TOWER GROVE — Returned from Colorado’s Front Range this past weekend only to discover that the scenery didn’t changed when it came to your selections for the St. Louis Cardinals All-Decade Team. Routs were the rule. Even the predicted duel between two decorated catchers didn’t develop.
Yadier Molina trounced Mike Matheny in the final poll of the All-Decade Team, the poll that I waited until the final days of the decade to put up because…
TOWER GROVE — If we were to decide the lineup for a St. Louis Cardinals All-Decade team on number of games played alone, even shortstop would join the ranks of the obvious. Like, apparently, Scott Rolen obvious.
But games played does not describe a position alone.
A day after Rolen took 98 percent of more than 8,700 votes here at Bird Land to claim the All-Aughts spot at third base, we may finally have a…
TOWER GROVE — Fresh from an unexpectedly abrupt ending to a remarkable season, the St. Louis Cardinals made a flurry of moves in the first week of December 2004. They signed Matt Morris, they lost Tony Womack and they offered arbitration to catcher Mike Matheny and Edgar Renteria. The rules were different back then, and teams had to offer their players arbitration or lose the right to sign them until May. Then general manager Walt…
DOWNTOWN — With National League MVP Albert Pujols topping the charts with a $175 autograph fee, the St. Louis Cardinals announced this afternoon the schedule and cost for the annual autograph pell mell that is Winter Warmup in downtown St. Louis. A total of 81 former or current Cardinals are schedule to attend the autograph sessions that are the headline event at the three-day fanfest, January 17-19.
Admission passes for the event are $40 for…
TOWER GROVE — About a week ago, Baseball America slipped me the information that for the first time since they began publishing their rankings of overall minor-league systems the St. Louis Cardinals would reach the top 10, finishing eighth in a poll and discussion of editors there at BA. Since then, there has been a, ahem, tsunami of questions and criticisms.
The general theme of those comments has been: What does it mean, and what…
LAFAYETTE SQUARE — As a result of having so many officially retired numbers and several unofficially retired numbers (See: 25, 51 and 32), the St. Louis Cardinals sported a lineup that at times resembled an offensive line. The team simply did not have enough lower numbers for Chris Perez, Joe Mather, Jason Motte, et. al., to score anything lower than Skip Schumaker’s 55 for their backs.
There were a lot of swingin’ 60s out there,…
TOWER GROVE — Five years ago the St. Louis Cardinals and the finest hitter of his generation were steaming toward what could have been a dicey and milestone arbitration hearing when, in the 11th hour, Albert Pujols agreed to the largest contract in franchise history. The deal, still active today, made Pujols the ninth $100-million man in baseball history and, at 24, the youngest ever to reach the salary threshold.
As the MVP enters the…
TOWER GROVE — The Cardinals are close to acquiring a new face while continuing a familiar trend.
Late last night the news broke, by Joe Strauss here at The Post-Dispatch and by Padres beat writer Tom Krasovic over at the San Diego Union-Tribune, that the Cardinals had traded for San Diego shortstop Khalil Greene. Greene will become the St. Louis Cardinals’ fourth different everyday shortstop since the start of the 2004 World Series….
WEST COUNTY — The St. Louis Cardinals decision not to offer Braden Looper arbitration by this week’s deadline can be measured in the innings they have to prove they can fill, the dollars they may have saved, and the years of security he may gain.
But don’t forget to count the prospect the Cardinals won’t get.
As a Type B free agent, Looper offered the Cardinals the opportunity to assure a supplemental (i.e., sandwich) round…
TOWER GROVE — This evening at the stroke of midnight on the East Coast the prices for many of the best free agents in baseball will be set by teams deciding whether or not to offer arbitration. Some players are sure to be offered arbitration because of the bounty of draft picks their signings will bring (A.J. Burnett and CC Sabathia, for example). Others certainly won’t be, like shortstop Edgar Renteria (the Detroit…
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