DENVER — Not too far from where Coors Field is now, just down the Boulder Turnpike headed toward Boulder Valley and the mountains is the “Scenic Overlook” that was a landmark of my youth. It’s a quick pull off Highway 36 and it offers a panaromic view of the signature Flatirons and the valley.

It’s also high enough to be one of several places you could tune in KMOX.

Had the phrase existed years ago…

DENVER — Even after the game, in the Cardinals clubhouse, there was quiet discussion about which of Rick Ankiel’s two lightning bolts from deep center field to third base were the best.

The first one beat one of the fastest runners in baseball by at least a stride to third base. The second, well, it, Larry Walker joked, traveled further from the outfield than Ankiel’s home run had traveled over the outfield in that same…

DOWNTOWN — As this Sunday night game careens toward a save situation, it’s fitting that we talk late picks who made it to the majors. Cardinals closer Jason Isringhausen wears No. 44 because that’s where he was drafted by the New York Mets — as a position player promptly flipped into a pitcher, a Gen-K pitcher.

That was the spirit of the PCQ asked with last week’s mailbag.

The highest Cardinals’ draft pick to make…

DOWNTOWN – Not too often the Cardinals wake up on the last day of April with a chance to make a little franchise history. But that’s the case today.

The Cardinals won their 17th game of April last night against the Reds. It came in a 7-2 victory that saw manager Tony La Russa tinker just enough with his lineup to add depth of power and watch it work. That win tied a franchise record for…

TOWER GROVE — What with two dugout-clearing donnybrooks this weekend and the ever-agitating Chicago Cubs coming to town this weekend with first place possibly up for grabs, this little island of three games against Cincinnati seemed so quaint, so tranquil.

Then Walt Jocketty used a most curious word.

Vendetta.

“Trust me,” he said at the press conference announcing his hiring as general manager of the Reds. “Me and (manager Dusty Baker) are very motivated. We’re…

PITTSBURGH — Called High-A Palm Beach’s manager Gaylen Pitts the other day for another assignment and after running through a list of specific players in his lineup I asked who else has stood out.

“Tyler Henley,” he said. “Leadoff guy. He’s been a bit of everything for us.”

Fast forward to Wednesday morning and I’m checking out the box score of the Palm Beach Cardinals and sure enough, there was Henley, doing a big bit of one thing — against a…

DOWNTOWN — After the blog entry earlier this month about Stan Musial’s “lost” home run and possible rained-out Triple Crown, an army of eager researchers joined the quest for documenting the existence of the weather-erased homer or bust this local myth. My inbox was loaded with tips, suggestions, information, questions (did I think to check the New York papers?), offers to help and links. Many, many links.

And then, one day, I received this email…

TOWER GROVE — Albert Pujols came one walk shy last summer of a first in his career, a 100-walk season. This season, he’ll get there by August.

Pujols has 13 walks in 54 plate appearances so far — so early — this month. Take his average season of 677 plate appearances and at his current rate he’ll walk 163 times this year. That would break by one base on balls the franchise record, set in…

TOWER GROVE – The PostCards inbin was overrun with spam and the Cyrillic alphabet – who knew four years of Russian would help me wade through questions for a baseball mailbag? спасибо Большое. One email that had the subject line: “Thanks Houston/We Have Liftoff!”

Thought for sure that was a love letter to Brandon Backe. But no.

It was a religious group’s mass email with a space travel pun. Houston? Liftoff? Getit? Dah. (Just wait until…

SOME AIRPORT — Not since Oliver Perez and the Great Bat Flip has a pitcher irked Albert Pujols in the way Brandon Backe must have before Wednesday night’s game at Minute Maid Park.

As mentioned in the paper and many other places, the simmering feud between Backe and Pujols pre-dates his slide through catcher J.R. Towles on Tuesday. It goes back to the 2004 NLCS and Backe’s grand debut and it spiked a year later when Pujols…