DOWNTOWN — One of the kaleidoscope of statistics kept throughout the year in baseball are “Park Factors”, a comparative way to judge how hitter-friendly or pitcher-supportive a ballpark is from year to year. The stat is based on comparing how different the hitting, the slugging and the pitching is for teams at said ballpark compared to how those teams fair on the road.

The ratio reveals the ballpark’s characteristics.

Busch Stadium III, while not the national park…

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…

TOWER GROVE — A bark will do it. But not any old bark. It’s got to be a good, hearty robust, UGA-worthy bark that gets Adam Wainwright’s attention.

The past couple years, before each spring training the paper dispatches me to write a travel story about St. Louis Cardinals spring training in Jupiter, Fla. And an annual part of the story is getting hints and suggestions on how to land a player’s autograph. Most subscribe to the…

TOWER GROVE — In a city that can treat baseball like college football — right down to the raucous, hearty and wonderful tailgates that surround Busch Stadium — no wonder there’s such agonizing this morning. One loss means already means no BCS bowl for the St. Louis Cardinals this season.

But this was more than one loss. It was deja vu.

There are 161 more games to go and a loss in Game 1 does not a…

JUPITER, Fla. — During the tour of Florida this past week, there were several opportunities to unfurl the list of questions that make up the Vanity Fair-esque PD-Q and get some answers from around baseball. And it’s like today’s will disappoint. Philadelphia closer Brad Lidge will forever have a place in St. Louis Cardinals’ lore for one pitch — one pitch that Albert Pujols hit into history that October night back in 2005. It was the…

JUPITER, Fla. — St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith joined Missouri Governor Jay Nixon at Busch Stadium this week to announce how he’s restored funding for state tourism to help promote the arrival of Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game this July in St. Louis.

Cue the back flip.

Nixon returned $1 million into the tourism budget for 2009 after originally slashing $3 million from the fund. He said that some of the money will be…

JUPITER, Fla. — A couple weeks ago Sports Illustrated contributor, Kansas City Star columnist and blogger extraordinaire Joe Posnanski visited the Cardinals looking for a baseball story he could believe in. The Alex Rodriguez soap opera was still playing to large crowds and another performance-enhancing drug fog — do they call it “marine layer” in San Francisco? — had settled over baseball. Posnanski was assigned to find the antidote.

He came to interview St. Louis Cardinals first…

TOWER GROVE — The St. Louis Cardinals sudden and curious move to release Adam Kennedy on the eve of spring training leaves them with a hole at second base and an open casting call for the job.

So, it’s business at usual down in Jupiter.

With all due respect to the St. Louis Blues, whose revolving door in goal was chronicled and counted in this morning’s paper by Dan O’Neill (ah, where have you gone Tom Barrasso?), the real…

TOWER GROVE — As I waded through various research projects this offseason, a fluke of clutter provided a jolt of inspiration. There, nosed up against one another in the flotsam of loose and scattered legal pads and books, was my scorecard from Opening Day 2001 at Coors Field and a Cardinals encyclopedia-of-sorts opened to Rogers Hornsby’s page.

As a sidebar jockey for The Rocky Mountain News in 2001, I was at Coors Field to cover Mike Hampton’s brilliant debut…

DOWNTOWN — Cardinals starter Todd Wellemeyer has said a few times this offseason that his goal for 2009 — if really pressed to come clean about it — is to pitch in a certain July game at Busch Stadium.

“I’d like to be in that midsummer classic,” Wellemeyer said. “It’s here. That would be neat. An All-Star.”

First thing’s first. Now, at least, he has a contract for 2009 finalized.

Wellemeyer and outfielder Chris Duncan agreed to terms Monday…

DOWNTOWN — What started as St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa’s standard stumping for Chris Duncan as an “impact” member of the still-crowded 2009 outfielder suddenly became a second nomination in as many months for rookie Colby Rasmus as a key figure in the coming season.

On Monday, La Russa was in town to promote his annual ARF Fundraiser (bring on Lewis Black!) and he spent part of the afternoon with a handful of scribes at Busch Stadium….

LAS VEGAS — In their past 420 games, a stretch that reaches all the way back deep into that golden season of 2006, the St. Louis Cardinals have had a grand total of ZERO games started and won by a lefthanded pitcher.

Since Mark Mulder won his start on June 15, 2006, the Cardinals have trotted out Mike Maroth, Randy Keisler, Jaime Garcia and Mulder (a few times) to make starts. That group has made 15 starts total…

CREVE COEUR — When officials decided on the setting for the climate-controlled humidor at Coors Field — the machine geared to take the “mile high” out of mile-high offensive numbers — they decided to dial up Missouri. The humidor is set to 70 degrees and 50-percent humidity, the exact same specs Rawlings uses at its plant where official baseballs are stored here, in Missouri.

Maybe that explains how Matt Holliday has hit so well at Busch…

TOWER GROVE — Since his star turn in Colorado’s 2007 run to the National League pennant, outfielder Matt Holliday has been billed, quickly, as a slugger. That’s not an entirely accurate scouting report.

Holliday, whom the St. Louis Cardinals have eagerly pursued acquiring this past week, is first and foremost a pure hitter. He’s more likely to hit better than .320 than he is to hit 35 homers. In talking with baseball people the past couple…

SOUTH GRAND — Would have had the weekly PostCards posted much earlier this morning if the first question — from the sharp, witty and ever-adept keyboard of regular Frank Fuhrig, of course — had not been as much a homework assignment as a question.

It’s written less for a mailbag and more for a syllabus.

One element of the St. Louis Cardinals’ interest/chances in landing San Diego ace Jake Peavy is the amount of money the Cardinals…