Good morning.

I’m just happy that the Cardinals finally signed a player, Dennys Reyes, who looks like a sportswriter…

1. SIGNING REYES WAS GOOD WORK BY GM JOHN MOZELIAK: Over the last three seasons, no LH reliever has a better ground ball rate than Reyes. The guy is a ground ball machine, with a GB/F ratio of 2.99. That’s extreme: 224 grounders and only 75 fly balls. The Cardinals infield defense will be busy during Reyes’ limited time on the mound, and if they can catch the ball, that’s a real positive. (The quality of that infield defense, with the Skip Schumaker possibly at 2B and Joe Mather at 3B early on, is shaping up as a key to the season.) Here’s another reason why the Reyes signing is a plus: the Cardinals now have two of MLB’s best LH relievers to enter games when runners are on base. From 2006-2008, new Cardinal Trever Miller ranked No. 1 among LH relievers by allowing only 19.2 percent of inherited runners to score. And Reyes? He’s No. 4 on that lety list, allowing only 23 percent to score. By comparison, former Cardinals lefty specialist allowed a whopping 44 percent of inherited runners to score from 2006-2008.

Manager Tony La Russa likes to bring his LH relievers into tight situations, throwing them into jams. And in Miller and Reyes, TLR now has two of the top four lefty relievers over the last three seasons at his disposal to tamp down those late-inning disturbances. Now the Cardinals will make a wish and hope that Reyes doesn’t pull a Ricardo Rincon — get hurt — during the WBC.

2. THE YANKEES MAY BE EATING A LOT OF A-ROID MONEY: So, Alex Rodriguez may need surgery to repair a torn labrum and it could sideline him for three or four months? And this, coming off a 2008 season in which A-Rod played in only 138 games? And he has nine years remaining on his contract? And the Yankees owe A-Rod $238 million between now and 2017? Will Rodriguez continue to deteriorate physically? If these intensifying health issues are directly related to A-Rod’s use of performance-enhancing drugs — and there is no way to be sure — this may go down as the worst contract in the history of professional sports.

3. IS ORLANDO PACE A HALL OF FAMER? For a time in his career, I would have put Pace in the sure-thing category. He made 7 consecutive Pro Bowls from 1999 through 2005. And considering his reasonably young age, it was logical to assume that Pace would continue to collect Pro Bowl spots and All-Pro honors. But injuries basically wiped out his 2006 and 2007 seasons, and he played on a bad knee last season. Big O hasn’t been back to the Pro Bowl since ‘05. His count of 7 Pro Bowls and 3 first-team All-NFL awards is impressive. And by sealing off the QB’s blind side, Pace played a tremendously important role in the success of The Greatest Show on Turf. But because of the breakdowns, Pace was eclipsed by two other excellent LTs of this era: Baltimore’s Jonathan Ogden and Seattle’s Walter Jones. Ogden made it to 11 Pro Bowls and was named first-team All-NFL four times before retiring following the 2007 season. Jones, who is battling injuries, hopes to play again but his future is unclear. Jones already has more Pro Bowls than Pace (9 to 7) and more first-team All-Pro honors (4 to 3). And let’s not forget another outstanding LT of this era, Willie Roaf, who got his NFL career underway a few years before Pace. But Roaf made it to 11 Pro Bowls and was named All-Pro 3 times. Pace will play in 2009 and perhaps a year after that. As Pace  prepares to exit from Rams Park (after the team releases or trades him) we know that we have seen a great left tackle. And we may have seen a Hall of Fame tackle. But Pace has some other LTs ahead of him in the procession to Canton. This will be a close call.

4. SHOULD THE RAMS BE INTERESTED IN STRONG SAFETY ROY WILLIAMS? I ask only because the team is being patient, very patient, in waiting for free agent strong safety James Butler to make a decision on whether to accept a contract offer. Actually the Rams are waiting for Butler’s procrastinating agent, Carl Poston, to make a decision.  Poston is notoriously slow to make deals. So what about Williams, 28, a five-time Pro Bowl player who was released by the Dallas Cowboys on Thursday? Answer: approach with caution. Williams is a name player, but he’s been overrated. He can definitely hit and probably can upgrade most teams’ run defense. And he would be more effective in a 4-3 defense, which the Rams will utilize. But Williams is such a liability in pass coverage that the Cowboys frequently began to pull him off the field on obvious passing downs. I looked up the numbers on STATS and they aren’t pretty: over the last two seasons teams targeted Williams 75 times and completed 54 passes on him. That’s a burn rate of 72 percent. Just awful. And he’s slowing down.

5. BERNIE BYTES: So many folks are fired up about George Clooney being in town to film “Up in the Air,” and I’m a fan of the man. However, as a geek fan of the edgy (and psycho) TV comedy “Arrested Development,” I’d probably be more fired up to meet Jason Bateman, Clooney’s co-star. It isn’t every day that Michael Bluth comes to town. Arrested Development, which aired on FOX between 2003-2006, is one of my favorite shows, ever. And though it never achieved boffo ratings, Arrested Development made Time magazine’s list of the Top 100 TV shows of all time. Bateman is an LA Dodgers fan, so if you see him, try to talk some ball. Any other Arrested Development fanatics out there? Great show. Miss laughing at that hopelessly dysfunctional family. But a film version of Arrested Development is in the works for late 2009, early 2010…  another tough loss for Illinois on Thursday night at Penn State, losing a 10-pt lead and getting beat at the buzzer 64-63. Bruce Weber’s team has struggled mightily to close out games. And losing twice to Penn State won’t do much to buff up the resume for the NCAA Tournament seeding. As of Thursday morning, Jerry Palm of CollegeRPI.com still had Illinois as a No. 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Will the loss to Penn State damage that possibility? Might depend on how Illinois fares in the Big Ten Tournament…. Palm dropped Illinois to No. 21 in his updated RPI late Thursday…. Mizzou safety William Moore is lighter, which means he’s running faster, which means he’s upgrading his prospects for the NFL draft. Gabe DeArmond of PowerMizzou.com tells me that the Philadelphia Eagles have been following Moore closely this offseason… if anyone is near the city’s south side on Friday, come by Friendly’s Sports Bar and Grill for our Team 1380 radio show from 2-6 p.m. (It’s located at Roger Pl. and Potomac). We’ll have a roundtable format, and there should be a lot of trash talk going around. There’s plenty of seating and lots of good food, including that terrific Friendly’s fried chicken.

OK, since I started in on the Arrested Development stuff…

Here are my Top 5 Most Underrated TV Series of All Time:

1. The Wire

2. Arrested Development

3. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

4. Joan of Arcadia

5. Curb Your Enthusiasm

* Late, updated thought: My favorite show is “Mad Men” on AMC but don’t know if it qualifies, since the critics love it. I don’t think the audience has grown much. So maybe it is underrated in that context.

And I almost put Twin Peaks on my list…

Please nominate other series to the “Underrated” list …  what’s the criteria? Heck if I know. Generally I’m thinking of superb (and in some cases quirky) shows that never attracted huge audiences. This is all subjective, of course. And my list is skewered to more recent shows; one of these days us 40somethings and 50somethings will bust out a list of shows we loved in the late 1960s, 1970s…but save that for later, OK?

Thanks for reading…

-Bernie