Cardinals fans search for, press panic button
Ben Godar
Two nights ago, I listened long to KTRS, the flagship radio station of Your St. Louis Cardinals, as caller after caller voiced the kind of confusion and despair usually reserved for a Suicide Hotline. Redbird fans have been a pampered lot this millennium, so an 8-game losing streak looks vaguely like the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
But the weak of mind and spirit will always panic, and I'm not swayed by their reasoning. What staggered me were the callers and talk radiobuffoonss who believe nothing is wrong, Walt Jockety has it under control, we're in good hands. These people have truly drunk the red Kool-Aid.
KTRS post game goon John Hadley cut off every caller with criticisms of the team by solemnly repeating the mantra, "trust in Walt, trust in Walt"
I'll defend Cardinals fans every day of the week and twice on Sunday, but if we're guilty of one thing it's smugness. Chalk it up to the annual division title, great personnel moves and that tired "best fans in baseball" tag.
The point is, there's got to be some reasonable middle ground between hysteria and walking calmly off the cliff.
The biggest knock on the Cardinals coming into the season was that they didn't fill holes in left field and at second base. The biggest misconception about the team now is that those positions are the reason for the slide. A rotating cast of Hector Luna, Aaron Miles, John Rodriquez and So Taguchi is producing numbers right on-par with last year's regulars, Mark Grudzialanek and Reggie Sanders.
The biggest change I see in the Cardinals lineup is in Center Field and at Third Base. It's not that we haven't seen Jim Edmunds flailing at the plate before, but at age 36, hitting under .270 with only 7 homers, it looks like his career may have taken the steep decline. Rolen's skills haven't so much deteriorated as shifted. It's hard to criticize a guy hitting .343, but he's suddenly a guy who hits doubles instead of home runs.
During the Cards run of the last several years, that middle trio of Pujols, Rolen and Edmunds had power to rival the mouth-breathing mashers of the American League. Now, it's been reduced to an aging slugger, a contact hitter and the greatest player in baseball. Still, not too shabby.
Yes, the pitching's been abysmal the last few games. But pitching is more fickle than hitting. Jason Marquis is more capable of rattling off a series of quality starts than Jim Edmunds is capable of shaking off 15-years of crashing into the wall.
Part of me thinks these recent struggles aren't all bad. Cardinals fans are nothing if not loyal, but no doubt these last few years have brought some fair weather types into our ranks. If this thins them out, I say good. And we all have to keep this in perspective. Even after dropping eight straight, we're still talking about a first place team.
But after years of climbing the hill and not quite reaching the summit, it's getting harder to believe this will be the team to make it all the way to the top.
Two nights ago, I listened long to KTRS, the flagship radio station of Your St. Louis Cardinals, as caller after caller voiced the kind of confusion and despair usually reserved for a Suicide Hotline. Redbird fans have been a pampered lot this millennium, so an 8-game losing streak looks vaguely like the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
But the weak of mind and spirit will always panic, and I'm not swayed by their reasoning. What staggered me were the callers and talk radiobuffoonss who believe nothing is wrong, Walt Jockety has it under control, we're in good hands. These people have truly drunk the red Kool-Aid.
KTRS post game goon John Hadley cut off every caller with criticisms of the team by solemnly repeating the mantra, "trust in Walt, trust in Walt"
I'll defend Cardinals fans every day of the week and twice on Sunday, but if we're guilty of one thing it's smugness. Chalk it up to the annual division title, great personnel moves and that tired "best fans in baseball" tag.
The point is, there's got to be some reasonable middle ground between hysteria and walking calmly off the cliff.
The biggest knock on the Cardinals coming into the season was that they didn't fill holes in left field and at second base. The biggest misconception about the team now is that those positions are the reason for the slide. A rotating cast of Hector Luna, Aaron Miles, John Rodriquez and So Taguchi is producing numbers right on-par with last year's regulars, Mark Grudzialanek and Reggie Sanders.
The biggest change I see in the Cardinals lineup is in Center Field and at Third Base. It's not that we haven't seen Jim Edmunds flailing at the plate before, but at age 36, hitting under .270 with only 7 homers, it looks like his career may have taken the steep decline. Rolen's skills haven't so much deteriorated as shifted. It's hard to criticize a guy hitting .343, but he's suddenly a guy who hits doubles instead of home runs.
During the Cards run of the last several years, that middle trio of Pujols, Rolen and Edmunds had power to rival the mouth-breathing mashers of the American League. Now, it's been reduced to an aging slugger, a contact hitter and the greatest player in baseball. Still, not too shabby.
Yes, the pitching's been abysmal the last few games. But pitching is more fickle than hitting. Jason Marquis is more capable of rattling off a series of quality starts than Jim Edmunds is capable of shaking off 15-years of crashing into the wall.
Part of me thinks these recent struggles aren't all bad. Cardinals fans are nothing if not loyal, but no doubt these last few years have brought some fair weather types into our ranks. If this thins them out, I say good. And we all have to keep this in perspective. Even after dropping eight straight, we're still talking about a first place team.
But after years of climbing the hill and not quite reaching the summit, it's getting harder to believe this will be the team to make it all the way to the top.
posted by Ben Godar at 8:44 AM
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