TOWER GROVE — Two years from today, the midsummer classic — a national holiday as far as I’m concerned — will be in full swing not too far from where I’m writing today’s mailbag. We’ll just be coming off our Home Run Derby hangover and eager for that night’s All-Star Game.

But what will those righthanded sluggers have had to aim at?

Will Ballpark Village be up and vibrant and inviting Albert Pujols to launch a baseball that clears Busch Stadium and bounces into the streets of our new downtown hub? Or will it be filled with kayaks and others trying to make the most of St. Louis most famous crater?

Two years to find out.

With 24 months to go before the Cardinals host the 2009 All-Star Game, the ballpark has been spiffed up tremendously from its first season. History shouts from its facade and escalators are operational. If the Cardinals can retrofit and improve   their own home in less than a year, it sure should seem possible to get the Village up and welcoming by the time Mark Mulder throws out the first pitch for the NL club, right?

Right?

Today there’s word from KSDK/Channel 5 that the  new ballpark has a beetle dilemma. Different from the  Beatles dilemma the old ballpark handled so famously, but quite serious. Back when Busch II stood and Busch III was just rising, a few of the officials in charge of constructing the new ballpark said a serious concern was going to be bugs. Wrote about it at the time. But only when the park opened did I truly understand. It’s not just the lights. They sure do bring in the bugs, and so does that pit across the street. It can be a breeding ground for insects. Standing water. Nearby lights. Barren dirt. Etc. Etc. Our own downtown petri dish. Lovely.

Today’s mailbag opens with a question about the Ballpark Village and an answer from someone far more versed in the subject that me. This much is certain: The best way to assure that Ballpark Village is finished before baseball comes to town for the biggest sporting event of the summer?

Bug ‘em.

On with PostCards:

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– L. Burger

DG: Excellent leadoff question, but already I’m going to have to call in a pinch hitter — the paper’s resident Ballpark Villageologist, fellow Maneater  offspring,  and frequent Camp Cards contributor, Jake Wagman. Forwarded the above question to Mr. Wagman and received the following answer:

The last I heard was that groundbreaking will take place sometime close to the end of the season.

Part of the hold-up, if you can call it that, is the state. The Cards are applying for up to $115 million in public financing for the first $650 million phase of the project. Some of that money was approved by the Board of Aldermen earlier this year; the rest must get the OK from the state. Right now, the staff at the Missouri Department of Economic Development is renewing the funding application from the Cards and their development partner, the Cordish Co. of Baltimore.

Once the department staff gives its stamp of approval, then it goes to the Missouri Development Finance Board, which is chaired by Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder. Until the board endorses the funding plan, the Cards cannot get the necessary cash they need to get rolling.

Also, there is the matter of the Bowling Hall of Fame, which, as of now, sits in the development footprint. The mayor’s office gave the Cards the power of eminent domain over the Bowling Hall, though there are a number of reasons why the Cards would want to only use that as a last resort. Until then, negotiations between the neighbors continues.

In the meantime, I’m told, that the Cards/Cordish are busy lining up tenants and finishing design details.

The real question, in my mind at least, is not so much when they will start, it’s when they will finish - exactly two years from this week, Busch Stadium will host its first All-Star Game. From City Hall to the team front office, all parties involved desperately want the village at least partially open by then.

The clock is ticking.

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Q: Why have the Cardinals have been unwilling to consider Ryan Franklin as a potential starter?  He has said he’d prefer to be a starter. He’s pitching very well. We’re desperate for starting pitching. He has been a solid starter in the past.

– Andy R.

DG: He’s the only guy on the current roster with a 200-inning season in his career, but Tony La Russa and Dave Duncan have insisted he is doing the team a better service as a setup reliever and that he is better at that role. (Games are won late as well as early, La Russa repeats.) Franklin comes in with sinister stuff, including a great slider he can use to either lefthanded hitters or righthanded hitters. His raw success as a setup reliever is much better than his time as a starter in Seattle.

It should be noted that his contract has  elements of bonuses that reward him based on starts, so this setup gig could be a one-year assignment.

Or, with  his performance, could be a new career.  

That said, I  personally subscribe to the Wainwright Principle. It is better to get more innings out of  a good pitcher who is capable of starting than it is to get few late innings when the game permits. No reason to have one of your best pitchers go 90 innings, at most, instead of 150 innings or more. Better to start the pitcher and  let him dictate the game than to let the game dictate when/if he pitches.    

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Q: How did Ryan Franklin get a contract extension despite the Cardinals’ policy of not negotiating contracts in the middle of the season?   It seems kind of ironic, especially with the Cardinals not choosing to negotiate with other historically more important figures such as Edgar Renteria, Tony Womack, and Jeff Suppan (while each has had subpar seasons after leaving St. Louis, when negotiations were supposed to take place, this would not have been known), and even Tony La Russa and Dave Duncan, and Walt Jocketty a few years back.   How is Franklin more special than any of the aforementioned?

DG:  When Franklin signed a group of us in the press box were trying to come up with the last time a contract extension was negotiated and finalized during the season. Some suggested Chris Carpenter, though I recall Joe Strauss reporting the deal was completed before the end of spring training. I think it dates back to Scott Rolen – but even that was a trade that the Cardinals made banking on their ability to then sign him to a contract extension. Franklin differs importantly even from Rolen’s timeline.

It’s been my experience that the Cardinals don’t have a policy against negotiating contracts during the season, Jocketty just prefers not to. La Russa’s personal preference has become to work on a one-year deal and deal with the renewal after the season. It’s interesting that a World Series win prompted no additional security for the coaches, though …

In 2006, Jocketty talked on opening day about having to break from the trend to negotiate with his starting pitchers during the season — preferably before August, he said. When it came down to making offers, the Cardinals balked. Jocketty later described it as being unable to come with a plan of how to approach the pitchers without, well,  hurting feelings. It became clear they weren’t going to offer deals to all four free agents (sub Jeff Weaver for Sidney Ponson as the season went on). The Cardinals seemed concerned with how, say,  Jason Marquis would react if he heard nothing while the club finalized a deal with Jeff Suppan.

It would seem that the Franklin extension and its timing are the results of the above lessons. The Cardinals struck when there was a mutually beneficial chance for an extension, without regard to how other players saw it. They moved on a player who wants to stick around and has developed an reputation as a Cardinal that could quickly price him out of being a Cardinal (i.e., Suppan, Mark Grudzielanek). The Cardinals identified that the timing was right and struck the right deal. But what makes Franklin “more special”?

He signed.

Q: “Mudville” is really Stockton,  CA, or Worcester, MA.

– Andrew Wood

DG:  Ooo, Jeopardy!. I give it a whack. What two towns have developed a rivalry over a baseball team immortalized in “Casey at the Bat”?    

This email obviously refers to the Mudville of Mudville Nine fame of “Casey at the Bat” fame. Several towns have attempted to claim that they are indeed the Mudville in Ernest Thayer’s magical poem about a slugger and his might whiff. Stockton, Calif., is where Thayer spent time writing the poem and the town was once known as Mudville before the mid 1800s. According to a few reports, in 1902, the Stockton baseball team was known as the Mudville Nine. Worcester, Mass., was Thayer’s home and a nearby village — Holliston, Mass. — has also claimed that it is Mudville. Signs welcome people to Mudville and there is a Mudville Village. When the poem was reprinted in The Sporting News after it gained popularity, the local baseball bible reased an ambiguity.

Mudville became … Boston. There was no joy in Boston for several years.

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Every WEEKDAY as long the questions keep coming, The Post-Dispatch’s baseball writer Derrick Goold will answer fans’ emails in a mailbag blog called PostCards, a spin-off of Bird Land. To comment and discuss the mailbag visit the PostCards blog on StlToday.com. To submit questions write postcards@post-dispatch.com or file them as a comment on this blog. With all questions please include your name and hometown.

PostCards will run online exclusively at StlToday.com.

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