Royalties & Cardinalate

Workin' it at Busch

I have covered several baseball games at Busch Stadium, but before this weekend it had always been for the visiting team. Either way, it is always memorable. Now that the Busch press box has wireless Internet, covering games is much easier. I handled the Cards-Diamondbacks series for MLB.com this weekend and it went pretty well. I interviewed a few neat people, though I mainly shadowed the roaming mass of media before/after the games to get my quotes. I did get a very nice one-on-one interview with Luis Gonzalez during Friday's batting practice. As I have often heard, he is a genuinely nice guy who goes out of his way to accomodate media and fans. Seconds after we concluded, he was signing stuff for Cards fans. Woody Williams, Mike Matheny, Chris Carpenter, Danny Haren and Tony Womack and pretty much every Cardinal that answered to the media really came off as a good guy who had worthy statements to make, though cliches were tossed around liberally. But they were not robotic, they were approachable guys with worthwhile opinions on the game. Kind of refreshing. That is not to say each of these guys are great, but detecting whether one is an ass is relatively simnple and I did not get that vibe at all. Scott Rolen was sporting a Dave Matthews Band t-shirt on Friday night. Jason Isringhausen seems to be exactly like you'd think. On Friday, he was in a t-shirt and holding a hunting magazine after the game. On Saturday, he was holding a Bud Light and playing pinball, or some simlilar-type game after the Cards' win. He did not dodge anyone at all after blowing a save on Friday and seemed really upset at costing Woody yet another win. Julian Tavarez is as wacky as he seems. He turned the lights out while his teammates showered on Saturday and just has a comical presence, kind of like Ray King and Steve Kline. I was able to meet a lot of neat folks, but sharing an elevator with Walt Jocketty and Mark Grace was particularly neat because they were seeing each other for the first time in, evidently, a long time. Funny banter, with Walt calmy stating that "yeah, we're doing pretty well." Meeting Red Schoendienst and Wayne Hagin was neat, though I would like to meet Mike Shannon. It seems uncool to force any encounters, though opportunities are rare. I tend to just say hello and keep to myself.

Man on the scene

I had figured this would be another lazy weekend for me, but I just received a call from MLB.com and will be covering the Cardinals for them tonight and tomorrow afternoon. Being in the Cards' clubhouse will be odd for me. I've only covered visiting teams for MLB.com. I'd like to drill TLR about whether he follows baseball online at all (blogs, SABR sites etc.) but I probably should keep a low profile and just stick my recorder in the air with all of the other reporters. But I hope to have a good question or two, especially after hearing so many really stupid questions all season on FSN's postgame coverage.

Big-game scene returns to Busch

If Ray King were to race Yadier Molina my money would be on King regardless of the race distance. The Molina brothers are the three slowest players in MLB and King looked pretty solid running the bases on Sunday. Molina is so slow that old school Statis Pro Baseball would have needed a new category for his speed, one even below its ‘painfully slow, almost never gets there’ category.

It has been awhile since there was a ‘big-game’ feel at Busch Stadium, perhaps not since Bonds and Co. were here in late July. But Tuesday’s game will have that feel. Houston’s amazing recent run at the NL wild-card spot combined with Roger Clemens starting makes this game very appealing. Houston-STL have played many important September games the past few years, so it will certainly seem like a genuinely significant matchup. Oh man, Ricky Ankiel’s first home appearance still looms as well.

The Hardball Times recently updated its Runs Created leaders and Barry Bonds (157) continues to maintain a sizeable lead over Albert Pujols (133) and Scott Rolen (124). Bonds is a lock to end up No. 1 in every significant SABR-friendly offensive category. Not good for a Cardinals fan trying to make a quality argument for one of our triumvirate of MVP hopefuls.

I would not be stunned to see ESPN’s Jeff Brantley lose it live on the air. I could see him slugging Hal Reynolds, or choking Karl Ravech after getting all worked up over one of his rants. No one seems to stand up to him on the air, but one of these days he’ll be confronted . . . Ichiro’s quest for history has unearthed quite a fact: George Sisler died in Richmond Heights, MO. (just outside the STL city limits), which was my home for four years . . . Jerome Bettis’ 3-TD, 1-yard game (5 carries) would’ve made me sick if my fantasy opponent would’ve had him.