TOWER GROVE — The accepted halfway spot of the Major League Baseball season is the midsummer classic, the All-Star Game, but for the St. Louis Cardinals the mathematical midpoint of the year came sometime during the flight to Cincinnati on Thursday night.

The Cardinals are the first National League team to complete 81 games, and they arrive at Game No. 82 tonight at Great American Ball Park in a virtual tie for the lead in the…

DOWNTOWN — Before he and his baseball ops staff took a record plunge into international waters, St. Louis Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak jetted down to the Dominican Republic to see for himself the player that had caught the eyes of his people.

Mozeliak met with outfielder Wagner Mateo. He met with Mateo’s representative, and he met with Mateo’s parents. Mozeliak said Thursday, the day the Cardinals announced they had agreed to terms with the 16-year-old…

TOWER GROVE — The St. Louis Cardinals will play their final home game before the All-Star break tonight and they will leave town having played exactly half of their regular-season schedule. They’ve made a trade that should impact their lineup. They just got the best start from Adam Wainwright of the season. They continue to be a vapor-locked offense. They are rife with questions, especially for a contender.

But quietly, as July 2 and the halfway…

DOWNTOWN — Almost three years to the date before the St. Louis Cardinals current outfielder phenom Colby Rasmus was born in Georgia, a once- and always-young Cardinals lefthanded-hitting phenom rookie was about to launch a game-winning home run in the 10th inning.

Andy Van Slyke, starting at third base and batting No. 3, already had three runs scored and two hits when he came to the plate in the 10th inning of the August 18, 1983…

CREVE COEUR — San Francisco Giants lefthander, future Hall of Famer and 303-game winner Randy Johnson left a 0-2 pitch over the plate and Albert Pujols pounced. He launched the ball some 445 feet — more on that shortly — on a trajectory that, to the first-glance eye, appeared to go where no ball had gone before.

At first, it looked bound for the undiscovered country of Clark Street.

“I think the ball will probably be landing…

DOWNTOWN — The story as you’ve read it often in print and heard it more often on the radio is that St. Louis Cardinals Adam Wainwright was pulled into the video room earlier this season by teammate Chris Carpenter to see where his season was going awry.

It’s the arm angle, of course. Wainwright has felt better ever since.

Wainwright saw in one clip how his arm was up higher — like it used to be when…

DOWNTOWN — The locker next to St. Louis Cardinals infielder Brendan Ryan’s in the clubhouse is starting to look like a sports memorabilia shop — or a dry cleaner. There are jerseys from all corners of the major leagues hanging there, waiting for Ryan to find out a way to get them signed.

For someone who has signed a few autographs, he’s still working out how to ask for them.

The etiquette of the act is what…

TOWER GROVE — Say this about St. Louis Cardinals ace Chris Carpenter as he makes a backstretch bid for an invitation to the 80th All-Star Game — he’s doing it with an increasing degree of difficulty.

Carpenter will face his fourth different former Cy Young Award winner in his past seven starts tonight, and the punctuation at the end of this streak has more trophies than the other three combined. Carpenter started the run of Cys against…

TOWER GROVE — The new St. Louis Cardinals hybrid fielder, Mark DeRosa, once wrote on his blog, “The Pulse”, that he was “the glue” of a team, “the bell curve,” the guy who could easily float from the elites at the top of a team’s food chain to the newcomer, just out of the taxi from the minors.

This was abundantly clear with the Chicago Cubs, was starting to happen with the Cleveland Indians, and won’t…

TOWER GROVE — When the St. Louis Cardinals left Cleveland having lost a three-game series to the momentarily resurgent Indians, manager Tony La Russa dialed up general manager John Mozeliak and left him a short, succinct voice mail. The exact words have been forgotten in the weeks since. But the message was clear:

If we can get him, get him.

Him was Cleveland Indians third baseman/outfielder Mark DeRosa. On Sunday night of that series, DeRosa homered off…

SOUTH GRAND — The high school that would produce the most professional baseball players of any high school in the St. Louis area actually grew out of the ashes of a one of the more celebrated major-league baseball ballparks to ever call St. Louis home. And, at one point in the past century, St. Louis housed three major-league ballparks, all lined up neatly along Grand Boulevard.

One of the first pro-league baseball champions ever to call…

TOWER GROVE — On this past New Year’s Eve, the Chicago Cubs made a deal that surprised the industry and may have tripped one of the early dominos in their struggles to play up to their clear talent this season.

The Cubs dealt infielder/outfielder Mark DeRosa to Cleveland for three minor-league pitchers.

DeRosa, a fan- and clubhouse-favorite in Chicago known in the nickname currency of the day as “D-Ro”,  had been an essential member of back-to-back playoff…

MANHATTAN — Earlier this week, St. Louis Cardinals starter Joel Pineiro’s shutout of the New York Mets gave everyone plenty of looks at what’s become a hallmark for the Cardinals this season.

No, not Pineiro’s sinker, but Albert Pujols’ one-foot-in-the-dugout catches at first base.

“The old withdraw thing?” manager Tony La Russa said this week. “It’s kind of stylish. His signature play. I worry more about the runner than Albert. It’s a little unorthodox. But it works…

MANHATTAN — There’s a subway to catch after some coffee and a clubhouse to harvest for quotes early today. So let’s not dilly-dally, when we can get right to today’s 10@10, one that will evolve throughout the morning …

1. This afternoon’s “marquee matchup” — St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa’s term — pits the New York Mets two-time Cy Young Award-winning ace Johan Santana against Chris Carpenter, who is only the second pitcher in Cardinals…

MANHATTAN — St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa is allergic to scouting reports.

He winces when one of his pitchers talks about how he needs to improve his fastball or use his slider more. He cringes when told that pitching coach Dave Duncan discussed in a little too much detail how, say, Adam Wainwright isn’t spotting his two-seam fastball with the same effectiveness or how, well, one of the young-gun relievers hasn’t been able to…