Mid-October Mish-Mash

-Holy Cow…37 degrees on our thermometer. Can it possibly be Mid-October already?

-So, the New York press has written off the Cardinals already..because their Amazin’ Mets are still in the playoffs. I think the Redbirds are definitely the underdogs…but not by the margin the East coast boys would have us believe. They’re not the same team they were with Pedro Martinez, El Duque, a healthy Cliff Floyd…etc. So, don’t count the Birds out yet.

-Also, if Jason Marquis didn’t understand where he stood with Tony LaRussa and Dave Duncan before…he does now. He’ll be pitching somewhere next year. But it won’t be in St. Louis.

-I’d like to think that Scott Rolen’s cortisone shot will put him back into the same frame of mind..and degree of health... he had early in the season. If so, he can be a real difference-maker in the NLCS.

-Poor Blues…They have their home opener scheduled for Thursday night. Not only do they have the Cardinals still in the playoffs to distract St. Louis sports fans, but they get a rain-out of game one on Wednesday…rescheduled for Thursday…and many who might have come to the Scottrade Center on a whim…will stay home to watch El Birdos on TV.

-More Blues…So they go on their season-opening road trip and come back with one point out of three games. Two of the teams they played are Stanley Cup contenders (San Jose & Anaheim), so it’s not a disgrace to lose. But, they also have Barret Jackman come up with a knee sprain that will keep him out four weeks. They already had Christian Backman and Jay McKee out with injuries. So, their top d-men are not available for the early part of the season when the team hoped to build a little momentum with the fans. Oh well, nobody told Dave Checketts that going from the outhouse to the penthouse would be easy.

-The Cory Lidle plane crash in New York Wednesday was scary…especially early on when all we knew was that a plane had crashed into another Gotham building. When details started to come out, I began getting the feeling that this was not just an accident. I remember some quotes from ex-Phillies teammates when Lidle was traded earlier this year that said…”All he wants to do is fly his plane and gamble”. Some are already speculating…because there was no may-day call from the plane…that it may have been a suicide flight. If so, that’s a pretty sick way to go out..flying a plane into a building and potentially killing many others.

-I wrote last week...after my couple of games doing practice play-by-play from the Cardinals press box...that there's really no excuse for a major-league broadcaster to have a bad game. Everything is done for them. All they have to do is be prepared and get their facts straight. So, one can not excuse the botch-job Fox's Thom Brennaman did on the Cardinals-Padres series finale on Sunday night when Tyler Johnson, a lefty, came into the game and Brennaman went on, and on, and on, and on, about how Josh Kinney, a righty, was in the game and told us everything about him except his 6th-grade report card. He was even starting in on how Kinney was a former River City Rascal. I was embarassed for Brennaman. But, you can't excuse a poor performance like that. And where was the suddenly, very-old-sounding Tim McCarver? He could have rescued Brennaman early in the mistake...but never stepped up. Very poor effort by both.

-Why do you suppose Katie Couric’s ratings have gone in the tank? Here’s what I wrote shortly after her debut in early September…

I watched the debut of Katie Couric on the CBS news tonight. While I don't have any problem with a woman as the lead anchor on one of the major networks, I tend to think there are enough people who do, that her ratings might struggle. The other problem she may have is her many years of "fluff-show" hosting on the Today show. While she did discuss serious news at times there, she also was involved with a lot of very soft stuff...gossip, recipes, movie talk..etc. And, of course, she always dressed up in some weird get-up for all of the holidays. Maybe I'm old fashioned...but I think she may pay for that goofiness of her past in the long run.

I also think that Katie and CBS will be paying for the Dan Rather “Here's our chance to get George Bush so I won’t double-check the facts scandal” for quite a while.

-Gee it's too bad we're not going to get one of Barbra Streisand's concerts on the current tour here in St. Louis. It would be great to hear the audience reaction when she tries to belittle the President on stage here. She tried it in ultra-liberal New York City and finally had to tell somebody in the crowd to "Shut the f... up if you can't take a joke". There's a class act for ya. Too bad that all the adulation the public heaps on our top performers almost always goes to their head... and gives them the idea that they know better than everyone else how the world should work. Please come to my concert at $1000 per ticket...and, oh by the way, I might sing.