TOWER GROVE — Back in 2001, two years after the St. Louis Cardinals selected him in the seventh round of the June draft, an athletic outfielder by the name of Covelli Crisp won the organization’s player of the year award. He hit .306 that season in High-A, with 80 runs scored and 39 stolen bases.

Not that long after, he was gone, as a player to be named later.

The Cardinals one-time prospect, Crisp, known better now…

TOWER GROVE — This past offseason, switch-hitting utility infielder Aaron Miles — a member in good standing of the 2006 World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals — grew frustrated with a third consecutive winter of being non-tendered by the club he had hoped to call home. And though an 11th-hour offer eventually came from the Cardinals, Miles made the difficult decision to jump to a rival, the Chicago Cubs.

Far from excommunicating him (check out his initial…

SILVER SPRING, Md. — The transactions will show that the St. Louis Cardinals come home tonight with two new players, each acquired in the last week. But the stats show something different.

There is a third.

Center fielder Rick Ankiel, making the most of some extra playing time with Colby Rasmus slowed by a heel injury, has been reanimated on the road trip. He finished the seven-game jag with an extra base hit in each of the…

TOWER GROVE — With less than one month to go before pitchers and catchers report to spring training, there are more than 150 free agents still on the market, including, amazingly, the National League’s starting pitcher from this past year’s All-Star Game, Ben Sheets. From the pool of free agents still out there, It is possible to put together an imposing lineup, with an All-Star at each position, and outfit a pretty compelling rotation.

Not to…

DOWNTOWN — Former Cardinals first baseman and slugger Mark McGwire wakes up this morning not in the National Baseball Hall of Fame, as expected, but still clinging to a primo spot in career home run list, firmly in the top 10. That too could be fleeting.

McGwire’s 583 home runs rank eighth all-time, nestled between Hall of Famer Frank Robinson (586) and Hall of Famer Harmon Killebrew (573). When next the tenured members of the Baseball Writers Association…

TOWER GROVE — Newest first-ballot Hall of Famer Rickey Henderson will speed into Cooperstown as the all-time man of steal (no one is close), the all-time leader in runs scored (the chief goal of the game) and arguably the finest leadoff hitter in history. He will not however reach the Hall as the best single-season power hitter of the rarest breed of ballplayer — the bats-right, throws-left big leaguer.

Ryan Ludwick saw to that.

This afternoon’s announcement that Henderson…