ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. — Asked within the past couple days if he expected the St. Louis Cardinals to make a move on his client, outfielder Matt Holliday, before the window for exclusive negotiations slides shut this week, agent Scott Boras stated the obvious: “Uh, no.”

The Cardinals and Boras have said since before the club clinched the National League Central Division title that both sides expected the righthanded-hitting, All-Star outfielder to hit the open market…

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Back in 2005 and 2006, Matt Holliday, then an outfielder for the Colorado Rockies, began experimenting with a leg kick — a high, pronounced, flamingo-like kick of his leg that he could use as a timing mechanism for his swing. Holliday would try it. Abandon it. Try it. Abandon it.

Then, in August 2006, a former slugger with a fair reputation for hitting visited a friend or two who worked for the Rockies….

TOWER GROVE — The Topps 2009 Update packs are now out in stores*, and card No. UH263 features Matt Holliday reaching up to catch a fly ball, all decked out in his St. Louis Cardinals home whites. With this being the first week of baseball’s blockbuster equivalent of a big card swap meet — trade you one Carlos Gomez foil-stamp for a slightly dog-eared J.J. Hardy All-Star card — and the rhetoric flying, a look…

TOWER GROVE — More than a year ago, Walt Jocketty, freshly installed as the Cincinnati Reds general manager, used an odd word to describe an upcoming series against the St. Louis Cardinals. He said he and manager Dusty Baker had chips on their shoulders. That they each had a “vendetta”.

Turns out it wasn’t that weird of a word choice at all. It was prophetic.

In 2009, the National League Central has only gotten spicier when it…