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 — 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 best spot in baseball to get a batter going may be batting second in the St. Louis Cardinals’ lineup, ahead of reigning MVP Albert Pujols. But the hardest spot in baseball to keep a batter going apparently is Cardinals’ cleanup, one spot behind Pujols.

Witness Chris Duncan.

Cast in the cleanup role several times during the previous home stand, Duncan struggled there. But thrown into the No. 2 spot for the first time…

TOWER GROVE — There was a certain buzz in the ballpark. Did Albert Pujols really do what it looked like he just did? The St. Louis Cardinals first baseman had launched a dart deep to left field, a comet that struck the landmark “BIG MAC LAND” sign and … what was that? … was that a tinkle of glass? It looked like he knocked out a vowel.

His teammates peered out to left field to be…

TEMPE, Ariz. — The St. Louis Cardinals have three saves so far this season and they are by three different players — and not one save is from the guy who broke spring training ostensibly as the club’s closer.

Manager Tony La Russa’s take on the ninth-inning jumble can be summarized: Get used to it.

After giving young gun Jason Motte two save opportunities and see him struggle in both, the Cardinals have elected to slide him out…

JUPITER, Fla. — When St. Louis Cardinals pitchers Chris Carpenter and his band of rehab brothers took to adopting “Progressing Nicely” as their slogan of spring last season, it seemed like a quirky and slightly cute way to deflect constant questions about their recovery.

Turns out it was a time-honored tradition around these parts.

Cardinals’ Hall of Famer Bob Gibson once used such a ploy to address the constant questions about his recovery from a busted leg. He…

TOWER GROVE — In this crowded field of mailbags and Q&As and message boards and chats and blogs there are only so many questions about Skip Schumaker playing second base to fuel so many different give-and-take platforms. Good thing PostCards has Frank Fuhrig.

The mailbag was loaded with questions answered better elsewhere or answered often before, but on election day into the hopper Fuhrig fired this gem: Who manages the St. Louis Cardinals in 2010?

The poll…

SOUTH GRAND — Trying to get better at the shorter, punchier, quicker entries when possible. So while working on an entry that will appear in a few minutes, I realized that these bits of notes I collected this morning were just sitting there. Sooner rather than longer, here goes … Some quick Riffs:

Today is Stan Musial’s 88th birthday. Play a tune on the nearest harmonica, mimic the swing, look at those statistics, find your favorite…

TOWER GROVE — The awards season peaked locally Monday with the announcement that St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols is this year’s National League MVP. But if you thought this league’s race for the MVP was something, take a peek at the other side of the majors.

The American League MVP has a favorite and a challenger on the same team; it has a record-setting closer and a superb slugger whose injury cost him the last…

SOUTH GRAND — The only thing worse than Major League Baseball moving toward the World Series becoming some sort of neutral-site circus would be to dismiss the idea entirely and ignore all of the suggestion its inspired.

Coming out of the rain-delayed 2008 World Series and staring at a 2009 postseason that likely won’t end until the first week of November, the drumbeat for change echoed around baseball coverage. “Neutral Site” was the new black. ESPN’s…

TOWER GROVE — Gentlemen, start your transactions.

General managers from around baseball are converging at AIG’s favorite hangout in Dana Point, Calif., today and all week for the first round of window-shopping and swap-talking. Unlike last year when the pitching market was headlined by Carlos Silva and trades were the currency of winter, this offseason has the high-watt free agents (CC Sabathia and Manny Ramirez) and the superstar trade chips (Jake Peavy and Matt Holliday). There…

TOWER GROVE — Around about the time the Los Angeles Dodgers took a lead Saturday night at Chavez Ravine, I received an email from the director of the Cubs documentary, “We Believe”. He wrote, in short, that his “Hollywood Happy Ending is in jeopardy!”

Well, at least the “happy” part was.

The Cubs trudged out to Tinseltown to complete their sudden collapse, and for a second consecutive October they’ve been swept out the postseason. Alfonso Soriano is 3-for-28…

DOWNTOWN — If it weren’t for his career path, he’d likely be a third generation season ticket holder. He was brought up on Cardinals baseball. Attended his first game and saw his first October before he could walk. Back in college, he carried a small flame for the possibility his boyhood team, his hometown club would be in position to draft him.

Max Scherzer is in baseball because of the Cardinals.

Tonight, he starts against them.

A confluence…

TOWER GROVE — Started watching the documentary on Ireland’s National Baseball Team late the other night, and from the opening frame there’s a St. Louis connection.

Mike Kindle, the President of Baseball Ireland and the first person you see in “The Emerald Diamond”, is a St. Louis native, a Cardinals’ fan dipped in red and devoted, and it was his interest in a car sticker about a national softball association that the movie identifies as the…

JUPITER, Fla. — With one of the myriad channels offering Olympic coverage on in the background, Cardinals prospect Colby Rasmus spoke about being here instead of over there and the knee that cost him more than a stamp on his passport.

He shrugged.

“I’m not really thinking about it,” Rasmus said. “It would have been a great opportunity. It didn’t happen.”

Rasmus sprained his knee while making a check swing back in late July. He offered at a…