He’s one sick monkey.

Via Jim, the link’s dead by the collective willpower of the Church of Scientology (and her legal department.)

Replaced the link with one to Gawker, per Bobovski. They’ve got a legal department, too.

And a terminology note. The people behind this effort to take down the Scientology website aren’t “hackers.” They aren’t even “Crackers.” They’re what are called, “Script-kiddies.”

One of the frequent commenters at Viva El Birdos is the subject of this Nightline piece about ALS. She’s an admirable woman, to say the least.

There was a discussion between her and some others in last night’s gameday thread (that I missed), in which someone pointed to this blog started by a man in 2003 when he was undergoing tests for a mysterious ailment he found himself suffering through. The link goes to the very beginning, back in late 2003. He makes a great joke about having an appointment for a spinal tap at 10am and considered calling the doctor to push it all the way up to 11.

The Iron Horse, of course, was one of the greatest ballplayers of all time. His biography is here.

Behold, reincarnation.

(The irony).

If my tear ducts hadn’t atrophied during puberty, I’d've wept for joy.

That was true beauty, true justice.

That was amazing.

May it be the beginning of something great.

I worked a half-day on Wednesday and took yesterday off so I could drive down to St. Louis for two games against the Pirates. Naturally, we won both—Kip Wells ended his seven-game losing streak and Braden Looper kept runs from scoring with a weak-peripheral performance.

Unfortunately, I was a few minutes late for Looper’s start, so I didn’t get the very sharp-lookin’ t-shirt they were giving away for free. That and four hours of sleep only marginally detracted from my enjoyment of a very good game. I sat in the Casino Queen party porch, which is a shaded section in left field with a good view of the whole playing surface aside from the blind spot in left field. Fortunately, the section is equipped with a crapload of televisions carrying the live television feed. I liked it—you can watch the delivery to the plate, flick your eyes up at the last second to see where the pitch crossed the plate, and back down to see the ball’s travel or lack thereof. Also, there’s a bar behind you that serves booze past last call and after the game. I wasn’t in shape to enjoy that so much, although I’ve got tickets for a game in that section for the Atlanta series in August when I most definitely will partake.

Something that I’d missed, but a week ago, Eli Marrero made his first appearance with Memphis. He went 2-4 but allowed five stolen bases in as many attempts. (Boxscore, Marrero page) It sounds like his throwing shoulder which had landed him on the DL is in need of strengthening. With Ludwick struggling at the big league level and P-Dub’s knee still swollen, it would be very nice to see Eli get himself back into shape quickly and join the team as a third catcher/fifth outfielder.

I’ll end with this Deep Thought.

Interleague play begins for the Cardinals tonight as we reunite with the Tigers, an AL Central powerhouse that we unexpectedly disassembled in the 2006 World Series. Braden Looper, unexpected ace of the staff, takes the mound attempting to get us off to a good start in the series.

Since the game is played on an AL field, the Braden Looper will be a half-man and another player will also be a half-man, batting for him as the designated hitter. In the World Series, Scott Spiezio stood in as DH in one game and Chris Duncan batted for the pitcher in the other away game. Seeing as young Dunc’s outfield play has improved significantly this season, it’s unlikely he’ll be demoted to half-man status, especially with the off-day yesterday to rest up his crazy-divin’ bones, so the DH will probably be a bench player.

Tonight, we face Andrew Miller, a LH rookie promoted a few days ago from AA. An outfield of Duncan-Taguchi-Encarnacion wouldn’t surprise me with either Ludwick or Speizio batting for the pitcher.

Tomorrow it’s Nate Robertson, who’s been faced by four Cardinals in regular season play. Ludwick is 2-7 off him, both singles; P-Dub, on the DL, is 5-5 with 2 home runs. Spiezio hasn’t faced him.

Thompson gets the call against a nasty Justin Verlander on Sunday. Based on the way Verlander’s pitched his last few starts, you might as well let Wonderbrad bat for himself.

I’d like to see interleague play changed around so that away team rules are enforced, as other people have suggested at times (I’m not sure who originated the idea, or I’d give credit, since it’s a good one.) The idea is that under the current system, at NL games, the fans don’t get to see the *spit* DH stars on the other team—like the Mariners’ Jose Vidro. And AL fans never get a chance to see what it’s like to watch a real baseball game, without a fifth of the starters only playing like half a ballplayer. It’d be better if we played AL rules in NL parks and NL rules in AL parks.

After the game: Looks like my tongue-in-cheek teasing came back to bite me. The Tigers gave us a profound thumping last night. Painful.

Lack of frequent posting to continue for a few more days while I finish up the semester.

The Post-Dispatch is reporting that Carpenter’s elbow felt fine yesterday after throwing 70 pitches at full strength on Saturday. That’s a promising improvement. It would be a huge boost if he can be in the clubhouse all season providing his leadership.

Update: From Bernie Micklasz, quoting Carp:

My elbow is doing good. I woke up Sunday, and there was no swelling, no nothing. I plan on throwing a simulated game (conditions) tomorrow, and we’ll go from there. There was no reaction. I threw 60 something pitches the other day, and there was no reaction in the elbow. Felt good. No problems. I’ll throw tomorrow, see how it feels, and go one step at a time.

Kip Wells had his third non-quality start in a row tonight and his second putrid one in a row. Skip Schumaker was a late addition in RF, replacing Scott Spiezio who was too overwhelmed with the loss of Hancock to make the start. He’s 2-3 so far, good to see Skip have a good game for the second start in a row. I’d like to see him start again tomorrow against Ben Sheets.

I was bracing myself for bad news today. Chris Carpenter threw off the mound before yesterday’s game for the first time since going on the disabled list and I was preparing myself for news that the worst would happen—that his elbow would swell up, indicating that the problem wasn’t going away.

The news that Josh Hancock died in a car wreck last night makes that concern seem irrelevant.

My condolences to his family, to his teammates, and to all who loved him in his tragically short yet accomplished and meaningful life. He celebrated his 29th birthday less than three weeks ago.

Bernie Micklasz and b Baseball fans are writing nice things about Josh in Bernie’s Pressbox and at Viva el Birdos.

Update: I took down to the link to the Bernie’s Pressbox thread. If you’ve got a soul, stay far away from all those forums and message boards for the next few days. If you’d like to read Bernie’s kind words, just use the Bernie button.

Update 2: Look’s like I’ll be able to retire the Bernie Button soon! Good move, Bernie.

They call themselves “Scientometricians,” but a friend of mine in the Physics department prefers “Science Groupies.”

Game time is 6:05 CST tonight, Gameday link is here. Anthony Reyes takes the mound against Mark Hendrickson.

Someone in the P-D Cardinals forum noticed that StlCardinals.com has a couple of badly broken links in the page for downloading wallpapers for your desktop—if you click the links under the “World Series” picture, you get a Derek Jeter picture.

The picture that should have been there is really pretty cool though, so until that gets fixed, here are the correct links for those who refuse to heed TLR’s advice and remain sated by last season’s outcome: 1024X768, 800X600.

CLICK

El Hombre at VeB found the URL for the gameday stream for today’s game. W00t!

Pitchers and catchers report on Wednesday night and start drills on Thursday. Derrick Goold and Matthew Leach will be down there—Bird Land and O,YNAG will be checked on an hourly basis by denizens of Redbird Nation spread near and far for reports from our favorite beat writers.

I’ve posted but twice in the past two weeks or so. I’ll try to sum up some of the things I’ve been up to in the meantime here before getting back into a routine of writing at least one decent thing per day.

• I went to a Blues vs. Maple Leafs game in St. Louis last Tuesday. Ryan Johnson’s two-way play impressed me—I’m surprised to find that he’s tied for worst among centers on the team for the only statistic that I cared about when I was playing hockey, plus-minus. Plus-minus is a simple counting statistic—add one when your team scores a goal when you’re on the ice, subtract one when the other team scores on your line. As a kid playing hockey, it was easy to keep track of and is a pretty good indicator of whether you’re helping or hurting your team by the way you’re playing. Johnson helped himself in that game, scoring a goal and earning some “Star of the Game” recognition from the announcer.
• I came pretty close to losing my temper while watching the Super Bowl. Not because of the play on the field—that was enjoyable. It’s because the city councils of both Champaign and Urbana recently passed a health code ordinance that bans smoking in bars. The air temperature was five below zero that night and I didn’t like having to miss parts of the game. I don’t remember the last time I got that close to berzerker rage, but it’s been years. I don’t deal well with nonsensical nanny-statery, I guess. The bars are dead and joyless now, populated by miserable patrons and gloating sallies. I actually told a man to go fuck himself the other night for bitching at me about smoking outside—if you know me, you know that’s not the way I treat people, no matter how rude and foolish they may be. In any case, I watched the second half at the Senator’s Pub in the CU suburb of Savoy. I stopped first at the BW3 that recently opened there, but they were at capacity. Senator’s Pub was great—free Swedish meatballs and sandwiches for the game, ash trays, cold beer, enough light to read my papers, ash trays… And the owner bought me a beer and, after the game, a cup of coffee. The joy I felt when I left the place sustained me for quite a few days afterwards. In a way, it’s good that the ban took place during some incredibly cold weather, rather than when it’s nice out. The Champaign city council primary election is February 27th, and I figure the only highly motivated demographic for this ordinarily low-turnout election would be people like me, who are pissed off about the ban, except that live in Champaign. A bar-owner friend of mine had cards printed up with four of the candidates who are likely to vote for overturning the ban. (Feinen, Foster, Glithero, and Henley—I think, will check the card when I get home.) Peripherally related: this sad, sad story. Is the whole world going crazy?
• I went to the Illini game in which we played our arch-rival Iowa State Cyclones and witnessed a very good fight. The Iowa State player definitely had the upper hand after the Illinois player tried a takedown maneuver. The last home game will be on February 23rd against Western Illinois University. I’m going to plan on going, although that might conflict with Mardi Gras in St. Louis that I might go to.
• I’ve been working hard at academic stuff.
• I had the Trogdor song in my head this morning. I said consummate v’s! Consummate!
• The Illini’s loss to Indiana on Saturday was a shame. Marcus Arnold was productive in the fifteen minutes he played and McBride had a great first half. I thought we’d steal a big win from Indiana there and look great heading down the stretch. The conventional wisdom was that Illinois could afford to lose at Indiana and Iowa if they win all the other games and have a decent showing in the Big Ten Tournament, which will be played in the United Center in Chicago for the last time (in a while) this year. They’re unlikely to get such a good opportunity to beat Iowa at home as they did in Indianapolis. A win in either of those games would pretty much seal and NCAA bid. A loss in any of those other games should require winning the B10 tournament.

Great stuff, huh? Not bad for my 2,175^th post, I don’t think. (That figure according to the newly upgraded blogger software, I haven’t been counting. If I were counting, plus-minus style, this would be a minus post.)

Over the past week, two free agent signings happened that directly relate to the Cardinals. Preston Wilson signed a reasonable one-year contract with the Cards to be the fifth outfielder who can play all three positions and slug left-handed pitching. The only option out there that I might have been better would be Bernie Williams, should he choose to sign somewhere to collect the 13 home runs to reach 300 for his career. I would have preferred we pick up Jon Knott, who’s probably a better hitter and definitely a much worse fielder—he signed a split contract with the Orioles. Knott could have made a deadly platoon partner with Chris Duncan, if Chris continues to have trouble hitting lefties. I like Preston Wilson, though. He contributes what the team needs: versatility in the outfield and a dangerous bat on the bench against left-handed pitching—and has a great attitude.

I can’t help but steal this bit from Big Ten Wonk with reference to P-Dub and his adoptive-father/blood-uncle, Mookie: He’s my nephew! *slap* He’s my son! *slap* He’s my nephew AND my son!

The second deal involves Jeff Weaver, who signed with the Mariners and then boo-hooed to the press about the Cardinals offering him reliever money (through Mephiscotteles his agent). That got ugly in a hurry, didn’t it? I hope he continues to get his career back on track, but it definitely was not worth the kind of ante the Mariners and apparently four other teams were willing to lay down. Some people at the time doubted whether it was worth the pro-rated league minimum (and lone MiLB 30-30 man Terry Evans) that we gambled last season to see if he still had some good innings left in him. He had at least 8, so the bet paid off for us.

I’ll return to semi-regular posting soon. Been tangling with a complicated project and grounded myself from a bunch of things that I like doing to motivate myself. Writing crap here is one of those things.

Some of you may find these search plug-ins for Minor League Splits useful. I know I do.

Also amusing:

Brian Knappmiller, a very cool dude who went on a high school trip to Louisville with me back in the day, is producing a film starring Alyssa Milano.

The ‘m’ in ‘whom’ is the linguistic equivalent to the upturned pinky on the teacup. If you make a point to use it, before you know it, the damned thing will start to pop up in inappropriate places. Like when you’re drinking a beer or using an appositive.

According to Ken Rosenthal, the Mariners have emerged as the favorite to sign JeffWea, describing this as “a blow to the World Series champion Cardinals,” following up with the observation that “[t]he loss of Weaver likely would leave the Cardinals to start the season with an all-right-handed rotation of right-handers Chris Carpenter, Anthony Reyes, Adam Wainwright, Kip Wells and Ryan Franklin.” If there is any worse kind of all-right-handed rotation, it’s one of right-handers. If I’m interpreting that right, JeffWea has also taken the rare Pat Venditte career route, pitching both lefty and righty, if the loss of his services leaves us with such a right-handed rotation of right-handers. Rosenthal gets good info, though, so I’ll stop picking on his lousy article. I honestly don’t care whether Weaver signs with the Cardinals or not, although I feel a slight lean towards the “go to Seattle and we’ll pick you up from the DFA pile again” camp. I’d rather go with what we’ve got and pick up a little more depth at AAA should Franklin stink or one of the chiddlers get sore—I like Chris Gissell as a good FA option and expect a few potential starters will be available on waivers late in the Spring. Sadly, Narvie will be one of them. Jamey Wright signed a minor-league deal with the Rangers and has a good shot at making their team out of spring training. I’ll be following him as I have every year for the last several.

Alan Benes has quietly retired and Tim McKernan scored a very nice interview with him.

Looking around for news as to whether Chris Gissell has signed a contract somewhere in the world yet, this article turned up. He’s teaching a pitching clinic is his home state for 7-14 year-olds with Rick White.

Completely unrelated, but this Zillow website is pretty fun to play around with. My house has appreciated nicely in the 4.5 years that I’ve owned it.

NHL.com is streaming the All-Star game live at this link.

One more: I don’t think articles from the Onion would be as funny without the author’s picture.

I’ve driven in some pretty bad conditions, but nothing ever close to this bad…

It’d be funny if it weren’t so damned expensive.

The Fighting Illini won a crucial game tonight, beating a very good Indiana team 51-43 here in Champaign. Indiana had rolled off five straight wins after dropping their B10 opener to tOSU. They’d dropped UConn in their last game and had been shooting at an unsustainably good rate—Big Ten Wonk today had argued that when their shooting eventually returns to earth they’ll still rack up wins on the strength of their defense and ball protection. Both teams coughed up the ball often and missed the hole when they held onto it. The difference in the game as far as I can tell: Illinois had fourteen more free throw attempts than Indiana and made nine more of them. Sean Pruitt continued his excellent play. Mark Tupper has a write-up at his blog.

Brian Carlwell got five minutes and Marcus Arnold had four. Speaking of Arnold, I saw him at Red Lobster this past weekend. He was dealing with a broken nose and no playing time in that day’s disappointing loss to Wisconsin, so I didn’t say hello. While there, I ate the Ultimate Feast and was pleased to find that it wasn’t poisoned. (If you like that joke—the waitress insisted that my dinner party sit along one side of the table after I ordered the Ultimate Feast. If you like both of those jokes, you’ve got an excellent sense of humor and are probably quite handsome and/or beautiful.)

There was an article in the local paper recently about the NCAA considering a ban on male players in women’s basketball practice. I’d never heard of the practice, but it makes a whole lot of sense. The Illini team has two women who’re taller than I am and those two would understandably need comparably sized players to work against that the bench can’t provide. Sounds like political correctness gone awry—surprising coming from the NCAA, I know. It’s hard to believe that a coach would do anything to inhibit the development of their scholarship athletes, so I don’t see a legitimate problem here. (The text of the recommendation is here, the description of the CWA that’s made it is here.)

This week is the NHL’s All-Star break. I didn’t know that until tonight, when I noticed the Blues go from Saturday to Friday without playing a game. The games are being carried on the Versus Network, which I have to guess is a renamed OLN. Brian Milner is unimpressed with the NHL’s marketing efforts.

Back to work.