TOWER GROVE — Started watching the documentary on Ireland’s National Baseball Team late the other night, and from the opening frame there’s a St. Louis connection.
Mike Kindle, the President of Baseball Ireland and the first person you see in “The Emerald Diamond”, is a St. Louis native, a Cardinals’ fan dipped in red and devoted, and it was his interest in a car sticker about a national softball association that the movie identifies as the flashpoint for Team Irish and the growth of hardball on the island. At the 1996 European Championships, the team made its international debut with a single from Ireland’s leadoff hitter and a win in its final game.
At the team’s official Web site, it says:
This international experience generated a great deal of interest in Baseball and has ultimately resulted in a ten team Adult League being formed with seven teams in Dublin, two in Belfast and one in Greystones, Co. Wicklow.
The documentary is an excellent retelling of the team’s growth, stumbles and aspirations — including an amusing tangent on playing through weather that we would consider a little cold for football. As good as it is, it’s hard not to watch the movie without a little melancholy.
‘Tis the season for such national stories. Heck, they dominate the sports section with the Olympics going on, and it’s only natural to watch “The Emerald Diamond” and know where this could be heading. Only, we also know now, it won’t be. Here’s this national baseball team from Ireland starting from the ground up with the same potential any country has of reaching the heights of international competition — the Olympics. Oh, and in 2012, some 16 years after Baseball Ireland’s international debut, the Summer Games come to the British Isle.
One catch: Baseball won’t be there.
So disappointing.
“We are still light years away from the best teams in Europe (Italy and the Netherlands) and indeed the world, so our aspirations of going to the Olympics or the World Baseball Classic must be put on hold until we start growing kids who can throw 90-plus MPH (fastballs) with a savage 12-6 breaking ball,” Kindle joked with SNY.tv back in 2007. “Give us a decade or so and we’ll see where we are then!”
Maybe baseball (fingers crossed) will be back by then, too.
Throughout the documentary, during Kindle’s interview, something else catches my eye. On the sleeve of his team jacket, there’s a tiny “45″ stitched there. Sure, of course, it’s his number on the team. But, as colleague Dan O’Neill wrote last year, there’s something St. Louis to Kindle’s choice. It’s for Bob Gibson.
The Cardinals Hall of Famer appears later, at the bottom of this post, but first, as you bide time waiting for the next chat to start on this Mo & Joe Wednesday:
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Concerning Adam Wainwright’s floating role: As Rick Hummel, in the press box last night, posed the question — how many teams would even entertain a debate on how to use an ace? Imagine this conversation at Fenway:
Theo: Josh, glad to have you back. Glad you’re healthy. Look, um, well …
Terry: What we’re trying to say, Josh, is we love all the stuff you’ve done for us, man, in the rotation. That World Series thing, beautiful. Nice run at the Cy Young last year. Robbed, man. But, uh, Theo and I have been talking here, and Daisuke has his thing going, so …
Theo: We’re putting you in the bullpen.
Terry: Whoa. Whoa, Josh. Don’t go flying off the handle … Easy. Easy. It will only be middle relief at first.
Theo: They’re doing the same thing in San Diego with Peavy.
Wouldn’t happen because it wouldn’t even be a thought. The Cardinals choice to let their No. 1a pitcher drift like this is either a telling sign of their situation, their philosophy or Wainwright’s place. An ace starts, no question, right?
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Joe Posnanski, KC Star columnist, is also the gold standard when it comes to blogging sportswriters (big news broke recently: his blog has been picked up by Sports Illustrarted’s SI.com). Pos has a few recent must-read entries that are Cardinals related:
Albert the Underrated: ” … Still, even with all that, I think it’s absolutely incredible that Pujols finished eighth in this poll. If I had the No. 1 pick in the draft - there is no question I would take Albert Pujols. Nobody else is even close for me. And it makes me wonder if Pujols, even as much acclaim as he has obviously received, is in fact wildly underrated.”
A new stat named for a former Cardinal, a “Gruds”.
Simply titled, “Musial”: “… Stan Musial never got thrown out of a game. Never. Think about this for a moment. Musial played in 3,026 games in his career, or about as many as his contemporaries Joe DiMaggio and Johnny Pesky played combined. He played across different American eras - he played in the big leagues before bombs fell on Pearl Harbor, and he retired a few weeks before Kennedy was shot.”
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Speaking of Musial, the Northwest Wildcats won the Stan Musial World Series.
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First-round pick Brett Wallace is expected to make his Double-A debut as early as tonight for the Springfield Cardinals. Wallace, taken 13th overall, leapfrogged High-A Palm Beach because the organization had a need (Allen Craig went on the DL) and an opportunity (Wallace drops right into a postseason race for the S-Cards). A clip of Wallace playing for Low-A Quad Cities:
An additional not on Wallace: The first-round pick has played third base and DH for Quad Cities. He has not appeared this season at first base for the River Bandits, as previously mentioned.
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Chain of links:
Stephen King, the author, on the real cost of late-night event baseball.
Former Mizzou All-American Aaron Crow talks to his hometown paper about not signing with Washington and going back into the draft pool, by way of independent ball.
ESPN’s Keith Law chimes in, strafing the Nationals for drafting Crow if they weren’t willing to sign him and adding that the Nats should have drafted someone they could have signed at No. 9 — like Wallace. How that would have changed things.
A little about the book Tony La Russa just finished reading.
The man who wrote the book on La Russa, Buzz Bissinger, can’t get layoffs off his mind as he’s watching the All-Star Game in this “Throwback” editorial a while back for the New York Times.
Ned Yost rejects the notion he’s “using up” CC Sabathia because he’s just a “rental” and will be somebody else’s sore shoulder next season.
A follow-up on a previous blog entry: Here are the results from ESPN Baseball Tonight’s poll of the three greatest Cardinals players of all time.
Mike Mussina stung (satirically) by rejection. Feel ya, Moose.
Yahoo! Sports’ Jeff Passan, toward the bottom of this article, passes along these warning signs for the Cardinals and their wild-card aspirations:
Though the Cardinals are still just two games behind the Brewers for the NL wild card, red flags abound with their pitching:
• The Cardinals bullpen can be trouble: Opponents’ OPS after the sixth inning is .786, more than 60 points higher than league average.
• Right-handed Nos. 3 and 4 hitters give Cardinals pitching fits: They’re batting .336.
• Cardinals pitchers strike out 32 percent of hitters whom they get to two strikes, worst in the NL and 4.5 percent lower than league average.
• Since July 1, no NL team has given up more home runs than the Cardinals’ 56.
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And our closing number, brought to you by AOL’s FanHouse (a spot none to kind to yours truly at one point) by way of blogorific Viva el Birdos: A clip from the Ed Sullivan show, c. 1968. Wonder why it’s here, well that’s Detroit’s Denny McLain on the keyboard and zip ahead to 2:30 to see who he brings in for the encore.
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