Reggie Sanders has had a fracture located in his shin and so the Cards have brought up John Rodriguez to play some outfield. Since acquiring him from the Indians’ organization, he’s been a beast at the plate, hitting .342 with 17 homers and 47 RBIs in 120 at bats. Hopefully he shows he can do it up in the big leagues as well (especially against lefties, doubtful since he hits from the left side himself, but I never was able to find AAA platoon splits while keeping an eye on his stats at Memphis). That would greatly improve our bench and versatility.

I had my third of four five-hour motorcycle safety class today. Tomorrow’s the last day, when we’ll be tested on our driving skills. If I pass the test, I get a piece of paper that waives the driving portion of the class-M driver’s license certification test and a possible insurance deduction, should I somehow afford to get my own motorsickle. It’s amazing how much better I’m doing than I was the first day. Gives a fella a sense of accomplishment.

Cards won last night. I was only able to listen to it on the radio until Izzy blew the save. At that point, I was walking into the Savoy movie theater (now with super comfy posture-pedic seats!) to watch the Tim Burton remake of Willy Wonka. I’m not a big fan of Burton, and stopped liking Danny Elfman’s music after I’d heard a few of his songs. This would be a long, long time ago. Holy shit, that movie was awful. I cavalierly suppressed groans and settled for shaking my head. The rest of the audience seemed to enjoy it though. Jeff was generous enough to instant message my cell phone with the score and a brief synopsis of how the game was won for the good guys. Way to go, Albert! Since I was in motorsickle class today, I missed the game. But I taped it, and am watching now, sans commercials. I checked the box to know which innings were absolutely not to be missed. Way to go, Larry! This’ll be two excellent pitching appearances in a row. I’m very confident that Mulder’s gonna have a big second half and earn some serious St. Louis love.

I guess I’ll have to tape tomorrow’s game too. I won’t be checking the boxscore before watching that one. Holy smokes, what a game that should be. I’m happy to see that the Cubs lost today behind Greg Maddux and against the Pirates. I genuinely like the Houston Astros (although not their park. Not at all. That train must be destroyed!) and hate to see them fall behind the Cubs in the standings.

Later: Cass hates the Astros. Even Craig Biggio, about as selfless a ballplayer as you’ll ever see. I intend to change this. I don’t remember where I saw it, thought it was Cardnilly, but ended up finding it by googling ‘”Morgan ensberg” helmet’ to find it… remembering the line about why he doesn’t throw his helmet down after a bad third strike. Here’s the story. Good story. Good man. Good team. Now go out and get them Cubbies!

Molina’s hand is still sore, and won’t play until Sunday. So says Bernie.

Also, some good NHL-advice columns from Bernie Micklasz and Jeff Gordon.

They’re on a roll at It Comes in Pints lately.

Ken saw an episode of Mythbusters featuring tests to see how far bullets would penetrate water. Modern, high speed rounds, it turns out, won’t. I don’t have cable at my house, but when I’m at my girlfriend’s and the show’s on, you can bet I’ll be fighting for the remote.

And this post about a lady who’s suing a hospital for neglecting to turn off gravity.

And a followup, links to an even more ridiculous lawsuit. This one’s in France, though. I don’t know how to type it, but “Hnaw hnaw hnaw.” (That’s supposed to be that nasal French laugh.)

I promise to find and post some amusing shite in the next hour or so, seeing as this is Friday.

I finally got around to seeing Team America: World Police, which is a funny fucking movie. The IMDB Trivia Page for that movie as some hilarious stuff like this:

When the Film Actors Guild decides to go to North Korea, the members all shout “Qapla’!,” which is Klingon for success.

North Korea’s embassy in Prague demanded that the film be banned in the Czech Republic, saying the movie harmed their country’s reputation.

Despite almost getting an NC-17 Rating in the States, the film was promoted as a “kids & family” movie in several European countries, and rated fit for all accordingly.

So anyways, real funny movie. I’d been warned about the sex scene, so that was more a let-down than anything. The puking scene had me rolling though, and Kim Jong Il’s panthers cracked my shit up.

Let there be hockey, and there was hockey, and He saw that it was good.

Details of the newly agreed to CBA will be announced next week.

The laptop is fired up, an icy cold Budweiser is sweating next to me on the sofa, and the All-Star Teams have been announced. I
‘ll be sorta liveblogging this, and possibly dropping wise-assed comments in to Belly Scratcher and Red Hot Mama’s. Sounds like an awesome way to spend an evening doesn’t it?

Well that’s what you get when you’re poor and your girlfriend is out of town.

Pregame– As Mike Shannon might say, “this crowd on their feet for the British Star Spangled Banner!”

Top First: Scooter and Tim McCarver. Make it stop! Abreu lines a single to left. Off to the races! Beltran hits sharply into a 6-4-3 double play. Pujols bloop single to left (are we aiming at Manny or something?). Derek Lee strikes out. Make us proud, Carp! Buerhle’s last start was Saturday, when he threw 102 pitches. Is that the last we see of him?

Bottom First: Actually, Tim–2 pitches, one out. Damon goes 6-3. A-Rod lines to left. Joe says that La Russa’s pitching order decision was meant to protect Piazza’s sad-sack throwing arm as Ortiz hits on the ground to right in a hit and run, advancing Rodriguez to third with one out. Joe also mentions that Carpenter’s only had one stolen base on him since 2002, and it was fielder’s indifference. Manny hits into a 6-4-3 DP to end the inning. Sweet!

Top Second: Dammit. Edmonds lines to second to lead off the top of the second. Ramirez smacks one down the RF line for a single. Buehrle’s pitching again. Somewhere, Ozzie Guillen is driving pins into his Terry Francona voodoo doll. La Russa has Smoltz warming up, following the order Duncan described for tonight’s game in the next post down. Piazza’s fouling a bunch of strikes off and taking balls before striking out swinging. 2 outs with Ramirez on first. Jeff Kent strikes out and Joe makes fun of Eminem. Good times, babe!

Bottom Second: John Smoltz comes in and throws a pitch into the seats behind left field after bouncing it off Tejada’s bat. Vlad Guerrero pops out to Eckstein. Mark Texeira groundsn into a 3-1 putout. Ramirez misplays a broken bat grounder from Varitek, who’s safe at first. MLB Gameday reports the play: “Jason Varitek singles on a soft ground ball to shortstop David Eckstein.” Brian Roberts flies to Beltran. Score: AL-1;NL-0

Top Third: Eckstein flies one almost over Vladimir Guerrero’s head, but he hauls it in. Abreu ground out 6-3. Carlos Beltran doesn’t have a man on first, so the DP isn’t a possibility. Beltran beats out a grounder to second, played well by Roberts. Tim McCarver says something trite and calls himself on it. Colon throws a pickoff to Texeira that runs astray, advancing Beltran all the way to third. Colon sets up Pujols with some nasty pitches at the knees and he flies out. Pisser.

Bottom Third: It’s only 8:25, so this game is going pretty damned fast. Roy Oswalt is in on the game. Eckstein misplays a broken bat bouncing ball over the mound. Do not taunt super happy fun ball. Damon’s at first, advances to second on a Rodriguez walk. Ortiz cranks one off the wall to score Damon. First and third, Damon scores, no outs in the half inning. Seems like a good time for a fresh beer.

Top of a new beer: Manny struck out for the first out, Tejada grounds out 6-3 to advance both runners, scoring a run. Vlad grounds out. Ugh. NL-0;AL-3 at the end of the third. Clemens will be pitching the next inning for the NL. Let’s give him some run support, it might be a nice change for him. Derek Lee leads off with a double against Johan Santana. Joe Buck is talking about pitching, fortunately he only names the changeup, so it’s doubtful we’ll have another Scooter sighting.

Middle of the new beer: Nothing doing. NL scored no runs in the bottom of the third. After Lee doubled, Jimmy Woo-Woo walked but was erased on an Aramis GIDP, followed by a Piazza groundout. Livan Hernandez comes in for the NL instead of Clemens. Varitek walks after a Teixeira popup. Roberts lines one right down the first base line, which a yuppy lifts off the field. Fan interference, Varitek is stopped at third. Suzuki comes in to replace Damon. Suzuki singles to right, scoring two. Joe Buck ponders why Hernandez didn’t listen to his advice to intentionally walk Ichiro once he got to the 3-1 count. Groan.

Bottom of new beer: Beltran sucks! Get ‘im outta there!!

Top of another beer: This game is really cheesing me off. Way to pinch for Pujols, there Carlos!

Bottom of another beer: Joe and Tim are talking about how Dontrelle’s leg kick is more subdued from the stretch. No shit, sherlocks. Ouch, Teixeira homers to score two more. 7-0 American League. This is just fugly. A base hit later: Dave Duncan makes a visit to the mound.

Backwash: I credit Dave Duncan’s mound visit with inducing that double play. All Cards but Izzy are out of the game. No NLers have anything left to play for.

Top of yet another: Way to do, Andruw! Two run homer by the National League, Joe asks, is this the beginning of something bigger for the National League as Jimmy Rollins singles.

Top of one a few down the line: Brad Lidge sure is a hell of a pitcher. NL, scores another run on a fielders choice to 2nd. 7-3 AL over NL. I put some of these X 14 Blue plus Fragrance Toilet Cleaners in my toilets today. Man alive! The water refilling the bowl is the bluest blue I’ve ever seen. It’s like mouthwash flowing in there, but more blue. Amazing! Fabulous! And such a fresh fragrance! And only $1.59 per tablet!

Middle of same beer: During the singing of God Bless America earlier, they showed a player down in the dugout. I thought, hang on… Carlos Delgado isn’t on the All-Star team. I don’t know who that was or what it was about.

On the way to a new beer: Cordero pitched nicely. The last two All Star games saw blowups from great pitchers, Gagne in 2003 and Clemens in 2004. So what happened today? Oswalt, Hernandez, and Willis each gave up two runs. Smoltz gave up one. Carp, Clemens, and Cordero pitched shutout innings. The National League is down to three outs with one man on, down by four. I’d go for a blowup from the American league this year. Top of ninth, two outs, down by two now with Luis Gonzalez at third. Mariano Rivera is coming in.

With a new beer to sulk over: [Insert stream of expletives here]

Blow it out your ass, wench:

La Russa was taken aback a bit at the All-Star press conference Monday when former California Angels owner Jackie Autry, the honorary American League president, toasted the World Series champion Boston Red Sox, whose Terry Francona, is the American League manager. Autry said, “I think everyone in the United States was rooting for the underdog, the Boston Red Sox, so it was really fun and exciting for all of us.”

“That falls in that clueless category,” La Russa muttered later. “When she said ‘everybody in the nation,’ I should have said, ‘Well, there’s another nation.’”

From the same article is tonight’s pitching order for the National League (unless this is a ruse La Russa is laying out there to try to get good matchups):

Following Carpenter in order, Duncan said, will be Atlanta’s John Smoltz, Houston’s Roy Oswalt and Roger Clemens, Washington’s Livan Hernandez and Florida’s Dontrelle Willis. The last three innings then probably would go to relievers Chad Cordero of Washington, Billy Wagner of Philadelphia and Lidge.

San Diego starter Jake Peavy, a manager’s selection to the team, would be held back for extra innings, and Colorado lefthander Brian Fuentes, also chosen by La Russa because the Rockies had to have a player, probably will be a one-batter pitcher or not pitch at all.

Dave Pinto accuses TLR of “nepotism” for starting Carp over Willis or Clemens since both have lower road ERAs than Carpenter. And that’s true: 0.20 for Clemens(!), 1.58 for Willis, and 1.69 for Carpenter). Brian Gunn defends La Russa somewhat in the comments. Not mentioned is that Carpenter has had more rest (last start 7/6) than either Clemens or Willis (both 7/8). I hope all our pitchers pitch shutout innings, and that none of them are miffed over which one they are called to throw in.

I’ve been avoiding political discussion lately, but I left a big ol’ comment over at a new (to me) local blog, Champaign Common Sense. Hopefully I didn’t come off as too pedantic an ass, but I couldn’t understand what the blogger wanted our foreign policy to look like. I’m not very smart, but it sounds like: the Middle East will always be a mess, we didn’t have any right to overthrow the Taliban and Iraq’s Ba’ath government, and we should have invaded Saudi Arabia, since most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi. I don’t agree with any of those three, but I might be mischaracterizing. Like I said: I’m kinda dumb.

Ah, but for really dumb, check out this Language Log post by Arnold Zwicky, in which he mocks the training scenarios presented to Merck salesmen for changing the subject to the crap you’re trying to sell. The source is Harper’s, a magazine that I’m not familar with, but that looks snarky enough to flat out make these up. Anyways, they’re pretty funny:

Scenario 3
Physician says: “What a great foot[ball] game yesterday. Did you see how effective Drew Bledsoe was in the fourth quarter? That guy is amazing.”

Possible rep response: “Bledsoe is effective on so many levels. He’s a leader, you feel safe with him carrying the ball, and he’s a proven winner. You know who else sounds like that? Zocor, a market leader with an eight-year safe record, proven to save the lives of your patients. Physician, what concerns do you have about Zocor leading your team in the fight against congenital heart disease?”

There’s no way that being so obviously uninterested in what your physician/conversation-partner has to say would help you make the sale. That’s obnoxious enough to warrant an eye-gouging.

Alien loves Predator is on hiatus for the birth of the author’s twins.

Wretchard revealed his identity to the wide world a few days ago. He has some thoughts on the recovery of the fourth SEAL’s remains in the Afghan mountains. He’d been writing some good stuff on that recently, so good that a MSM article cited his analysis over the weekend in an article that was picked up by Drudge (who I was reading that day for the first time in a long time).

As for me… I invented a tool last night. I need to learn to weld so I can make a prototype. And gotta make sure that noone’s already invented it so I can make my millions and not have to worry about money anymore. Rain’s stopped for a bit, so there’s still the possibility of grilled pork steaks tonight.

The derby last night was pretty cool, although I was disappointed to see how poorly Jason Bay did. I saw him jack two against the Cards a while back, so know he’s a good hitter. I heard a jackass on FoxSports bitching about him being in the derby, asking: “who the heck is Jason Bay? I’ve never heard of ‘im!” It displeases me when these kinds of foolish pundits are shown to be right, like the proverbial blind squirrel. Starve, broken squirrel! Starve! Abreu sure put on a heck of a show, though. I hope they get away from the battle-of-the-nations format next year, though. And I hope they get some cooler kids to shag the flies. Those big kids who were knocking over the little kids to get their hands on yet another fly ball were really pissing me off. I’d punish my kid for acting like such a jerk, showing up much littler kids like that.

I’m looking forward to the All-Star game, though. I was planning on grilling some pork steaks and watching it, but it might be a bit too rainy for that. Time will tell.

Over the weekend, I had my first ten hours of motorcycle rider class. I am learning to ride on an dual use motorcycle, so it’s OK to ride on the road or through cornfields. I’m pretty sure it’s a Yamaha XT225, although an older model than the one I just linked to. It’s not quite as hard as I imagined it might be, although I definitely need quite a lot more practice before I’ll call myself competent at riding these things. I’m fine riding it around, but not close to being decent at fine-controlling the clutch to do the tight turning maneuvers we’re required to do. The throttle on this machine is super twitchy in first gear, and it’s not catching on as quickly as I’d like. A whole lot of fun, though, and I like the instructors. I imagine this is something I’d really enjoy doing. And think about how cool and sexy a fellow I’d be if I spent my weekends motorcycling to Vandalia to jump out of airplanes? I’d have to beat the chicks away with a stick more effective than the one I’m currently using. Since there’d be more of them.

Aside from that, a pretty uneventful weekend. Sure, I saw a great concert Friday night, followed by the end of a Cardinals win. I was in class Saturday during the game, but was happy to see that Morris pitched very well, although saddened to see that the lineup was shutdown. I went to Alto Vineyards on Saturday night for a few glasses of the vino and saw a pretty good band play out in the starlight. Next Saturday a old acquaintance’s band will be playing, so there’s a good chance I’ll make a return trip next weekend.

Foxsports has Illinois ranked 69th in their preseason rankings, last in the Big Ten by quite a ways. I’m thinking we’ll be better than that. I might go ahead and get season tickets again for the first time since 2002.

Thus spake Bernie:

The All-Star center fielder has asked team management to pick up his contract option for 2007 and extend his contract through at least 2008 so he can retire as a Cardinal. Word is, he’d take less money in ’08, too.

And from the same article:

The Cardinals quietly are trolling for a lefthanded reliever and would love to get Billy Wagner from Philadelphia (obviously). Wagner will be a free agent after the season and has said many times that he’d like to pitch for the Cardinals.

Also from Bernie:

We had an interesting interview earlier tonite with Mychael Urban, who covers Oakland for MLB.com … I was encouraged after listening to Urban, who is close to Mulder.

Among Urban’s thoughts/points:

* Mulder was “lost” at the end of last season. Was so flummoxed by his loss of form that he sought the counsel of a sports psychologist. Mulder never had to cope with failure before and it really messed with his head.

* He said the transition for Mulder has been more dramatic and difficult than Mulder anticipated. New team, opposing hitters, city, league, teammates, vibe, etc. Said Mulder has had a lot to deal with but is getting used to everything.

* Said that Mulder has really come to respect Dave Duncan and firmly believes that Duncan has identified what’s wrong, and how to fix it. And that after some initial resistance — Mulder thought he could get turned around by himself — he’s embraced what Duncan wants to do.

* Urban said he talked to Mulder recently and that Mulder was in a good frame of mind, belieiving that with Duncan’s help he’ll be able to get all things straightened out.

All these links via Belly Scratcher, who also ponders whether Mark Buehrle might want to join the Cards as well, something I, too, considered a while back.

Cass and I are learning how to ride motorsickles this weekend. I’m supposed to have a shitload of gear for the lessons. I’ve got everything I need except for boots that go above the ankle. (I’m pretty sure my shooting glasses qualify as safety glasses!) I checked to see what kind of boots they sell at Target, but am disappointed with the results. I don’t think they’ll have the Tea Rose Garden Pink Rain Boots in my size.

Pisser.

Tonight, one of the best concerts you’ll ever see in Champaign is going on at the Highdive: Los Straitjackets featuring the World Famous Pontani Sisters hosting the Summer Twist Party. I saw their Christmas show here on Dec. 17th, 2003 and consider it to been the most fun I’ve had at a concert in my adult life.

And when I’m out this weekend, I’ll be drinking some fine English beers… And I hope you’ll do the same.

To cool my seething rage yesterday, I spent about an hour going through the archives at WuzzaDem. All’s you have to do is go to the index and start clicking through the “favorites” in the right sidebar, but I’ll link a few of my favorites.

• King of the Hill: Sgrena Kidnapping
• IHOP Factor
• O’Reilly Factor with Yoda
• Hardball: Barack Obama
• Fox News Reporters Have More Fun

And not really all that funny, but he’s got an obscene picture of the Kool-Aid Man. Everyone by now knows that he wears pants now. And a sassy Hawaiian shirt.

MORE: A co-worker just showed me this clip: Turlington’s Lower Back Tattoo Remover. Super nice!

Yadier Molina fractured a bone in his catching hand last night when Claudio Vargas hit him with a pitch way up and in. He’s about the toughest son of a gun you’ll ever see, but probably won’t be playing this weekend going into the All-Star break.

A Trinidadian online casino company is pretending to offer to buy the Blues. This would be a bad thing for the franchise: “We will buy this team and begin incorporating our brand into uniforms.” EEEEEEEKKK!

Baseball and softball were dropped from the 2012 Olympics by a secret vote of IOC members. Tommy Lasorda is quoted in the article, and I imagine he’ll have more to say about it on his blog today or tomorrow. The word democratic officially has no meaning in post-EU Europe. A group of 100 or so elites casting secret votes is now considered to be, to quote IOC president Jacques Rogge, “very democratic.”

Note: I should probably point out that democratic lost its meaning at least as early as when it started to be used in names that begin with People’s Democratic Republic of…

Geeky Note: You know that one annyoing line [Ed: One!?!? Ha!] in Revenge of the Sith when Ben Kenobi says to Darth Vader, “What about democracy?!?!” What democracy? As far as I could tell, the Senate of the Republic was much like a UN-style debating society for aristocrats and despots. Good riddance!

There is nothing useful I could have contributed yesterday and so said nothing. Dave T at Harry’s place best said everything that needed to be said.

To our best friend in the world: we are by your side.

#1:

You Are Vanilla Ice Cream

Your personality is anything but “vanilla” You’re a risk taker, who’s up for anything new. You go well with anyone and fit into any situation. You are most compatible with rocky road ice cream.

#2:

Oh for things to be the way they were… In a more civilized age. (Before I started following politics.)

Both courtesy of Diane.

John Sickels has posted his Top 20 Cardinals Prospects in Review, in which he checks in with the farm system’s 20 best prospects as determined at the season’s start. He describes our system as “thin but improving.”

The One.Org program and its commercials are excellent examples of socialist bullshit. Let me sum up the situation: they don’t want your money, they just want your voice. And then they will take your money.

To a socialist, charities are bad things. Your everyday effective charity will probably be associated with a church, and so along with setting up hospitals to treat disease and starvation, they will also teach Christer values like finding peaceful solutions to disputes, equality, forgiveness, and other blessed-are-the-humble type evils. This insidious spread of Christer-thought endangers global diversity and must be stopped. Besides, if the foolish sheeple are to choose to which charities they send their money, they will inevitably choose poorly. Charities should be abolished, and money collected from people (in progressive proportion to their ability to pay up) and distributed by Those Who Know Best.

This is exactly the campaign of One.org: we don’t want your money, we only want your voice. But they really do want your money, they simply don’t want to have to collect it from you themselves, instead of every year having to convince you that they’ll spend it wisely and put it to better use than another charity. They want that burden borne by the tax collector–they want you to give them money or go to jail. How much do they want from you? According to their official blog, on average from “every American 23 cents a day.” That’s $84 per year, which isn’t much. But they wouldn’t be accountable to you to spend it well, and you wouldn’t be able to say, “no thanks, not this year. I don’t like how you’re just dumping that cash into the pockets of third world despots and I don’t like how your agents are trading aid for sex. I found another charity that’s building Fistula hospitals in Ethiopia that I’d rather support.”

Not to say that our government shouldn’t be helping combat AIDS, famine, and the Janjaweed; but I don’t like foolish socialist celebrities trying to trick people into it or denigrating private charities that do the best work. And they appear to be campaigning to replace private charity with socialist wealth distribution plans. At the very least, they’re trying to pre-emptively take credit for the commitments Bush makes at the summit in Scotland.

(This rant brought on from seeing the BS commercial the other night, which I was reminded of from reading this post.)

The Good Reverend offers two links to throw cold water on these government aid programs.