Rotten day in NYC

First before I begin this post, my thoughts and prayers are with the family of Cory Lidle, who died today at the very young age of 34 after his plane crashed into an apartment building in Manahattan’s Upper East Side early this afternoon.

According to ESPN, Lidle’s family was actually en route on a commercial flight out of New York and has not gotten word of his death at all.

Lidle was part of a deal that sent Bobby Abreu to the Yankees on July 30 from the Phillies and played for 7 different teams in his 9-year career. He also played for the Oakland Athletics during their return to respectablity and began his career in New York playing for the Mets in 1997.

Once again, keep his family in your prayers as they go through this difficult time.

Also, Game 1 of the NLCS was canceled due to rain at Shea Stadium between the Cardinals and the Mets. The series will start on tomorrow night instead, which mean that Kasi will get another day of non-Cardinal talk from me when I talk to her later tonight.

With the cancellation of tonight’s game, the question will be who will get the start for the Cardinals now since tonight’s game was cancelled.  My belief is that Jason Marquis will get the start for Game 1 and Chris Carpenter will get the start for the Cardinals in Game 2 and then Weaver in Game 3 when the series moves back to St. Louis on Saturday.

But knowing Tony LaRussa, it’s no telling of who will start tomorrow night in New York City.

Game 2 of the ALCS will go on as scheduled, but unfortunately, I won’t be able to follow the game because I’m out in Cordova with some friends and I won’t be able to blog the game in its entirety.

But anyway, gotta run.

See ya!!!!

Hide your eyes, Yankee fans

You knew this shit was coming

A press conference was held earlier this afternoon in Chicago announcing that Rusty Dusty Baker would not be retained as Chicago Cubs manager.

Bring on Joe Girardi!!!!!!!

Then we can make him look bad when next year rolls around.

Lawd, you gotta be kidding me

If there was a time when all conception of being a St. Louis Cardinals fan meant something, it would be now.

We Cardinals fans make light of the historic collapse that the Chicago Cubs had in 1969, a scant 15 years before I was even born and the Yankees’ Shakespearean-like fall from grace in that glorious pennant-winning year of 2004 when the Red Sox pulled off the improbable comeback in the American League Championship Series that year.

But you don’t think that after 114 years of baseball, nine World Series championship, 16 National League championships, Hall of Famers like Stan Musial, Lou Brock, Bruce Sutter, Rogers Hornsby, et. al., that one of the most storied franchises in baseball would be prepared to deal with something that Cardinals fans like myself don’t experience.

A choke.

A few weeks after  I started counting the magic number for the Cardinals to clinch the division, I’m now trying to figure out how and what and why this is all happening all of a sudden to the Cardinals.

Of course, I’ve stated in previous posts that since the Izzy Man is on the shelf for the remainder of the season, regardless if the Cardinals make the playoffs or not, the bullpen hasn’t been up to par.

And the middle relief of Randy Flores, Josh Hancock, and Tyler Johnso have in the last three days have taken their share of lumps due in this series against the Padres, who last time I checked, were playing in the only division that the Cardinals have excelled against during the season.

The National League West.

And the Cardinals have one of the best records at home, 46-29 entering Monday’s game against the Padres.

So this was supposed to be set up for the Cardinals to win the division and go into the playoffs with some momentum since they were closing out the season at home against a possible playoff-bound Padres team and a horrible road team in Milwaukee, who lost last night in Chicago to the Cubs in the first game of their series at Wrigley Field.

But it could end up in a Shakespearean-style way in which those words I remembered reciting when I was 10 years old in a performing arts camp.

“Our revels are ended. These are our actors.”

In this case, the actors play baseball.

This season was not supposed to happen at all, but it did

Last night, I read John Donovan’s piece on the 2006 baseball season on Yahoo! Sports and he mentioned in his piece that no one (not even me) expected the Detroit Tigers to win the American League Central let known finish with the best record in baseball.

That was supposed to be the Chicago White Sox or the Minnesota Twins, with the Cleveland Indians making the Sox’s and Twins’ lives miserable during the season.

Florida, with its small fan base, rookie manager, and a group of kids who are pretty much close to my age (21), was supposed to lose 100 games and threaten the infamous record of losses in a season the same way that Detroit threatened it three years ago.

Not fight for the NL Wild Card.

Freddy Sanchez was not supposed to be a batting champion in his second full season in Pittsburgh.

But contiune to learn the pitchers while he got more playing time.

Ryan Howard was not supposed to hit 60 homers (he’s still on 58 as I write this) in just his second season with the Phillies.

And former Redbird outfielder, Chris Duncan was not supposed to hit 21 homers with 42 RBIs along with a .304 batting average.

None of this was supposed to happen.

What should have happened was that Marlins were going to lose 102 or so games, lose money, and move to Oklahoma City/Charlotte/or some other city that would embrace them with open arms.

Although I haven’t seen that much of Pittsburgh on television, I know for a fact a second-year player in the majors don’t get a chance to lead the National League in bating average for a perennial loser let known be considered for a Rookie of the Year award.

And definitely a guy that just began playing last year and earned the National League Rookie of the Year in 2005 isn’t supposed to hit a possible 60 homers in only his second year.

A team that hadn’t finished above .500 since 1993 is not supposed to go out and beat up on the competition.

And not supposed to, if I might add, put a scare into the defending world champions.

Nor they are supposed to finish with the best record in the American League or even the majors for that matter.

A guy who a year ago was playing down here in Memphis and hit the final home run in the history of Busch Stadium was not supposed to hit 21 homers and be a sparkplug for the Cardinals during their playoff push.

He was supposed to be playing before 12,000 fans, wiping his face in a towel because of the sweltering Memphis summers, and making enough money a month to spend on a night on the town with a few friends.

A centerfielder who hadn’t played in a month was not supposed to hit a pinch-hit homer to tie a game.

He was supposed to take his hacks at the plate, strike out, and sit down on the bench and watch his team push for a playoff berth.

An aspiring sportswriter was not supposed to become smitten by a chocolate cutie at the corner of South Third and Union Avenue nor become a legend of sorts.

I was supposed to be going with a girl he met in a campus bookstore, a girl that I took down to the ballpark two days after Valentine Day and start something big with her.

The summer that it was for me was supposed to be a dream, not something that would turn into a book idea that I found out was accepted by an out-of-town publisher yesterday morning when I checked my email.

Not something that would also become a part of Memphis professional baseball history.

But after what happened this season, none of those doubts nor shocked surprises seem to matter anymore to me.

Because as I said yesterday, anything can happen in baseball.

If you believe enough.

Print it, folks, the Tigers are headed to the playoffs

Quick. Raise your hand if you picked the Detroit Tigers to win 90 games.

Can’t do it?

OK, here’s another one, raise your hand if you picked the Tigers to win the division and overthrone the defending world champion Chicago White Sox for the AL Central crown.

And if you did raise your hand when I asked these questions, then you get a lifetime supply of chocolate chip cookies on me.

When this season started, the great baseball minds said that either Chicago, Cleveland, or even Minnesota were going to be in a dogfight for the AL Central crown and as usual the Tigers and Royals were going to serve as the bottom-feeders of the AL Central.

Oops.

Cleveland struggled this season, mainly in part to a lack of fundementals and middle reilef, which were two good reasons why the Indians clawed for a shot at the playoffs until the final day of the season last season.

And injuries to C.C. Sabithia and Casey Blake did not help their cause in repeating what they did last year.

But 25 players and a chainsmoking, hard-cursing man from Perrysburg,Ohio, turned the Motor City once again into a baseball town.

As everyone knows, this is a team that three years ago, was the laughingstock of baseball, with an American League-record 119 losses and a possible threat to break the 1962 New York Mets’ 120 losses.

But as you know, the Tigers on the final weekend of that horrendous season swept the Twins to avoid dubious distinction and walk out of that 2003 season with their heads held high.

And on yesterday, for the first time since 1987, the Motor City will be hosting baseball in October, a constant in the cities of St. Louis, New York, and until this year,  Atlanta.

Now as I close this entry, raise your hand if you think this Detroit Tiger team can win the World Series.

I did.

Because in baseball, anything can happen.

Do New Yorkers eat red beans and rice?

Earlier this morning it was announced that starting in 2007, the New York Mets will begin a new player development agreement with the New Orleans Zephrys as their top farm clubs, making the Mets their fourth different parent club in their 13-year existence (Brewers, Astros, Nationals, and Mets).

Let the musical chairs begin

According to minorleaguebaseball.com, the Scranton/Wilkes Barre Red Barons just signed a player development agreement with the New York Yankees for the 2007 season.

In addition, the Columbus Clippers, who have been the top farm club of the Yankees for 28 years, will become the top farm club of the Washington Nationals beginning next year as the Clippers play their final season at Cooper Stadium as reported by the team’s offical website today.

I didn’t get any word on what will become of the Phillies’ Triple-A team. Logic would probably say the team will play in Ottawa for the Lynx’s final season before moving to Allentown, Pa., so stay tuned to this blog as we begin the first day of musical chairs in the world of Triple-A baseball.

Flat-line on the South Side

Watching the White Sox-Tigers game on ESPN2, I saw myself watching a repeat of what happened when the Indians last year came into U.S. Cellular Field to attempt to put a scare in the White Sox’s AL Central lead towards the end of the season.

But this time, the role of the Sox was played by the Detroit Tigers, who were feeling some heavy pressure from the Minnesota Twins, who like the Indians last season, started poorly at the beginning of the season and made a charge for the playoffs at the end of the season.

And the role of the Indians sadly, was played by the Chicago White Sox, who can now see their bid for a repeat championship slip away after tonight’s loss against the Tigers.

The thing that killed the Sox in August and September was that they couldn’t beat the team they should beat (Royals, Devil Rays, et. al.) and lack of production from Joe Crede, who is a slump of tragic proportions, batting .098 in the month of September and relying on the home run (they lead all of the majors with 224 homers) production of Jim Thome and Jermaine Dye solely.

Not only that, Mark Buherle and Jon Garland hasn’t pitched up to their potential down the stretch. Tonight, Garland threw 102 pitches for the White Sox but gave up four runs in the process to the Tigers, yet the White Sox have never lost a game in which Garland gives up 6 or less runs in a game this season.

And Buherle hasn’t pitched to that same level that everyone saw in 2005, when it seemed like he was unhittable against the opposition. I remember watching a game when the Sox played the Indians in Cleveland and Buherle was on point against the Tribe.

The double play in the bottom of the ninth in Chicago led to the voice of the fat lady to warm up her tones and sing “Auld Lang Syne” to the Sox faithful unless if the Sox can pull off a miracle comeback to get back in this very tight AL Central race.

Just how is the question.

Magic number:5

Houston beat Cincinnati today in Houston to take two out of three in their series at Minute Maid Park. Luke Scott had a big day today with a homer 4 RBIs for the Astros in their win.

With the loss, the Cardinals’ magic number now is at 5 and if the Cardinals win tonight, the magic number will be down to four games going into their series with the Astros which starts on Thursday night in Houston.

I will be watching the White Sox-Tigers game, so I’ll write my world-famous musing after tonight’s game.