DOWNTOWN — Detroit Tigers manager Jim Leyland remembers the day well because he left a little of himself behind in that Georgia heat.

During his playing days, Leyland was a catcher, and this was the kind of day that you didn’t want be a catcher, let alone a minor-league catcher, with no backup around, handling both games of a doubleheader in Savannah, Ga.

“I lost 11 pounds,” he said in the visiting manager’s office at Busch Stadium…

DOWNTOWN — The St. Louis Cardinals finalized the fine print on a contract with their second-round pick Robert Stock, a catcher (and could-be pitcher) from Southern Cal, and the club announced his deal and contracts with two other picks Wednesday afternoon.

The Cardinals also finished deals with righthanded reliever Joe Kelly (UC-Riverside), the team’s third-round pick (98th overall), and shortstop Ryan Jackson (Miami), the team’s fifth-round pick.

As reported in the Post-Dispatch over the weekend, the Cardinals had an agreement…

CLEVELAND — Cue Tippi Hedren. The ‘Birds are coming. The ‘Birds are coming.

A day after a flock of seagulls swooped in on Progressive Field — from the nearby Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? — and tormented the Kansas City Royals, the St. Louis Cardinals arrive for a three-game interleague series having really taken flight offensively in Florida. The Cardinals scored more in two games against the Florida Marlins (19) than they had scored total…

TOWER GROVE — An early game in Florida — Brunch with Land Shark — and an early flight to Cleveland have conspired to produce a reduced 10@10 this morning. Hope it hits the high points.

1. Rookie Colby Rasmus takes a nine-game hitting streak into today’s game against the Florida Marlins, the rubber game of a three-game series. True to his reputation and his trends from the minor leagues, Rasmus warms up when the weather does. Rasmus…

TOWER GROVE — He doesn’t have an imposing presence on the mound and he doesn’t throw the kind of imposing stuff that attracts scouts and sunny draft reports, but UC-Irvine lefty Daniel Bibona had numbers big enough to belie his frame.

“Skip always tells me I look big out there,” Bibona once told the student newspaper.

The St. Louis Cardinals continued the second day of the 2009 MLB Draft with some sturdy-college, performance-based picks, in addition to a…

TOWER GROVE — Founded in 2001, the Puerto Rico Baseball Academy and High School was established to help local kids improve as players and work toward their degree. It’s also become a honey pot for scouts to find some of the island’s finest baseballs players.

That’s where the St. Louis Cardinals went to find the lefthanded pitcher they coveted.

With the 309th overall pick in this week’s MLB Draft, the Cardinals selected Hector Hernandez from the PR…

TOWER GROVE — With their first two picks of the MLB Draft Day 2, the St. Louis Cardinals revisited familiar schools and a familiar approach.

The Cardinals, who took a pitcher from the Ole Miss rotation last year, went back to Oxford, Miss., to take righthander pitcher Scott Bittle with the 129th overall pick. They then followed that pick by bringing in another Hurricane. Like Jon Jay and Chris Perez before him, shortstop Ryan Jackson becomes…

DOWNTOWN — Comfortable with the depth and swift-moving current of players in their system, the St. Louis Cardinals appear to be using the 2009 draft as a chance to take some risky picks with perceived upside.

The Cardinals concluded Day 1 of the first-year player draft with two picks that don’t fit the profile the club has carved out in recent years for most of their picks — sturdy, college-seasoned, solid statistics players. With the 67th…

DOWNTOWN — Embracing his lineage as another strong-armed Texas power pitcher, St. Louis Cardinals first-round pick Shelby Miller described himself as not only ready to try his fastball in professional baseball but also ready to sign.

“My career, my future ahead of me is professional baseball,” Miller said in a conference call with reporters tonight at Busch Stadium. “College is not my future right now. The Cardinals have a lot to offer.”

The Cardinals selected Miller with…

DOWNTOWN — The St. Louis Cardinals broke with one tradition when they took a high school pitcher with their first pick in the draft, and now they must be willing to break with another to get their pick into the system.

Shelby Miller, a strapping righthander with a Texas-oil-burning fastball, has committed to Texas A&M and VP/farm director Jeff Luhnow acknowledges that it will not be easy or quick to finalize an agreement with the Brownwood,…

DOWNTOWN — The St. Louis Cardinals have earned and cultivated a reputation for favoring college pitchers. They have talked openly about using this draft to address a lack of lefties in the organization.

So, naturally, they went with a righthanded high school pitcher.

With the 19th pick overall in the 2009 draft, the Cardinals threw a curveball and selected Shelby Miller, a righthander from Brownwood (Texas) High School. Miller has what many trade publications and scouts say…

DOWNTOWN — It’s Take 2 for former Mizzou All-American Aaron Crow.

A year after going ninth overall to the Washington Nationals, the righthander “dropped” 12 months and three spots, going 12th overall to the Kansas City Royals. Crow was advertised as one of the best righthanded pitchers in last year’s draft, featuring a mature fastball (usually in the mid-90s with good strike velocity), but he and his reps couldn’t come to an agreement on a signing…

DOWNTOWN — Local product Jacob Turner, a righthander out of Westminster Christian Academy, went to the club that had been tied to him for several weeks, the Detroit Tigers, at ninth overall in the MLB Draft.

The righthander is said to be looking for a Rick Porcello-like deal, has showed some Rick Porcello-like traits, and shares Rick Porcello’s adviser (Scott Boras) — so it’s no surprise that he is going to the team that drafted Rick…

DOWNTOWN — A draft that will have several turns and maybe a few plot twists by the time the St. Louis Cardinals pick at No. 19 began with the most predictable pick in years: Washington takes Stephen Strasburg first overall and will now apply for a federal bailout to sign the tremendous righthander.

Last year the Nationals took Aaron Crow with first their pick, and couldn’t sign him.

Crow, a former Mizzou All-American, is only one of many…

TOWER GROVE — The consensus is that while this draft may have the biggest headliner baseball has seen in a long time — San Diego State pitcher Stephen Strasburg is being billed as “Best Prospect Ever?”, always with that essential question mark — the overall depth of this draft is seriously lacking.

There are some good pitchers, enough to fill out the first round. There aren’t many position players, especially coming from the college level.

One thing…