5 Minutes For Blogging, Jan. 1 (updated)
Happy New Year!
1. ENOUGH ALREADY WITH BASHING ST. LOUIS AS A FOOTBALL TOWN: Did you see that Arizona and Minnesota are struggling to fill the stadium for home playoff games this weekend? What a joke. The Cardinals have never hosted a playoff game in Arizona, and this is the first (home) NFL playoff game for the franchise since 1947. And the Vikings haven’t had a home game in the playoffs since 2000. And yet, as of Wednesday afternoon 6,500 tickets were available in Arizona, and 11,000 were unsold in Minnesota. And people rip St. Louis for being lukewarm about pro football? That’s absurd. This town has stuck by a lot of losing teams, and the Rams drew good crowds over the last two seasons despite a 5-27 record. But whenever there’s a few thousand empty seats in St. Louis during terrible times, the short-attention span crowd begins caterwauling that the Rams are being abandoned, and that it’s inevitable the franchise will move to Los Angeles. Well, I guarantee you that if the Rams had a home playoff game this weekend the Edward Jones Dome would be completely filled. Vikes RB Adrian Peterson is worth the price of admission, no? Maybe the Vikings ought to consider moving to LA. And if the Rams had Pro Bowl QB Kurt Warner throwing passes to Larry Fitzgerald and Anquan Boldin, you wouldn’t be able to get a ticket to Rams home game… let alone a Rams home playoff game. Rams fans have nothing to apologize for. This may not be Green Bay or Pittsburgh, but the support for pro football has held up just fine. (Yeah, but if management screws up the coaching search, that could change in 2009).
2. LOSING AARON MILES IS BESIDE THE POINT: OK, so Lil’ Scrappy signed a 2-year deal with the Cubs for $4.9 million. He was a good Cardinal. He did a nice job. But there’s already so much whining from Cardinals fans, you’d think that Miles was Frankie Frisch, or something. Please. We’re talking about a player who has a career OBP of .329, and he doesn’t hit for power. And Miles is an OK second baseman, but you don’t want to use him very often at shortstop or third base. Miles getting nearly $2.5 million a year from the Cubs, and that’s funny. But here’s the real deal: you should be upset that the Cardinals haven’t lined up someone better than Miles to fill his role, especially since they let Felipe Lopez walk, too. Subtracting Miles doesn’t represent a significant loss. It would be worth nothing more than a shrug if the Cardinals went out and upgraded the infield bench. But the Cardinals’ bench is weaker because of a passive management approach, at least so far. So far this offseason they lost Miles and Lopez and both players were positive contributors offensively last season. (Even with Miles and Lopez the Cardinals were 9th in the NL in OPS among second basemen, at .754. How bad will that be in 2009 if they can’t plug in the offense provided by Miles and Lopez? This means that the second baseman (without a safety net) is Adam Kennedy — the same guy that the manager benched last year, the same guy that the Cardinals tried and failed to trade after he requested a way out. Wow. Again: let Miles walk to be overpaid by the Cubs, and I don’t care. If Lopez goes, fine. But I do protest if you do nothing in response except try to plug in one of Jeff Luhnow’s precious (and overrated) Faberge Egg infield prospects as a Miles-Lopez replacement and try to tell the fans that you’re just as good if not better.
3. BY THE WAY, YOU DO REALIZE THAT BILL DEWITT IS BECOMING JERRY JONES, RIGHT? Go ahead and rip Cardinals GM John Mozeliak if you’d like. But if you really believe that Mozeliak has autonomy on payroll spending and major baseball decisions, then I have one of those old Busch Stadium urinals to sell you for about $3,500. (Let me clarify since this confused some folks: Jones owns the Dallas Cowboys and serves as his team’s de facto GM. DeWitt owns the Cardinals and is very involved in the baseball decisions, and it is my belief that he’s evolving into the team’s de facto GM.)
4. NON-SPORTS NOTE OF THE DAY, ON FOOD: One of my favorite subjects, obviously. And the best dish I’ve had at a St. Louis restaurant over the last three months are the braised short ribs at Herbie’s Vintage ‘72 in the CWE. It’s perfectly tender, and the bleu cheese mashed potatoes are an ideal complement. Try this and you will thank me later.
5. MIKE ANDERSON OR RICK MAJERUS, LET THE DEBATE BEGIN: Anderson is in his third season at Mizzou; Majerus is in his second season at St. Louis U. While acknowledging that Anderson has a head start on Majerus because of the extra year, I submit this two-part question: (A) which coach will be first to build a consistent presence in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament? (B) And if the answer is “neither,” then which coach will go away first — either through a firing or resignation?
Keep the answers clean, and civil. Thanks.
-Bernie
KenW,
No offense, sir, but it seems that you may be falling for the hype about the Cardinals’ prospects. No question the farm system is better. But if you talk to baseball scouts, as I do, they look at what the Cardinals have and don’t see a lot of future front-line major-league players. When Mozeliak was trying to make something happen during the winter meetings, teams asked about Colby Rasmus and Brett Wallace and that was about it. Other teams don’t believe the heralded Bryan Anderson can catch in the big leagues, and suggest that he be moved to second base. But the Cardinals resisted that, apparently unwilling to admit they’ve been wrong about his defensive upside. And now his trade profile has dropped as a result. Thanks for your comments.
-B
Miles made the most of his talent, and deserves credit for that. But his loss does not hurt the team — you can find a good backup infielder without trying very hard.
If we are consistently losing out on good players by not biding enough, that does not sound like Mozeliak’s fault — DeWitt has the money. Was he just hiding in the tall grass while Walt was GM ? does he itch to run the show all by himself ? I had thought better of him.
Regarding Minnesota not selling out the playoff game with the Eagles, I’m in Philadelphia right now, and today’s paper here indicates that the Vikings are trying to discourage Eagles fans from coming to the game in order to retain a home-field advantage. It appears they would rather have empty seats than Eagles green in the seats. I have sometimes felt that the Rams ought to take that approach! But it is sad that they can’t sell out a playoff game to their own fans!!!
Bernie, I like your logic that STL football fans aren’t too rabid and aren’t too lathargic, but rather they are just right. Using that standard I think its safe to say Georgia should have left the team in California where we too had a fan base that was at times lukewarm and fair-weather in nature. Unfortunately for STL the stars are aligned for a Rams return to SoCal; the TV market is much larger in SoCal, the NFL wants a team in SoCal, The NFL needs an existing team to relocate so as not to unbalance the divisions through expansion, the Rams remain in the NFC WEST, a state of the art open air stadium is in the works (www.losangelesfootballstadium.com), the environment for professional sports has blossomed considerably since 1995 with most local teams consistantly packing the stands at ALL home events, and finally the Rams still have a underground fan base drooling in anticipation for the teams return. So Bernie, remain content with the STL football fan if you wish, but remember this post when your watching the moving vans depart STL with “California or Bust” signs fading into the sunset!
Bernie, happy new year.
I totally agree with the Aaron Miles thing. The only way this deal would upset me, is if the Cards don’t use that extra money to upgrade. Put that 2.5m a year in pitching or a deep bench.
I love Aaron Miles and wish him well, but the guy’s OBP isn’t good.
Thanks!
—And Rams Fans DO show up.
How about those Iowa Hawkeyes!! the rams could have used the Hawks O-Line this year!!
Anderson’s team will always be fun to watch but they don’t have a half-court offensive…team is based upon aggressive defense and transition offense…when it works, it looks unstoppable and when you don’t have the animals, it’s horrible to watch!! now a talented 7 footer would help a great deal…Majerus, on-the-otherhand, is overrated…i don’t see premier highschool players itching to sign a scholarship to play at SLU…SLU’s a “scoccer” school!!
In 82 games Miles had something like 32 RBI’s…many of those were “clutch” RBI’s…he’s a “switch hitter” for god’s sake and he played 3 different infield positions; 2 outfield positions and even “pitched”. he’s barely 30 years old!! who cares about his obp? what was the OBP of the “regular” lead-off batter? Miles loves the game and from what i know, was a terrific dug-out and “team” guy…”utility” players like him are few and far between…can he be replaced? sure, but he wasn’t that expensive to begin if he can fill in that many positions every other game and not “hurt” the team…or maybe batting .317 isn’t good enough for you folks!!
“Potential” never played or won a game…Cards emphasis on minor league organization is a cop-out for spending bucks to “win today”!! i agree with Bernie on “Loopy Luhnow”…i also think “MO” is lost and “DeWallet” does call the shots…and “why” do we think we “owe” something to Chris Duncan and Rick Ankiel?? if you are counting on them to bring home the bacon, expect more finishes in the lower part of the division!!
Bernie: You may be right about the DeWitt/Jones comparison. Regarding Phoenix and Minneapolis trying to sell out playoff games: It’s logical to assume that people may not be able to afford tickets to these playoff games. I don’t care for bleu cheese.
I was one of his biggest fans, but I’ll get over Miles leaving, after all I’ve finally forgiven the Cards for letting Bernie Carbo and Mark Hill go. But I’ve got to say, we always give credit to Mr. Dave Duncan, which is well deserved. How about a kudo or three for Mr. Oquendo? If some of these infielders get a bigger paycheck from other clubs AFTER they pass through St. Louis, someone must be helping out.
Well……my man-crush on Bernie continues in to 2009. calls ‘em like he sees ‘em and sees ‘em just as they are. cannot beat his combo of experience and objectivity. so sick of other sports guys who temper their views or color their sports coverage to remain in the good graces or to curry favor with the St. Louis sports teams.
Good point that STL gets ripped as a football town. One of the Rams said in an interview that “no way Arrowhead Stadium won’t be full”. WRONG. It’s been like a tomb.
Thanks for the insight about the Cards management. Mid-west fans can handle being frugal, but management MUST help the cause. The cubbies love rubbin’ it in our face.