Another I-70 interleague series is upon us, so here’s a couple of Kansas City Star offerings on Part I of the 2008 Show-Me matchup. Read Royals-Cards coverage from the Star on their Royals page throughout the three-game series, stand your STL Sports Nation ground on their Royals discussion board and see how Royals baseball is going these days from Sam Mellinger’s Ball Star blog. Bonus material today includes the return of Farmhand Tuesdays further down.

“Royals hope worst is behind them as they gear up for I-70 Series against Cardinals” by Bob Dutton on kansascity.com.

“Cardinals’ Duncan among the best at helping pitchers” by Bradford Doolittle on kansascity.com. Check out his DoolittleBrothers.com blog too.

FARMHAND TUESDAYS

“Cardinals quietly celebrate their first-half Florida State League title” By Chuck King, special to the Palm Beach Post on palmbeachpost.com.

“River Bandits ready to show skills at all-star game” by Steve Batterson of the Quad-City Times on qctimes.com.

“Halfway there — Cards beat Travs, stave off eliminaton” by Springfield News-Leader writer Kary Booher on his Cardinals Corner blog at news-leader.com. Also check out “Cards force first-half title game”, previewing tonight’s game.

“Reyes feels left out of Cards’ plans” by Marlon W. Morgan of the Memphis Commercial Appeal on commercialappeal.com.

Finally, the minor league All-Star games are gearing up. The Florida State League (Palm Beach Cardinals) played theirs Saturday night and the Midwest League (Quad Cities River Bandits) takes the field tonight. Here’s the full schedule of the rest of the games for the various league. Also here’s an MiLB.com preview page for four short-season leagues. Of note to the citizenry is the New York-Penn (Batavia Muckdogs) and Appalachian (Johnson City Cardinals) Leagues.