Category: St. Louis Cardinals

Yadier Molina: True Value

May 18, 2015April 13, 2017 · Leave a comment ·

Disclaimer-I wrote this last August for the Conclave but saved it on the dose here for a future publishing. I saved it for when people started to doubt Molina’s brilliance. They were worried about his lack of power or his ability to frame a pitch. Well, when you are king of a position in America’s favorite pastime, all people can do is chip away at your legend. I wrote this when Molina returned in 2014. Read on.

When I think of Yadier Molina’s importance to the St. Louis Cardinals, I think of one of my legs. He isn’t the heart and soul of the team because that position belongs to the logo on the front of the chest and is spread across the entire team. Yadi is a leg and it was broken on July 9th when he went down with torn ligaments in his right thumb. The loss of Yadi didn’t dismantle the team completely. They were able to soldier on and win more games than they lost. Tony Cruz couldn’t fill the starting role so A.J. Pierzynski was brought in to help. Together, they did a decent job in a pinch. In the end, they showed how important Yadi is to the Cards. He is easily the most valuable player and someone I attribute “true value” to every time he steps on the field. He is a leg on this team because since early July, this team has been hopping on one foot and barely getting by. They are scrapping the floor and the other healthy limb is getting tired. With Yadi, the team walks straight and glides. Without him, they are off, in pain and slowly falling apart.

You can try to calculate the value of Yadi but good luck getting anywhere with MVP voters. They prefer glossy baseball card mafia statistics instead of intangibles. They want home runs, RBI and hits. MVP voters like the long ball and Yadier’s career high is 22 in 2012. The WAR(wins above replacement) can’t be correctly graded for a catcher, but last year in that category, Yadi ranked first among catchers with a 5.7. In 2012, it was 6.7 wins above replacement. Yadier Molina should have at least 2 MVP’s but voters don’t want to look at the little things. (more…)

Father/Son At Busch Stadium: Volume 1

July 12, 2014April 12, 2017 · Leave a comment ·

When people ask me about taking my son, Vincent, to a game and what it is like, I have an answer automatically. It’s like being the manager of a rookie pitcher on the mound. You don’t know what is going to happen but you hope for the best and by the end of the night, for your mood to not lose out to your nerve. Vincent is 2.5 years old, and he turns 3 in September. He is a little beast, all power and a little scrap. He is 37 pounds and stands a little above 3 feet tall. On Tuesday night, I took my wife, Rachel, and Vinny to the game. The Cardinals were playing the Pirates. When a pregame interview I had set up got cancelled at the last minute, a couple hours opened up before game time.

We stopped in Ballpark Village and got a taste of the Hall of Fame Museum. My son stared up at the Hall Of Fame plagues of Bob Gibson, Dizzy Dean and Ozzie Smith with an intriguing glare that ended with this statement…”baseball, daddy”. For the entire visit to Ballpark Village, my son kept saying baseball. Basically, dad, all this historical stuff is nice and will have a bigger meaning when I am older but right now I want to see Fredbird, watch some baseball and say hello to the other 35,000 people at Busch Stadium.

In case you didn’t notice or guess, my son is a people’s person. He wants to stand up on his seat, turn around and talk to people behind him. He wants to say hello to strangers. He wants life, in general. This was Vinny’s 4th or 5th game but the first one where he seemed to really have some fun.

As the pregame cermonies started, he sat there and asked nicely if he could go on the field. The answer was no. I am sure the security guards wouldn’t stop him but they would arrest me so it wasn’t happening. He then asked if we could go home. NO! For the first time in a public place, though, I noticed my son being patient. He watched the field. He looked at the sky. He scanned the crowd. He ate three cheese sticks, 2 bags of chips and a couple pretzels. Suddenly, the game started and he was ready. He looked like me with a glee that one couldn’t possibly explain with words.

Remember how I said in the beginning that taking your child to a game is like being a manager and watching your rookie pitcher take the mound. Here’s why.

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Molina Injury Adds To A Challenging Season

July 11, 2014April 13, 2017 · Leave a comment ·

The old saying isn’t a lie. A team is tested most when things don’t go according to plan. With the 2014 St. Louis Cardinals, the team picked to easily mop up the National League and head back to the World Series, very little has gone right or smooth. This is just another weight being dropped on the shoulders of Cardinal Nation.

So far today, I have heard crying, whining, panic modes and people calling for a wholesale of the team and for the organization to throw the white flag. Why? Yadier Molina will miss 8-12 weeks with a torn ligament in his thumb. He suffered the injury sliding into third base in Wednesday night’s win. Molina left the game and underwent an MRI after the game. The results came in this morning and at 2:45 p.m. General Manager John Mozeliak informed the media and general public that Molina would be out a long time. Twitter exploded. Talk shows spiked. Minds went rampant. I was quietly thrown for a loop and almost…dropped my coffee. At the most, Yadi could be out until the beginning of October. At the least, he isn’t stepping on a field until mid September. For the first time in a long time, Molina won’t anchor this team and carry them into a stretch run.

This is a devastating injury folks. There is no getting around that. When you lose Molina, an MVP type player, the chips will start falling quick and people will panic. What happens next? Tony Cruz, a very able backup who has trained under Molina for years, becomes the starting catcher and Audrey Perez(that one guy you don’t remember and rather shouldn’t) will back him up tonight as the Cards go for the sweep of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Cincinnati and Milwaukee have lost already. If the Cards win tonight, they are one game out of first place, That’s the closest they have been since early May. The Cardinals don’t have time to panic. That’s what writers do as they come up with fables to spin for the screaming public. John Mozeliak will look at the market for a veteran catcher to back up Cruz but I don’t expect any other big moves as a result of this injury.

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Jon Hamm Gets His Night At Busch

June 12, 2014April 12, 2017 · Leave a comment ·

When I first heard the name, Jon Hamm, back in 2005, my first reaction was…”Who is this guy?” I had heard the name many times over the course of a few weeks. I was sitting at Panera in Florissant and was throwing down a sandwich and reading the New York Magazine article about this hot new show called Mad Men. Flash forward to today and I am one of his biggest fans and developed a fully equipped man crush on the St. Louis native TV/Movie/Local star. After reading that article, I quickly got a hold of Mad Men, watched the first season, and became addicted to this show about tortured souls in the 1960’s hiding their true identities, selling advertising, and drinking and smoking way too much. At the center of that addiction was a man named Hamm.

He is the heart and soul of the show, which just finished airing the first part of its 7th final season. In a way, he is the heart and soul of the entertainment community of St. Louis. Hamm is an avid Cardinals and Blues fan, and doesn’t hesitate to show his love for IMOS pizza. Every time he goes on Jimmy Kimmel(a well known hater of the St. Louis style pizza), Hamm brings him an IMOS pizza. That’s Hamm. He is synonymous with this city. If it’s him wearing his beat up Blues and Cardinals hat in Los Angeles or on the set of Million Dollar Arm(his solid leading role vehicle released last month) or him simply talking about the Cardinals in the latest issue of Vanity Fair, Hamm is always going to carry the Midwest around with him. With the departure of David Freese to Los Angeles, the LA based Hamm takes over as the face of the city.

Hamm will officially get his day at Busch Stadium on August 18th, when the Cardinals promote Jon Hamm Bobble Head Day. That’s right. This prodigy son is getting his day in the sun right here in St. Louis. Excuse me if readjust to hide the boner beneath this keyboard. When I heard about Hamm Bobble Head Night, I had to come here to the Dose and fire something up. Whether I attend the game, climb up the side of the stadium or parachute into the stadium, I will acquire this item and proudly display it in my house. For me, Jon Hamm connects the two things I love most in life(outside of my family of course). The St. Louis Cardinals and The Land of Make Believe, the movies and TV shows. Hamm brings those two together. That could be where the love comes from.

Hamm will attend the game and throw out the first pitch. I am sure he will think about firing a fastball down the middle with some heat behind it but I am guessing a direct shot to the catcher’s chest with a nice hang to it will do. This will definitely be an event worth checking out. This relationship between Hamm, the Cardinals, and this city will only grow as Hamm’s movie career stretches its legs. The city needs a good representative in Hollywood and Hamm fits the bill.

It doesn’t hurt that he is a good actor and likes to be a part of ensembles. While Million Dollar Arm didn’t gross a ton of money, it was an enjoyable summer dose of true baseball story mania. Hamm anchors Mad Men because his restrained deeply emotional performance as Don Draper makes the show run so smoothly and brilliantly. Hamm has quietly put together a fine movie career before this summer. He shared the screen with Ben Affleck in The Town, had a small role in Bridesmaids and is slowly breaking out. He has guest starred on 30 Rock and hosted Saturday Night Live a few times. His comic timing is as sharp as his throw from third base in the Celebrity softball game before every MLB All Star Game. Hamm has the talent to back up the reputation.

Check out his hilarious bit as Lex Luthor asking the President for a bailout.

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/f26c4046b0/lex-luthor-bailout-with-jon-hamm

On August 18th, Jon Hamm comes to St. Louis and gets his day. That’s not for a guy who lost both his parents before the age of 10, worked on a porn set for cash, taught English at Webster to pay back a debt, and packed all his shit into a car to go to Hollywood only to not make it for a few years. Hamm is an easy guy to like because he’s famous and he earned it.

Thanks for reading,

DLB

Remembering Troy

April 5, 2014April 5, 2014 · 5 Comments ·

When the Cardinals home opener rolls around, one thing instantly comes to my mind. My good friend Troy Siade. Troy and I met while working the Manual Scoreboard around 2002 and instantly hit it off. If hitting it off meant giving each other as much shit and trouble as we could. Two peas in a pod on a versatile group of scoreboard degenerates getting paid to watch baseball games, Troy and I were alike in many ways. We were loud, blunt, dirty and diehard Cardinal fans. When we weren’t scaring scoreboard visitors with our vicious ice cube battles or firing insults in each other’s direction, we were hanging shoulder to shoulder watching the game talking about the action. Troy was a joker on the surface, but deep down he was one of the best guys I have ever come to know on this earth. He was caring, devoted and modest behind all the loud talking exterior. The reason I think about Troy so much on opening day here in St. Louis is because 10 years ago, on April 23rd, Troy passed away at the age of 38 to Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. The last time I saw him was on opening day earlier that month.

Troy was a good looking guy. Full head of dark hair, huge smile, big laugh and a walk that even the proudest gangster would fail to imitate. When Troy lived, he was on top of the world. We were living inside his movie set. He called the shots, told the jokes and made us laugh all night long. When the Cards blew a game late, he would shout and pace the scoreboard like a mad professor looking for the new theory of relativity. I remember a car drive with him that involved a massive thunderstorm and Troy slamming on the steering wheel extremely hard because he wanted to get back to his house so he could show off his home to another scoreboard friend and myself. Troy was an entertainer at all times. Part of the reason I miss him to this day has everything to do with need and less to do with baseball. Troy had an energy. A will to pull a smile out of a dark corner or take the mood of a room and toss it through the ceiling. When you work 70-75 games of a 82 game home schedule, there can be some dull nights. If Troy was there, the forecast called for a good time no matter what the score turned out to be.

Being the outgoing personality that he was, Troy was able to keep certain things private. Many of the scoreboard guys didn’t even know he had an illness or disease until a year before he passed. He didn’t want us to know. The comedian doesn’t let the curtain fall to show it all. Troy only let us know when he was getting very seriously ill. Cancer can be a deadly quick moving disease. It can come in and smash everything within months. Troy was here, alive and well, towards the winter and end of a rather forgettable 2003 season that saw no playoffs and a horrible September series in Wrigley that had Troy and I ranting for an entire homestand. Troy was okay then. By the beginning of the 2004 season, he was nearly gone.

There are two moments I will never forget with Troy. Okay, three. I will warn you they start happy and end sadder than shit.

The first was that stormy night back in the summer of 2003 he invited me and a friend back to his home to play pool, sit in his Busch Stadium terrace reserved seats he had installed in his basement and listened to rock n’ roll while drinking like fishes. The Cards beat the Orioles 8-5 with an Albert Pujols three run bomb. We crashed at Troy’s and went to the ballpark the next day. It was perfectly Vegas behavior. It was a night I will never forget.

The second was a random day where Troy showed up at my apartment and asked my wife and I to dinner spur of the moment. He had just left work, suit and tie on, and wanted to take us out. He cared like that. He hung out with people he liked and loved. My wife got a kick out of him and we really wanted to go. In a decision I will regret to the day I die, I turned Troy down. We had plans with my parents to go to dinner. Plans I should have broke. Plans I should have shredded. I will never forget the look in his face when I said we couldn’t. Whether they admit it or not, a light does flicker out in someone’s eyes when they are let down. He reached out and I said no. I hate that move to this day. My first back in time fix job.

The third was seeing him for the last time. It was opening day, 2004, about three weeks before he passed. He didn’t want ANYONE coming to see him. Especially the ones he knew and liked. He didn’t want us to see him in a weakened state. I didn’t follow those orders. I went down to the field box level and saw him. His flock of hair was gone. His smile was flexing yet fading. He was slowly leaving. I shook his hand and gave him a brief hug. I don’t remember how I departed or if I shed a tear. Maybe I don’t want to remember all of it. It was tough.

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Sizing Up The Cardinals in The Spring

March 14, 2014April 13, 2017 · 2 Comments ·

Good morning folks,

Fresh off work and a hit and run with the gym, I wanted to take the chance to talk about the Cards today. While I officially cover the Cards for Sports Rants and do most of work there, I wanted to take a detour and present to you a bullet round that covers the recent actions of the team. Things to remember, a fresh take on certain players and maybe a few surprises.

Stop worrying about Oscar Taveras’ health. Sure, the kid can’t stay healthy and is showing more signs of becoming the next J.D. Drew than the second coming of Albert Pujols but it’s still early. He hasn’t played a major league game yet and deep down, the Cards aren’t counting on him to contribute a ton this season. They didn’t trade Matt Adams for a reason and traded for Bourjos. Insurance for the plight of Oscar. Luckily, the Cards aren’t in dire need of a young outfielder right now. We have him in the arsenal and set for a future impact. Oscar’s body is running behind his potential. He had an ankle injury in 2013 and was rushed back only to go down for the season. This spring, eager to please a Cards staff and management team, he pulled a hamstring. Slow the train down folks. Let Oscar get healthy and play some games at Memphis. There is NO need to rush the kid. Last time I checked we weren’t in Chicago or San Diego.
It has been talked about and rehashed over and over, but let me say I am very happy with the Matt Carpenter extension. It’s a quality deal that springs optimism on both sides of the ball and provides the team with a versatile player with the potential to be a top flight leadoff man for a long time. Carpenter’s winning attitude, steady defense and ability to consistently get on base the past 2 years gave the Card a hint of locking him in. Then he went off and put together one of the best years by a second baseman ever, smashing 55 doubles, scoring over 110 runs and putting together an on base percentage around .400. The kid can play and 6 years at 52 million dollars is a bargain for this kind of talent. Allen Craig got less, but Carpenter provides more stable health and gives you more options in the field. Both deals keep these two vital pieces of the Cards offense intact.

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Shut Down “The Cardinal Way” Title

March 11, 2014April 13, 2017 · 2 Comments ·

First, let me adamantly remind you folks that I am a die hard St. Louis Cardinals fan. I live and die by this team. I allow my mood to be handed over to them for roughly 7 months out of every year. They find a way into my nervous system every summer. So when I say I am fucking tired of the Cardinal Way and the Best Fans in Baseball titles, trust me, they come from a sophisticated yet firmly planted point of view. I am simply tired of them.

St. Louis Post Dispatch writer Bill McClellan is a Cubs fan and he has made that known in several columns. Last week, he had some fun with Cards fans when he wrote a piece about being worn down by this Cardinal Way and idea that the Cardinals were perfect knights. I usually don’t like McClellan. He is known to troll topics, slide his take in and run away from the scene. This time, however, I couldn’t agree more. Enough with these fictitious labels. The Cards are a good enough baseball team that they don’t need these tromped up mantras.

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5 Things About The 2014 Cards

February 7, 2014February 9, 2014 · Leave a comment ·

It’s official folks. Pitchers and catchers report to Jupiter, Florida in exactly a week. The waiting is nearly over with and the anticipation is going to start boiling over. Sometimes fans forget about the 45 days that happen before the real 162 game stretch begins. This is where rosters start large and full of promise and end up shredded and cut to size. With no disrespect to the Blues, the Super Bowl is over and that means one thing in St. Louis. Baseball is near.

With that goal in mind, I am going to take a look at five things that strike me as interesting about this 2013 Cardinals team. There are a lot of things worth talking about but here I will give you five for now.

5.) Daniel Descalso has one very good agent. One thing that struck me about John Mozeliak’s media session at the Winter Warmup was his icy feelings towards the Descalso camp. Dirty Dan wanted 1.6 million and the Cards were offering 900,000 and sticking to it. Yesterday, Descalso signed for 1.2 million, a price met by the Cards due to the fear of the first arbitration trial for the Cards in like….forever. Was this a good deal? For Descalso, it sure is. He gets financial security but I am not sure where the Cards are going to justify him with the at bats and playing time.

Descalso isn’t fighting Pete Kozma for starts anymore. He is fighting the future in Kolten Wong and the seasoned veteran edge of Mark Ellis. He may have won at the bank but in the field not so much. Ellis didn’t come here to play behind two younger players. Descalso’s OPS(on base percentage plus slugging percentage) was downright horrible last year and his batting average(.238) wasn’t much better. In a dog fight there isn’t much he offers to the team in reality over a defensive wizard like Kozma or a younger buck like Greg Garcia.

I like Descalso and appreciate his fine contributions over the years, but his defense has gotten worse and his bat doesn’t do enough to justify a spot. His 1.2 million isn’t as bad as Ty Wiggington’s 2.5 last year but it still leaves me scratching my head.

4.) Hey Joe. I am talking about California Wildfire fighting Joe Kelly. The jack of all trades who happens to work out with pizza in his mouth(at least according to twitter) is coming into spring with his role undetermined. It’s a good thing Kelly doesn’t let those kind of shenanigans affect his preparation.

In 2013, Kelly served as part time Porsche parked in the garage and part time excellent fill in starter. He went from missing in action to taking Shelby Miller’s rotation spot in the playoffs(yeah that’s just happened). Unlike 2 of his fellow rotation dogfight participants, Kelly has a strong mental makeup and doesn’t let his spring training status stop him from working hard. If it were up to me, I would carve out a spot for Kelly in the rotation right away but since he is so versatile, I can’t be too sure.

3.) Jason Motte’s beard. Okay, I mean his right arm but I couldn’t resist a poke at the best wave of facial hair in baseball(sorry Brian Wilson). Motte is only starting to throw this month but his spot is an interesting one come May and June. Where does he fit into this packed bullpen? Trevor Rosenthal is the closer and Carlos Martinez could be a likely bullpen long arm.

Making matters more interesting is this is Motte’s final year of a 2 year deal, which begs the question. If he pitches very well when he returns, what happens in 2015? Rosenthal and Motte going head to head doesn’t bode well for the Bearded One even though his 2011-12 performance was stellar. Motte could be a victim of pure bad luck but I personally hope he develops into a killer setup man later this year while building his recapture of the 9th inning role.

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Tony La Russa-“The Relentless Grinder”

January 26, 2014April 13, 2017 · Leave a comment ·

I really don’t care what people think about Tony La Russa choosing to go with no logo on his Hall of Fame cap. Get over it. I have no problem with it. He managed in three cities and each meant something to him. Respect a man’s choice for honoring where he came from and where he made the most of his time. With that said, I had a chance to participate in a 25 minute media session with La Russa last Sunday. Here is what I got out of that session.

Tony La Russa never wasted any words when speaking with the media during his career as a manager. While those words could be short ended and sparse at times, he is direct and carried a dry sense of humor about him.

When these media sessions go well, the player/coach treats them like a conversation and not an interrogation. La Russa simply sat there and talked to us before he signed for the fans. Here are are his thoughts on various subjects.

On Sunday, La Russa gave an intimate 25 minute conversation about his years in St. Louis, instant replay, and getting into the Hall of Fame. It was one of those conversations that you didn’t want to see end and wouldn’t soon forget.

On getting into the Hall Of Fame-

“I had convinced myself it wasn’t going to happen. This has been a surreal experience. All the pieces they give you and the other guys. It’s heavy stuff. You get the call and they don’t tell you anything else. They tell you to come down. They tell you that your life will be different. There’s some far out stuff that is impossible to comprehend.”

La Russa, even after making it into the Hall, isn’t comfortable being a part of it.

“I still think the Hall Of Fame is a place for players. I always thought the managers in there were guys like Earl Weaver and Sparky Anderson, who lit the room up with baseball. When we won the Championship in 2006, there was a feeling something was there, having won one in each league(like Sparky). It may be hard to avoid it. I am not comfortable with it and the biggest reason is I never thought good fortune was hall of fame criteria. I have been lucky enough to be in places like Chicago, (Oakland), and St. Louis. The only thing I want is to not disrespect Chicago or Oakland. They will make their decision soon.”

One year after Stan Musial passed away, the legendary Cardinal still comes to Tony’s mind.

“You don’t ever forget about people like him(Stan Musial). One of the best things DeWitt has done is make sure to remind his players that they are just a part of history. The greatest example of what a player should be. With Stan, he is the model. Stan had all the qualities. 10 out of 10. He is the perfect guy.”

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The 2014 Winter Warmup Coverage

January 21, 2014April 13, 2017 · Leave a comment ·

Before I drop a ton of links on you(because I am really too lazy to post every single story I did individually), let me tell how amazing it was to cover the event.

For the first time, I had a chance to ask players questions, get inside the head of John Mozeliak and get a feel for how these guys are in person. For the most part, they are simply regular people doing a job. That applies to my work the past three days, a whirlwind event that overwhelmed me at first but left me saddened to let go by the end of the 72 hour stretch. I got back in touch with old Busch Stadium faces like Melody and Dan McLaughlin. I got Tony La Russa to open up with a 8 minute storytelling session about toughest stretches as a Cardinals manager. I asked Matt Holliday, Trevor Rosenthal, Daniel Descalso, Michael Wacha, Carlos Martinez and Oscar Taveras questions and got detailed answers and insight. I met and had a good time talking with local writers Brian Stull and Derrick Goold as well as Bryan Burwell. Jim Hayes and I talked about our kids. I shook nearly every Cardinal player’s hand that went in front of the microphone.

The hardest part for me was separating my die hard fan nature from my professional need to report on the event. I wanted to make my readers feel like they were there with me as I went through the process. I got congrats and kind words from sports writers and friends on Twitter that couldn’t make the event. That to me is the greatest return on hard work. People you admire and look to telling you that you did a good job.

There were perks. All the Starbucks coffee I could drink. Fruit baskets. Sweets. A flat screen TV behind me with the Broncos and Pats game on. The ability to talk sports with national sports writers. All in all, a wonderful experience and one that I didn’t want to see end. Some people get 15 minutes of rock star experience. I got three days. This experience convinced myself that I could do this for a living. I can write solid coverage as well as commentary and make each compelling. You be the judge. Check out my coverage starting with the Descalso Interview piece and ending with the Day 3 Wrap Up. I will also be writing a Tony La Russa spotlight and Mike Matheny piece because those two gave 25 minute plus media sessions. All the coverage can be found at aaronmilesfastball.com, the blog site that I wrote for.

Saturday, January 18th Coverage-

Daniel Descalso Interview Clips

http://aaronmilesfastball.com/2014/01/18/winter-warmup-kicks-off-with-descalso

John Mozeliak Feature With Quotes

http://www.aaronmilesfastball.com/2014/01/18/getting-inside-john-mozeliaks-mind/

Adam Wainwright on 2014 and ahead-

http://www.aaronmilesfastball.com/2014/01/18/adam-wainwright-dishes-on-2014-whats-ahead/

Day 1 Wrap Up

http://aaronmilesfastball.com/2014/01/19/player-feedback-from-the-winter-warmup/

Sunday, January 19th-

Mark Ellis Feature

http://aaronmilesfastball.com/2014/01/19/q-a-with-newest-cardinal-mark-ellis/