PITTSBURGH — For all of the undrafted, unclaimed and unwanted players who float through independent baseball looking for a break, meet Justin Christian. You’ll find him sitting there, pulling on his road grays, four lockers down from Derek Jeter.

Four years ago he was playing ball in O’Fallon, Mo. Now he calls the Bronx home.

“It’s definitely been an arduous road for me,” Christian said Thursday afternoon while getting ready for the New York Yankees one-night stand at…

DOWNTOWN — For parts of four decades Cardinals’ pitching coach Dave Duncan has been a coach at the big-league and this season is his 29th a pitching coach, the most by any person every to hold the position. Manager Tony La Russa is fond of saying that most of the game is pitching and that Duncan handles all of the pitching decisions.

So when La Russa goes into Cooperstown, Duncan will surely go …

Fishing….

TOWER GROVE — Manager Tony La Russa did not bemoan his team’s lost five runs or even the possibility that rain washed away a potential victory for the Cardinals on Monday night. Nor did Albert Pujols seem particularly miffed that weather stole a solo home run from him. It happens, both said. Rules of the game, they said.

Mother Nature is an unforgiving official scorer.

Ask The Man.

In 1948, Cardinals Hall of Famer Stan Musial…

DODGERTOWN, Fla. — On the first pitch he saw in his first game back since leaving his first game as a Marlin with a hamstring injury, Cameron Maybin roped a single.

And so continues a minor subplot around baseball this spring.

The arrival of the Center Fielders, Class of ‘05.

Maybin, taken 10th overall in 2005 draft, was the first of six center fielders taken in that first round, several of whom could be the opening day starters…

TOWER GROVE — Finally, a baseball player is pointing his finger with a purpose.

In a refreshing take on the news bombarding baseball this winter, Boston Red Sox third baseman Mike Lowell – who has a World Series MVP to stand on when he makes comments – told The Associated Press he knows what it’s like to play under suspicion of use. He also wondered, directly, why baseball players are subjected to different standards:

“I’m not sensitive to it,…

TOWER GROVE - Dr. Gary Wadler, a go-to expert on performance-enhancing drugs, could see the stampede of coverage coming. He knew the signs: Mitchell Report begets allegations, allegations beget denials, denials beget headlines, headlines beget Congressional attention …

And on.

And on.

A runaway blitz of attention  on steroids.

And that worried Wadler.

“I have this overriding concern that people will be tired of it,” the WADA chairman and NYU professor told me on the…

TOWER GROVE — When baseball anthropologists exhume this point in history, carbon dating will show the steroid era transitioning into the straw-poll era.

It’s already started.

Before anyone could finish the second 100 pages of former Senator George Mitchell’s massive volume, reporters were cold-calling their peers for thoughts on the Hall of Fame voting. ESPN.com had a rundown on thoughts from voters, and its poll concluded that Roger Clemens – whose Cooperstown-bound career takes the…

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — In 1915, James Roy Stockton, a young sportswriter from St. Louis, traveled to Cuba to cover spring training of the hometown Federal League club and started a tradition that, as of Sunday, continues today.

It’s been a pet project  for awhile — compiling a list of  baseball writers, like John Lowe of The Detroit Free Press,  who got their start or their inspiration from being in, from or connected to St. Louis,…

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y.  – It was a longtime feature of the PostCards mailbag that has been neglected since the blog shifted to its own address and became more of a daily fling — the PostCards Question. I wanted it to return with a bang.

So how about a blast?

Had some time to pluck the photos off the camera from this weekend’s trip to Hummel Weekend at the Hall and came upon two that have the…

TOWER GROVE — One down. How many to go?

Deadline day is upon us and the Cardinals have already acquired one player — pitcher Joel Pineiro from Boston’s organization — and are certainly trolling for more. While the Cardinals actions and comments in recent days has it looking more and more like they will be movers in August, ala Larry Walker, when waivers are in play and big salaries must be swallowed.

The mailbag was…