Delmon Young

Here's the video of Dmitri Young's little brother throwing his bat at an ump.

Trade Rumors

A couple of early season trade rumors have been going around the baseball blogosphere, particularly this site. Some of them make sense for the Cardinals and some of them make absolutely no sense.

Left Field - Apparentely Jay Payton still thinks he deserves 500 big league ABs and with the emergence of Nick Swisher in Oakland, Payton is once again the odd man out. OF depth is no doubt an issue with the Cards, as witnessed by Thursday's trio of Luna, Taguchi and Encarnacion, but this isn't the solution. Payton's salary of 4 million isn't really justified considering he has only been a starter for around 4 years and is already 33 years old. I am more inclined to sit with what we have and see if Bigbie can contribute or more of an impact bat becomes available.

Second Base - Adam Kennedy is being pushed out of Anaheim to make room for uber-prospect Howie Kendrick. Kennedy is a free agent at the end of the year and in my mind does not provide much of an upgrade over the Luna/Miles platoon. If this were more of a long-term solution I guess I would be more excited but given his contract status I would prefer to stick with the platoon and dip into the free agent pool in the offseason, which includes Luis Castillo, Mark Loretta, Grudzielanek, Ronnie Belliard, and Soriano.

Starting Pitcher - The final rumor states that the Cubs are actively shopping Maddux with interested teams including the Mets, Yankees, Brewers, Phillies, Diamondbacks, Royals, and Cardinals. First off the Royals are never an interested team and why would the Cubs trade Maddux within the division. Additionally the last thing the Cardinals need is a starting pitcher in the final year of his contract, Suppan, Marquis, Mulder and Ponson fill that role quite nicely.

Cards vs. Cubs

Another round of Cards-Cubs starts on Friday. Since Friday is the only night game, we were thinking about setting up a place for those not able to get to St. Louis for the games. The most Cardinal-friendly bar we have found is Sedgwicks just south of the intersection of Lincoln, Armitage and Sedgwick. Hopefully, we will have something to celebrate this series. The pitching matchups look pretty good for the Cards. Hope to see you at Sedgwicks on Friday. If there are other, better places for Cardinal Nation to meet please leave a comment and we will discuss other options.

Get Ready

The Birds are coming to town! As noted before we are celebrating by having an all-you-can-drink with food at John Barleycorn's Wrigleyville. For those coming from out of town, Barleycorn's is not even a block from Wrigley field on Clark St. If you go by the main entrance ( the one with the famous sign), take a left on Clark and you will practically see the bar. The deal is great considering every bar in the Wrigleyville neighborhood charges $5-$6 per beer on game days.
Even if you don't have tickets to the game, come celebrate a Cardinal win with Cardinal Nation. It should be a pretty good time.

Not a Bad Seat in the House

Not sure if anyone saw the exhibition game between Memphis and Springfield tonight, but the new Busch looks amazing! It was on Fox Sports Midwest, but I was able to catch some online through the Cardinals website since it wasn't broadcast in Chitown. I can't wait to head down to STL for my first game this season! So, I hope everyone eyes have dried up since losing to Houston last season. Yes, I'm referring to the two drunk guys crying into their beers at Patty O's on Fox Sports after game 6. Nice work, fellas! I do have to give props to the other inhebriated couple that decided to steal the spotlight and make out right behind them...that was rather amusing.

Anyway, the season got off to a great start yesterday. I expect the Cards to take at least 2 out of 3 from the Phillies before the heading to Chicago, where they will send the Cubs to the basement of the Central Division for the first time this year. The weekend should be a great time, and I expect nothing less from the rest of the season.

Opening Game

That's a way to open a baseball season. Two jacks by Pujols, Aaron Miles going 4-5, Eckstein diving into walls, and Carpenter throwing great until he was given a 10-run lead. All of this lead to a 13-5 Opening Day victory against the Philadelphia Phillies. Jon Lieber usually pitches well against the Cardinals; obviously not this time around. The game was not on television up here in Chicago so I have only seen ESPN highlights. Not sure if Lieber was throwing horribly, not getting calls, or what, but he got rocked.
The most important thing, to me, was Scott Rolen hitting a grand slam in the top of the fourth off of reliever Julio Santana. Rolen getting off to a good start would be great for the Cardinals. He went 3-for-5. Every columnist in every newspaper stated before the season started that Rolen was the key to this season for the Cardinals. I generally try to form my own opinions, not conforming to what I read in the paper, but I agree with the newspaper people this season. He will be the key to this offense becoming the machine it has been the past couple of years. I know what you are going to say: "I saw the highlights and anyone that played high school baseball could have hit that hanging slider out for a grand slam." Well, maybe so. But, still, early in the season batters are looking fastball, waiting to get accustomed to the breaking stuff. It was a great shot for Rolen, and if his good swings continue, the Cardinals will be hard to beat early this season.
As I said earlier, I only saw highlights...my Extra Innings package didn't carry the game yesterday. Please fill me in on any other highlights that I may have missed or other points of note.

John Barleycorn (Wrigleyville) - Saturday, April 8th - 5-8pm

It's official...we have our first ever CardsFansChicago.com event scheduled for this Saturday, April 8th. We've worked out a sweet postgame deal right in the Cubs backyard at John Barleycorn! Here are the details:

Saturday, April 8 -- 5pm - 8pm (or 3 hours after the game)
$30 Food/Drink Package
John Barleycorn (Wrigleyville)
3524 N. Clark Street
Chicago, IL 60657

We have the upstairs reserved, and the special includes an APPETIZER BUFFET, ALL DRAFTS, BOTTLES, AND WELL DRINKS. $30 at the door will get you a wristband. The food buffet will be upstairs and drinks can be ordered at any bar in the place. We talked with a few bars in the area, and this is by far the best deal we could find.

For those fans who are not familiar with the Wrigleyville area, John Barleycorn is not even a 2 minute walk from Wrigley Field. Win or lose, we might as well celebrate, as we know the Cards will be on top at the end of the season!