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…

TOWER GROVE — The accepted halfway spot of the Major League Baseball season is the midsummer classic, the All-Star Game, but for the St. Louis Cardinals the mathematical midpoint of the year came sometime during the flight to Cincinnati on Thursday night.

The Cardinals are the first National League team to complete 81 games, and they arrive at Game No. 82 tonight at Great American Ball Park in a virtual tie for the lead in the…

TOWER GROVE — The St. Louis Cardinals sudden and curious move to release Adam Kennedy on the eve of spring training leaves them with a hole at second base and an open casting call for the job.

So, it’s business at usual down in Jupiter.

With all due respect to the St. Louis Blues, whose revolving door in goal was chronicled and counted in this morning’s paper by Dan O’Neill (ah, where have you gone Tom Barrasso?), the real…

TOWER GROVE — Five years ago the St. Louis Cardinals and the finest hitter of his generation were steaming toward what could have been a dicey and milestone arbitration hearing when, in the 11th hour, Albert Pujols agreed to the largest contract in franchise history. The deal, still active today, made Pujols the ninth $100-million man in baseball history and, at 24, the youngest ever to reach the salary threshold.

As the MVP enters the penultimate year…

LAS VEGAS — Given the chance to celebrate and comment on Rickey Henderson’s appearance on the Hall of Fame ballot for the first time, St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa also seized the opportunity to stump for another dynamo member of his Oakland Athletics teams who will be on the ballot.

On his third try, Mark McGwire belongs in the Hall of Fame, La Russa believes.

It’s a matter a of “integrity.”

“This steroid issue, that’s a matter of integrity,…

WEST COUNTY — The St. Louis Cardinals decision not to offer Braden Looper arbitration by this week’s deadline can be measured in the innings they have to prove they can fill, the dollars they may have saved, and the years of security he may gain.

But don’t forget to count the prospect the Cardinals won’t get.

As a Type B free agent, Looper offered the Cardinals the opportunity to assure a supplemental (i.e., sandwich) round pick in…

TOWER GROVE — The list of players offered arbitration is in, with 24 free agents getting the notice from their former teams and not one St. Louis Cardinal. While the deadline revealed more about who won’t be a Cardinal in 2009 than who will be, the list of players not offered arbitration will expand the Cardinals’ shopping list.

Houston opted not to give Randy Wolf an arbitration offer and the Astros, with Mike Hampton on the way,…

TOWER GROVE — As the weekend arrived, the St. Louis Cardinals continued to work Friday on the details of the deal for lefthanded reliever Trever Miller while also keeping conversations open with other lefthanded relievers and free agents on the market.

Miller, 35, came to St. Louis on Thursday for a physical, a clear sign of the team’s and player’s mutual interest and what some baseball sources believed was a step toward finalizing a deal. The…

TOWER GROVE — For the St. Louis Cardinals, there is a bemusing whiff of irony to the Oakland Athletics deal for Colorado outfielder Matt Holliday that goes beyond the Cardinals’ interest in landing the All-Star outfielder from the Rockies.

Get this: The Cardinals helped provide the A’s with players used to complete the deal.

No joke. It all started way back in the winter before 2005 …

Cardinals general manager Walt Jocketty wanted to hoist his pennant-winning team to…

TOWER GROVE — Cardinals first baseman and MVP candidate Albert Pujols is a finalist for two of the most prestigious Player Choice awards handed out by the MLB Players Association after a vote of his peers, the union announced Friday afternoon. Pujols is one of three finalists for the Player of the Year Award, and he is also the only National League player who is a finalist for the Marvin Miller Man of the Year…

TOWER GROVE — One of the players the Cardinals just signed from Latin America they found because they were looking at the same player as everyone else.

On one of several trips to Venezuela for the Cardinals vice president of player development Jeff Luhnow, the Cardinals held a private workout with shortstop Cesar Valera and outfielder Yorman Rodriguez. The former signed with the Cardinals last week.

The latter is coveted and going to command what Luhnow expects…

DOWNTOWN — Calling it one of the surest signs of their now-established footing in Latin America, the Cardinals will announce three signings Friday that surpass any of the previous bonuses given to international players.

On Wednesday, baseball’s lesser-covered free agent market opened and teams could begin signing Latin American players who are 16 or older. Over the past several years, the Cardinals, under the guidance of vice president Jeff Luhnow, have spent to create a facility in…

Manager Tony La Russa was spending time with some of his best and furriest friends Thursday morning when his phone twittered. There are few calls that take him away from a tour of an animal rescue shelter or a conversation about the need to have and hold and save pets.

This was one.

“That was the White House,” the manager explained. “The President wants me to greet him at the airport.”

Post-Dispatch staff writer par excellence Elizabethe Holland was kind enough…

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 most…

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 both guys who…