His goal in life is to provide for his family, glorify Jesus Christ, and, like his mentor, get mother fuckers out. He is an absolute bulldog and proved again tonight he is nails personified. Adam Wainwright is a big game pitcher.

I care because John Smoltz cares. Because Yadier Molina cares. Hell, Boog cares! Because Colby Rasmus is proving he can hit lefties on the biggest stage possible.

I care because I get to watch the greatest right handed hitter in Major League Baseball history on a daily basis. And he, because he was bored, set the all-time assist record for first basemen this year. I care because Albert Pujols cares. Because he wants nine more rings for him, which means nine more unforgettable nights for me.

I care because of the Man Stew, Hawk's backpack, Lugo's glare, and all of the other random, idiotic moments that made this summer enjoyable.

I care because dinners on my deck during the summer aren't the same without Mike Shannon's cackle. Spring isn't the same without random tweets from Jupitor. My lunch break isn't the same without Goold's 10 @ 10.

We care because it makes us happy. It's Saint Louis summers, beers on a patio, and losing yourself in a kids game. It's how we were raised, it's what we know, it's how we do. We care because we cherish memories like "Go Crazy Folks!" "That's a Winner... A World Series Winner!" "Swing and a miss and the Cardinals are World Champions for 2006!" as much as we cherish life lessons from family.

We care because if the worst thing that happened to us that day is the Cardinals losing, in the big picture, it really wasn't that bad of a day.

And, most importantly, we care because in downtown Saint Louis, this Saturday eve, the Perfecto's are going to take one from the Trolley Dodgers, and after that, it'll be just two more wins until the NLCS.

Lets go Redbirds!

Re: The booing, this is my final tweet on the subject:

I can live with physical errors, but I hate mental errors. And tonight's game had them in spades. By La Russa.

What a shitty game. 29 for fucks sakes.

Yadi isn't right, KMac shouldn't be pitching, Wainwright should have been pulled after six...

As excited as I was to wake up this morning for October baseball, I am as frustrated right now.

Right the ship, jerks!

As the cool breezes roll in from the Canadian North and the leafs change from dark green to hues of autumn, as Carpenter and Wainwright continue their dominance, and Pujols and Holliday get ready to slay that National League in the first round of five, the hot, never ending, triumphant days of August have changed to the cool, windy eves of playoffs baseball in Saint Louis, MO for the first time since that transcendent October of 2006 and I am reminded of past glories and run on sentences of past.

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Things to discuss:

Will the Washington Nine be dumb enough to retaliate for Albert's bat flip?

Doesn't Mitch Boggs seem like a random enough guy to randomly throw a no-hitter (while walking six)?

Interesting John Smoltz facts:

He has splits versus three of the four base coaches in the Nationals v. Cardinals series, and against the fourth's spawn (also known as the worst baseball player in the history of organized rounders).
 
Smoltz v. Marquis Grissom

Smoltz v. Pat The Bat Listach

Smoltz v. Jose Oquendo

Smoltz v. Cody McKay

Also, John Smoltz is so old, that following his first big league victory, he danced the Charleston on top of a flagpole whole holding the Lindbergh baby.

Leave all poetry, ASCII art,  and other non-sense below.

Regarding the fans being "too hard" on Chris Duncan, esp. re: after his game ending PA last night, Via Leach:

"Maybe it had something to do with the fact that Valverde, [lefties are] hitting .300 versus .140 [for righties]. And did Ryan have a particularly good day? How can people ask? What's the question there? A guy who could hit a two-run homer versus Brendan doing what? Looking futile again?

"Did anybody watch Brendan's at-bats?

"Chris is a ... whipping boy. I'm so tired of the unfairness with Chris Duncan, it makes me want to vomit. You can tell anybody ... that he's getting treated unfairly. It makes me want to vomit. That's why I get upset as soon as he gets mentioned.

"They've got a great reputation in our town, but it's not a perfect reputation.

"It's a pretty clear difference [for Valverde between right- and left-handed hitters]. Plus Chris, even when he struggles, he's one of our better pinch-hitters.

"This guy is treated unfairly. For fans that have the reputation that they have, that they deserve, they do have a couple quirks that are not fair. And he's one of them.

"What's so ridiculous is, if you watch Brendan, Brendan had no chance yesterday for some reason. So he's going to do better in that at-bat? That's ridiculous if you think about it. I think it's ridiculous. And it has to do with the guy that pinch-hit. It's really a black eye for some of our fans that are not objective about him for whatever reason. I'm not sure what it is. I can't figure it out."

What is unfair, Tony, is putting in a guy who is a below replacement level player in the final at bat of the game, when you admit he is in a position to fail, and then being upset when he fails.

And, to be clear, nobody is personally mad at Chris Duncan. Most are mad at Johnny Mo for having him on the 25 man roster and not down in Memphis, others are mad that Tony La Russa continuously puts him on the field or, in this particular instance, in a high leverage situation, when it is clear t oeveryone that he is either still struggling from his fucking radical spine surgery and shouldn't be playing, or can just no longer hit.

I don't mind Tony having a virtual lifetime contract with the Cardinals, but I sure as shit mind him not being held accountable to his horrible in game decisions and the organization's ridiculous roster management (Hey, PJ Walters is still on the team!). If his only answer to criticism is to berate the fans, press, and well performing players to sacrifice one of the worst baseball players this year, so fucking be it.

But I wish one member of the Saint Louis press would remind him how terribly his teams have performed down the stretch over the last few years and that batting one of the worst OBP men on the team second, randomly sitting his best OFer, and sticking by one of the worst starters in the Major Leagues while there is an eight man bullpen during the first important series of the second half does not exactly put the team on sound footing going towards the pennant drive.

Or, they could just say:

Mr. La Russa, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

I said "good day."

Gather 'round the ol' lemon tree, kids, an old man is going to tell you a story. A story about how with good drafts, cost controlled players, and a few shrewd free agent signings, somewhere in an alternate world full of bacon and vodka, you could essentially have the National Leagues starting lineup, rotation, and bullpen corps' core for less than the Cardinals are paying the team you see with Joe Thurston at third and Anikucan in left over the last 91 games.

First, lets go with the everyday eight:

Hanley Ramirez: $5.5M

Chase Utley: $11M

Albert Pujols: $16M

Ryan Braun: $745K

Raul Ibanaz: $6.5M

David Wright: $7.5M

Shane Victorino:$3.125M

Yadier Molina: $3.25M

Your lineup total: 53.62 Million Dollars.

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game thread!

La Russa appreciated the information generated by computers. He studied the rows and the columns. But he also knew they could take you only so far in baseball, maybe even confuse you with a fog of overanalysis. As far as he knew, there was no way to quantify desire. And those numbers told him exactly what he needed to know when added to twenty-four years of managing experience.

Sabermetricians – those number-crunchers who have come to dominate thinking about strategy the last few years – believe that they have debunked clutch situations as statistically irrelevant. La Russa has read the various studies. Based on his own forty years plus of experience, he believes those studies to be bunk of their own.

La Russa respected [Bill] James, but based on managing nearly 4,000 games, was convinced James was wrong.