DOWNTOWN — Even though they cannot commit to his glove, the Cardinals had Brett Wallace’s bat in their crosshairs for the 13th pick for awhile. They figured only one thing could keep Wallace from being their first selection in this year’s draft.

Those so-called Moneyball guys out in Oakland.

As the players the Cardinals expected to go early in Thursday’s first round came off the board, the Cardinals narrowed their choice at 13 to two players – Wallace…

DOWNTOWN — He had 1,815 drives inside a St. Louis ballpark, so it’s only fitting that Stan “The Man” Musial would finally have one outside a ballpark in St. Louis.

As part of “Stan Musial Day” at Busch Stadium on Sunday, the Cardinals will rename a ribbon of road outside the 2-year-old downtown ballpark for their Hall of Famer and Mr. Cardinal. The street will be called, of course, “Stan Musial Drive.”

It is, after all,…

Manager Tony La Russa was spending time with some of his best and furriest friends Thursday morning when his phone twittered. There are few calls that take him away from a tour of an animal rescue shelter or a conversation about the need to have and hold and save pets.

This was one.

“That was the White House,” the manager explained. “The President wants me to greet him at the airport.”

Post-Dispatch staff writer par excellence Elizabethe…

JUPITER, Fla. — Continuing what’s become a lengthier — even arduous — grind back to a major-league rotation, Cardinals right hander Matt Clement made his first appearance in a game Tuesday, throwing for the Cardinals Double-A affiliate.

Clement threw 37 pitches and walked four of the seven batters he faced. While his command was flighty and his velocity sat in the mid-80s — according to the radar gun the Cardinals kept — his pitches all…

JUPITER, Fla. — In the fallout of baseball’s nuclear winter of steroid revelations, apologies and denials, spring training has added a new tradition.

It’s the Mitchell moment.

During the first weeks of spring training, a handful of teams have had a player mentioned in the Mitchell Report arrive and answer a salvo of questions about being cited in the record of baseball’s Steroid Era. If it appears like more of those stories are coming out of Cardinals…

Like his love for the Cardinals, Marty Hendin wore his history on his sleeve — or spread across his desk, stacked on his bookshelves and displayed on any open piece of real estate he could find from Busch Stadium to UMSL. Hendin shared all of the treasures he could from his life as the conscious of the Cardinals and the personification of Cardinal Nation.

But he had two favorites.

This past season, over the course…

TOWER GROVE — The National Baseball Hall of Fame’s ballot for its Veterans Committee was announced this afternoon, and the names on the ballot are only slightly more notable than the names of the voters who receive the ballot.

Cardinal managers Whitey Herzog and Billy Southworth are on the ballot.

Bob Gibson, for example, is on a select committee that gets to vote on that ballot.

The ballot hints at how the Hall is trying…

DOWNTOWN — To hear Cardinals president Mark Lamping describe it, John Mozeliak stepped out of Walt Jocketty’s shadow the day after Jocketty was fired. That was in action. In word, Mozeliak spread his wings Tuesday during a staff meeting at Busch Stadium.

It was there that, according to Lamping, Mozeliak told staff members that any of the barriers, any of the burned bridges or hurt feelings or bruised relationships that had developed during the previous…

DOWNTOWN — The press conference held earlier this week at Busch Stadium answered one of the biggest question looming over the Cardinals and their 2008 season — Tony La Russa will return as manager. But that’s far from the last question facing the Cardinals.

Nor was it the only question answered Monday.

John Mozeliak, the interim general manager who is a candidate to be the club’s general manager, has been guaranteed a position in the…

DOWNTOWN — What could have been his last meal as manager of the Cardinals, all but assured he would return for a 13th season.

Tony La Russa said he’s a big believer in “coincidences” and so it was that as he spent his last night in St. Louis he ended up dining and talking and swapping tales with three members of the Cardinals’ crowded Mount Rushmore — Stan Musial, Red Schoendienst and Mike Shannon. The…