Thursday, June 7, 2007

How Many Fingers Am I Holding Up?


In my excitement over the Cubs misfortune this past weekend, I failed to comment on the sudden resurgence of the St. Louis Cardinals. By golly, these scrappy little fellas have won 6 of their last 7! We're only four games under .500 and five games out of first place! Most remarkable is that all of this has been accomplished despite the fact that people are getting beaned in the head, breaking their wrists and having knee surgery. Pujols has smacked a few more home runs bringing his total to 12 and it even looks like Chris Carpenter is taking the first steps to recovery from his elbow surgery by playing some catch. Well, well, well!! These Redbirds are making fatigue, famine and all other assorted handicaps and injuries look good!


The most disturbing of these is the blow Gary Bennett took to the head during an at bat against the Reds' Aaron Harang on Wednesday. (Gary Bennett, of course, is the backup catcher who is taking Yadier Molina's place while he sits on the DL with a broken wrist. Jesus. At this rate, I'm not going to recognize anyone on this team by July. Bring on the backups of the backups!) How he walked away from that with all motor and verbal skills in tact, I'll never know. Anyhow, Tony LaRussa is NOT happy about it and wants Harang to be suspended.



"He didn't mean to hit him, but he meant to throw up and in. It's a very
dangerous thing. If you're a big league pitcher, you should be able to get the
ball below the shoulder. If you don't, you should have big consequences, because
that's a dangerous thing."


Now, I agree that getting a 90 mph fastball to the skull is probably no picnic. However, I don't think it's necessary to punish a guy for a pitch that CLEARLY got away from him. Can you imagine how awful it would feel to be directly responsible for giving someone potential brain damage? Anyone who intentionally does that is a depraved miscreant lacking any semblance of a moral compass anyway. Unfortunately, an automatic suspension isn't going to change that.

Further aiding our quest to become the gimpiest team in major league baseball is Preston Wilson's recent announcement that he will undergo knee surgery. He's suffered from cartilage damage and fluid build up in his right knee since spring training and is consulting with doctors to ascertain whether he will simply undergo a clean-up procedure or a more serious microfracture surgery that would keep him out for the remainder of the season. I think his backup is actually my sister, so we'll see how this goes.

Anyway, since this whole injury thing seems to be working for us, I recommend that all remaining players on the roster either go play patty cake with a grizzly bear or juggle a chain saw this weekend. The more maimed the better! Heck, as a sign of solidarity I've even given myself a paper cut. I mean, it didn't bleed or anything but it still hurt like hell. Take that, Gary Bennett!

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