Tag Archive for: St. Louis

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Cardinals Sign More Former Talent

I’m loving the moves that the St. Louis Cardinals are making this year. In the face of a struggling pitching staff, roller coaster hitting performances, and general fan unease, the Cardinals have made some very noteworthy additions to the team. First we picked up Aaron Miles, one of the best lawn gnomes to ever play the game. Then we signed the .213 slugger Randy Winn, making St. Louis the 5th team that didn’t really want him but signed him anyway. Hot off the signing of former Cardinal Aaron Miles, and picking up Randy Winn, the Cardinals decided to sign a struggling former Cardinal pitcher, Jeff Suppan.

Jeff Suppan is coming back to the St. Louis Cardinals.

He will be joining the team in Phoenix and hopes to be active early next week. He will be signing for the pro-rated minimum, his agent Scott Leventhal said.

Suppan has not officially signed yet because the Cardinals have to work out some issues with the 40-man roster.

He was released by the Brewers on Monday after going 0-2 with a 7.84 ERA in 15 games.

Suppan pitched for the Cardinals from 2004-06 and was 44-26 with a 3.85 ERA, the best 3-year span in his career. He was the MVP in the 2006 NLCS, winning Game 7 over the Mets.

Suppan signed with the Brewers as a free agent in December of 2006. He was 29-36 with a 5.08 ERA in Milwaukee.

He is 35. STLToday

The Cardinals aren’t stopping there though. No, rumor has it that they are in talks of signing even more has-been players. After being petitioned by fans to get Jack Clark off the air, the Cardinals have signed him to a year long contract as a bench player. Also, negotiations are well under way with Dizzy and Daffy Dean‘s corpses. They are expected to join the Cardinals for the Seattle series.

St. Louis History: I Challenge You to a Duel!

I haven’t made a history post in a while, so I thought I’d post another little known fact about St. Louis history.

On August 26, 1856 Benjamin Gratz Brown, a newspaper editor, future United States Senator, and future governor faced Thomas C. Reynolds, a United States district attorney and future lieutenant governor, on the field of honor. The duel was the outcome of several years of bitter political disagreements resulting from editorials published in the Missouri Democrat.

Brown strongly supported the emancipation of slaves and Reynolds sympathized with the slaveholders. The first planned duel was never fought because the near-sighted Reynolds could not agree to Brown’s choice of rifles at eighty paces.

A year passed, and tempers flared again. Brown accused Reynolds of not honoring the first challenge. Reynolds retaliated by “posting” Brown and publicly charging him with cowardice. Brown challenged and Reynolds accepted.

“But because dueling was now against the law in Missouri, the two men agreed to take boats to a small island in the Mississippi River, nicknamed “Bloody Island.” The two met in the morning and held their duel. But this was interesting in ways that we can’t understand in the 21st Century, it was truly an affair of honor,” said CEO of the Missouri Historical Society, Robert Archibald.

Brown was shot in the leg and limped for the rest of his life. Reynolds sustained no injuries.

Brown was elected to the United States Senate in 1863 and became Governor of Missouri in 1870. In 1872, he ran as the vice-presidential candidate on the ticket with Horace Greeley and lost to incumbent Ulysses S. Grant and Henry Wilson.

Reynolds was elected Lieutenant Governor of Missouri in 1860 and later served as second Confederate governor of Missouri.

Bloody Island continued to grow through the early 1800s and threatened to land-lock the levee and the harbor of St. Louis. So, the Army Corps of Engineers under Captain Robert E. Lee devised a system of dikes and dams that did away with the western channel and joined the Island to the Illinois shore. Throughout the nineteenth century, Bloody Island had been a popular rendezvous for duelists. The island appeared as dueling became popular in Missouri, and sank back into obscurity as pistols ceased to be an acceptable means of settling differences. (via KSDK)

Don’t you sometimes wish dueling was still legal? I could thing of a few people I’d like to challenge.

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The Boys are Back in Town

busch stadium

Today (unless it gets rained out by the major storms hitting the area this afternoon) is opening day for the St. Louis Cardinals.  It should be an interesting season for the Redbirds, that’s for sure.  We have many new faces on the team, most of them young talent.  It’ll be nerve-racking to see how the Cards do this year with so many young players.

The time is approaching. You can hear it swimming through the air. Closer and closer. You hear a crack. A sound so familiar, but you can’t quite figure out where you’ve heard it before.

Time passes. The trees are bare. Then the noises get louder. This time the crack is accompanied by a thud. It sounds like a broom beating on an old rug. Again, it is a recognizable sound, but you still can’t figure out where and when you first heard it.

Time passes and snow covers the ground. The noise comes back, and this time, every one of your senses is bombarded by blurry visions, sounds, and smells.

The snow melts. The smells get stronger. You know what that smell is. It is a smell that you recognize as one of your first childhood memories. Visions of sunny days fill your mind. The sounds are back, and this time, you recognize them. You close your eyes and live in the moment. You look around. There are people everywhere. You smell stale beer. The kind of smell that could only come from years and years of spilt beer staining concrete. But this is not a bad thing. It reminds you of all the good times you’ve had, and the great ones to come. The noise is deafening. You hear people cheering. You hear loudspeakers, cracks, and thuds. A new smell comes over you. You inhale. When you do, memories of watching your dad cut the grass when you were little float forward. Yes, the smell of freshly cut grass overpowers the stale beer smell. Now the musty smell of wet dirt travels through the air to where you are. The loudspeaker explodes with sound. You hear names being called. People cheer. You feel like you are there. At that moment. At that place.

Time passes. The grass turns green. All those wonderful smells, visions, and noises come back. This time they are as strong as ever. It is time. You don’t have to imagine anymore.

The day comes. You stand in line, smiling. You talk with other people enthusiastically. You talk about how this is the year. You never give up hope. Neither do they. For all your differences, this is the one thing you have in common. The one thing that binds you, and fifty-thousand other people in the vicinity, together. Nothing can taint this feeling. Not talks of financial problems or drug problems. This is the perfect moment. You walk in. Your heart beats swiftly. You hear the loudspeaker. You hear those familiar names. This time it is real. You smell the great smells of stale beer, cut grass, and wet dirt. You hear cheering. You see the color that dominates the town. The color you are wearing on this day, at this moment. People continue to cheer. Thud! That?s all right. Everyone knows to lay off the first one. Then you hear it. CRACK! A line drive base hit. And the season is under way. What a great one it will be.
Dedicated to Baseball, and those that made it great. The ones that are alive in person, and those that are alive in our memories.

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The Bucks Stop Here

All throughout the Mid-West the words baseball and Buck are synonymous. For almost 50 years Jack Buck broadcasted for the St. Louis Cardinals. He was a class act and could be heard, on a clear night, as far south as Arkansas and as far north as Iowa. Generations grew up listening to Jack Buck. I remember BBQing in the summer and listening to Jack Buck and Mike Shannon announce the wonderful Cardinals. As Jack’s son Joe got older he started broadcasting. He’s such a knowledgeable man in the sports arena that he is the lead announcer for the NFL and MLB on Fox. It was announced this week that he would no longer broadcast any games for the Cardinals. It will be weird to not have a Buck announce any games this year. Though I’ll miss him announcing, I’m very happy for all his success. From StL Today:

For the first time since 1960, there won’t be a Buck in a Cardinals broadcast booth this year.

Joe Buck, who had been doing the play-by-play for a few Redbirds games on FSN Midwest in recent seasons, has decided not to return in order to enjoy himself at the ballpark in a nonworking capacity.

“It’s nothing more than it feels like it’s time to make that change and to concentrate on some other things and basically go to Cardinals games as a fan,” he said Monday night. “I’m a fan, and I love to go down there with my wife and two daughters. The fun of that now is more appealing than anything to me.”

Despite Buck’s burgeoning career nationally at the Fox network, for which he is lead baseball and football play-by-play announcer, he had kept his ties to the Redbirds booth — where he got his start in big-league broadcasting in 1991 at age 21.

But he had been cutting back in recent seasons on his Cards workload, going from a busy schedule while filling in on radio while his father, Jack Buck, was ailing in 2002 to 31 FSN games in 2003 to 10 last season.

His departure ends a lengthy run of Bucks in the booth. His dad joined the club’s radio broadcast team in 1954 and was there every year except 1960 until falling ill after the 2001 season and dying the following year.

But Joe Buck said that family streak never was a reason he kept doing Redbirds games.

“I don’t think like that,” he said. “My dad’s career stands on its own. It was not a birthright of mine when I went there on a full-time basis in 1991, and it’s not a birthright now. There’s nothing written in stone that somebody with the last name of Buck has to be sitting in that booth.

“And really, we’re only talking about 10 games. … To do it just to say I’m on the list as one of the announcers is silly to me.”

FSN Midwest general manager Jack Donovan said Buck will be missed.

“We’re sorry to see him leave, but we were lucky to have him as long as we did,” Donovan said. “Unquestionably, he’s the best play-by-play guy in sports.”

Buck said the flexibility of FSN management, which allowed him to pick his schedule, was what had kept him aboard in recent seasons.

“The fact they let me do as many or as few as I felt I needed to do meant a lot to me,” he said.

He said there was another reason, too.

“I still continue to this day to feel indebted to the Cardinals for all they provided me,” he said. “I’m (not) the lead voice of the NFL and Major League Baseball on Fox if I don’t get that job (with the team), and if I don’t get that chance to grow up and learn about the game and learn about broadcasting in the Cardinals’ booth. Everything stemmed off that.”

Buck won’t be totally gone from Cardinals broadcasts, as he is scheduled to do a couple of their games for Fox. But those have a different tone than local telecasts because they air in the market of the opposing team as well as in St. Louis.

Donovan said Rick Horton, who does the commentary on KSDK (Channel 5) telecasts of Cards games, will help fill the gap created by Buck’s departure.

Horton will work with Dan McLaughlin (play-by-play) or Al Hrabosky (analysis) on about 10 FSN Midwest telecasts this season.

Horton also will continue as a regular on FSN Midwest’s Cards postgame shows.

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A Depressing Season

I have a feeling this is going to be a disappointing season for the St. Louis Cardinals. The new General Manager did very little, and I mean very little to strengthen the team for next season. In fact, he let some of our good players go (Eckstein, Edmonds, Rolen, Taguchi) and picked up players that are either hurt or no better than the ones we let go (Clement, Glaus). The Sporting News rates the Cardinals as 4th in the Central Division. 4th?!?! The Central Division is usually considered one of the weaker divisions (what, with the Cubs and all) and we are predicted to come in 4th. That’s sad. Also, what’s really sad is to know that the outfielder that we have with the most experience is Chris Duncan. That’s just not right. It’s also not right that the only two starting (everyday players, not pitchers) Cardinals that are returning this year are Yadier Molina and Albert Pujols. Unless by some miracle this mediocre team is able to pull off some wins, this is going to be a very depressing season.