Red, Fight, and Blue

-Well, it's time for another Cardinals baseball season to start, and another Blues season to end. Let's talk about the Birds first.

After the way the team performed in the last couple of weeks in spring training, there's certainly room for plenty of optimism about the potential for winning. I think many people look at the youth in the outfield and the uncertainty of the pitching and second base/shortsop combo and think there's no chance for the team to be any good. After all, Edmonds and Rolen provided much of the identity for the "winning Cardinals" of recent years. That's certainly a valid line of thought. (By the way Jimmy and Scotty will both start the season on the DL for their new teams.)

But, I tend to think that there is just as much validity to this one. The pitching will be adequate to keep them in the race until Mulder, Carpenter and Clement are available. The enthusiastic and youthful outfield will be a plus, rather than a minus. Adam Kennedy will return to the form of his past, which was very good. Cesar Izturis will be fine defensively, and adequate offensively. Albert Pujols will stay healthy...(he's had the elbow problem for a while and it hasn't stopped him yet) and have his typical awesome season. Tony LaRussa will out-manage the rest of the division as he usually does. You could expect all of this to be true...just as much as you could expect it not to be. If it does play out that way, there's no reason the Birds shouldn't be in the hunt for the division come September.

-Now to the Blues. We knew that John Davidson and upper management had been planning a long-term re-build of the team. We knew that it would take patience on the part of our fan base. So, let's be patient. We need to look at Pittsburgh, Anaheim, Colorado, Detroit, and some of the other perennial powers who had to hit rock-bottom before they could create a strong, long-term nucleus for on-going success. Sure, we would have liked to have made the playoffs this year after the start the team had. But where the Blues finished in the standings this year really didn't matter. Did it? Where they finish in 2009-10 will be more important to judging if the rebuilding project is working. In the meantime, it will be more important to enjoy the sport and hope that the youth the team is investing in pans out.

-I read that Dave Duncan is thinking of suing KFNS host Kevin Slaten because he felt Slaten put him on the air without notifying him of same. Let's clear something up. I've worked with Kevin in the past and found him to be a smart, and reasonable guy...off the air. Kevin knows what his job is and why he gets paid well. Because he says things on the air that nobody else has the guts or inclination to say. I suspect deep down inside Kevin doesn't get his jollies by being the on-air ogre that he is. It's fairly easy to be the on-air nice guy. Not so much the villain. Kevin chooses the dark side for his on-air persona and a good portion of the St. Louis market eats it up consistently. It might not be everybody's cup of tea to listen to someone who claims to always be right and won't listen to reasonable arguments that might prove otherwise. But the King brings enough intelligent controversy to his show on a regular basis to be successful. That's his gig. As for Mr. Duncan... I read the transcript, and I'm not a lawyer, but I don't think he has a legal leg to stand on. If Kevin Slaten is calling you, wouldn't you expect to be on the air? 'Nuff said.

-Our company organized and hosted a Home Theater Workshop for client Mueller Furniture Friday night. It was well attended and everybody seemed to have a good time. Many thanks to McGraw Milhaven of KTRS (pic) for stopping by and meeting the Mueller customers. He's been Mueller's on-air spokesman for the past several months. Also thanks to Ron Wiblemo and Dennis Mokriakov of Ultimate Electronics, Mark Mueller of Mueller Furniture, and Scott Givens of Illinois Distributing for some well-thought-out presentations at the event.