stop! or my mom will shoot

Nobody move. Nobody shave any body surfaces (unless you do so daily) or get a haircut or do anything else that might disturb the delicate balance of the world in which we live. You know, the one in which the Cardinals, who have a makeshift rotation and a load of inexperienced kids from the farm, are 5-1 on the year. If you have been wearing the same underwear all week, well then you’re just going to need to keep wearing it a while longer. For the team. Not for career or personal advancement, obviously.

Now I know full well that we didn’t just steamroll the Mets or the Mets or any other team predicted to be outstanding this season, but you don’t just get five free wins from major league squads. I’ve never predicted this season to be good!, but I have noted that last year the talking heads said the Nationals would be terrible. As in 100 loss potential terrible. Before that, it was the Marlins. And after that point my memory fails me, but not only did those teams fail to meet that expectation, they gave the playoffs a good, somewhat healthy run.

I’m posting this link right now and I’ll save a copy of it just in case I ever need to refer back to it, which I’m sure I will because I always love to look back and reread season predictions after all is done.

In any case, don’t forget to watch ESPN tonight and listen to Joe Morgan fumble around for a not-so-graceful way to change his outlook on our Birds.

bad words

Well, I’ll bedamned. At this rate, you all should be passing the hat so I’ll promise to stay away from the stadium. After five games, I have been present for the ONLY loss of the year.

Has anybody else noticed that the infield grass is different this year? It took me a little bit to put my finger on it, but so far I don’t like it. There could be a really great reason for it of which I am unaware, but I don’t like the boxy cutout on the grass at 1st and 3rd. I much preferred the previous pie cut that fit more with the curvy nature and feng shui of the field. I could care less if the original cutout wasn’t incredibly unique; it looked much more balanced and tied together. Go do something neat with the StL in the grass, but don’t mess with the infield cutout!

fo’ ree?

I’m not going to lie, folks. I thought I would have a lot more negative things to say by now. I figured by now we would have seen 4/5 of the rotation have some serious trouble and a few more errors by Izturis. Don’t get me wrong, we still have 158 games left and I’m sure I’ll come up with plenty of negative (and positive) things to say by the time all is said and done, but for now, how ’bout them Card’nuls?

I’m liking what I see from Kyle McClellan as of now. He kind of has a fairytale story going on right now (hometown kid successfully pitches for his favorite team) and I’m sure his stay with the team won’t be all daisies and roses, but I am interested to see 1) how long before he struggles, 2) under what conditions he struggles, and 3) how he changes a challenging situation. I’d say he handled the bases-loaded seventh inning situation pretty well tonight - allowed one inherited runner to score but got out of the inning without blowing the lead. Not bad for your third time in the game.

Since he’s new and learning, I think seeing these struggles would be a fantastic learning experience to help him improve even more. I know I learn a lot from my screwups. Not that I’m ready to see him start loading the bases only to get out with an inning-ending double play, but I promise not to scream “Woe is us” and faint with too much drama when he starts to have trouble. But real quick, wanna know someone else who had kind of a fairytale story going on? Adam Wainwright, minus the whole traded from your favorite team to St. Louis thing.

Here’s to hoping the 2008 Cards are not so similar to a hypothetical boy (or girl, or both if you go that way) who charms their way into your heart, only to tear it apart over the course of a couple months. Not like I’d know anything about that.

oh noes

I just realized that the new page theme is the same one up at Stuff White People Like. I suppose you can only get so original when WordPress has a select number of themes from which to choose, but still. I guess it’s ok since so many of their pages describe me and/or some of my friends with freakish accuracy (see: Hating Corporations, Bottles of Water, Threatening to Move to Canada [although they don't mention David Eckstein's presence in Canada now, it still works for me], Standing Still at Concerts, Wrigley Field, and Organic Food).

Anyway, looks like this is the way we’re going to look for a while. I might change the header for good or periodically, but that is dependent on how much I can decrease my sucking ability at graphic production.

The plans are to be on to write much more often than you know, once every few months, and I think that’s doable now that I’m returning from a soul-sucking school assignment. Believe it or not with all the writing I still have to do for school I still enjoy writing about baseball and talking trash about the Cubs. Even though I should definitely be writing a ton of essays for my portfolio over the next three weeks, I’m sure I’ll get in the Cardblogging/procrastinating mood and I’ll see you again shortly.

tinkertoys are great

But since I don’t have any, I’m tinkering with things here. Pardon the non-asbestos dust in the meantime.