How I dislike your pageantry and the overabundance of the twin-set set in the stands. But whatever works, and it’s always nice to see the Cards Hall-of-Fame contingent out and about. Red, in particular, looks spry; rather than open the door of the Ford Mustang and walk out, he did a little Dukes-of-Hazzard spin-hop over the driver’s side.

Before I move on to that lovely game, a word about the Ponson game and subsequent loss of all confidence in everybody. Ponson first: MO Boiler, in the comments, notes that as the smiling-heavy-pitcher du jour he’s on the short list for a buddy icon, a fat nickname, and a posse. I’m willing to grant him a provisional posse and use of the nickname Heavy P, pending further review. His fastball really surprised me; it’s got a lot of movement, and he locates it well. His changeup looked good, but his breaking pitch was really all over the place. Overall, I’m convinced now that he can at least do a good Suppan impression every five days, provided he keeps his head on straight. Is that better than the potential of Young Reyes coming in and giving the Cardinals three legit stoppers in the rotation? Probably not, but it looks like an astute pick-up by Jocketty.

Now, Bullpen Meltdown ‘06. Now, I like the notion that Cardinals fans are somehow the best in America, but it’s no locktight designation to me. For one, if a player has two or three bad outings in a row–Izzy–or gets off to a bad start–Juancarnacion, Spivey–he gets jumped on, regardless of previous track record or future performance. And if a player has two or three good outings in a row–Simo-Man, Bo Hart, Aaron Miles–he’s bulletproof, regardless of previous track record or future performance.

Isringhausen had some awful games. His velocity was off, and he had no command. So now people are convinced that he’s Done with a capital D, despite having put up a 2.14 ERA last year. The problem with this idea is that his velocity has been down for the past two years, it’s just nobody noticed or cared because he was even more effective than he was before. Now that he’s doing poorly, people take a closer look at the velocity, see no 96-mph fastballs–a target he hasn’t hit consistently since 2003, at the latest–and think it’s what’s causing the problems. It looked to me that he was just having trouble with his fastball command. Because of that, he never got a chance to move on to his curveball, and he got knocked around the ballpark when he tried to sneak a mediocre fastball through the zone. In Monday’s game, he started off with his fastball looking marginally better than it did before. But he got the last hitter of the game out by leading him off with two 75-mph curveballs.

In any case, I think this is all going to turn out to be more anti-hype than an actual severe regression on the part of the bullpen. It probably won’t be as good as last year’s model, and in particular I’m not yet sold on Hancock or Rincon (who gets eviscerated by lboros in a recent VEB post), but Looper/Wainwright/Thompson should be a solid contingent of righties to hand the ball off to Izzy.

Now, back to the opener. I was there, and when not tending to my sunburns thoroughly enjoyed the game. How about Swamp Gas? Not the hitting, although I certainly wouldn’t mind him homering every other start from here on out, but the way he went after hitters. In 2005, without having seen Mulder’s Oakland tenure personally, he seemed to me to be a left-handed Jeff Suppan. He nibbled at the strike zone, he threw a fastball that topped out around 90, and he occasionally hung a curveball that would find itself wedged tighter in the seats than Ray King at a Barbie tea party. This year–and two outings is most certainly a small sample size–he seems to be more confident in his stuff, and it’s largely paid off. (Not that the hitting wasn’t impressive; Capellan’s velocity was down, but that was a gorgeous swing.)

New Busch review: I still wish it didn’t exist, but it’s a nice stadium. The most egregious happening is the opening of a Build-a-Bear Workshop in the concourses. Not only do the Fredbird dolls sold by the store have disturbingly large beaks and murderous eyes, but people were waiting an hour–during the game–for the honor of stuffing a red bear full of fluff and a voice box that says something like “I want to give you a BEAR hug!!!!” During the game! Opening day! Their tickets should be revoked, and when they try to tell their grandchildren about how they went to the first game ever at Old Busch III, an employee of the team should break through the wall Kool-Aid Man style and give said grandchildren the horrible truth: their supposed Cardinal-fan ancestry missed Mark Mulder’s first career home run because somebody was holding up the line at the Bear Birth Certificate Station.

From the most recent Derrick Goold dispatch:

Concessions stands include “Dizzy’s Diner,” “Gashouse Grill,” and “El Birdos Cantina”.

Look, this is all well and good, but why not take this a step further? I mean, you’re not likely to find Pepper Martin at the Gashouse Grill–and if you do, you’ll probably lose your appetite–or Orlando Cepeda or lboros dining at the El Birdos Cantina; why not name these things after people who could very well be tallying your order? Humbly, I propose: Gallego Galley, the Geronimo Peña Penthouse (very classy), and the Ron Gant Feast or Famine Food Lotto. Much more authentic, I think. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve gotta go bus some tables at the Snarkateria, freaking Chuck Klosterman keeps riding me.

Yeah, yeah, I know, you’re famous! But if you relate one more thing to some Saturday morning TV show from when you were twelve I’m going to–okay, okay, I know they don’t bus themselves, except in Scooby Doo and the Thirteen Ghosts.

joeg has a very interesting point about New Busch in the comments:

if you stand on whatever street that the right field area is parallel to, you see one of the hotels is an entire facade of brick archways. the arch itself, which is a common theme in the new stadium, was pulled from the eads bridge for saarinen’s design for the jefferson memorial; it’s considerered to be a major component of st.louis vernacular. the exposed steel work is pulled from industrial areas, soulard, and probably that 30 story mercantile building.

This is true, and I probably won’t have a huge problem with the look of the stadium when it all comes down to it. But I do think that, if they want to be as competitive as possible, they’re picking the wrong St. Louis architecture to highlight.

Yes, the Civil Courts Building, or, as it’s more commonly known, My God What Is That. If New Busch was built in this awesome, slightly disturbing style–what a fan of St. Louis architecture describes as “Greco-Egypto-Assyro-Babylonian”–the Cardinals would gain several wins a year in forfeits alone. Not only that, but I have it from good sources that Gilgamesh can hit the curveball like nobody’s business.

Well, so much for the Sosa rumors–for now, at least. Jeromy Burnitz is nearing a deal with the Pirates, who continue to scour the seven seas in search of average, aging veterans (in lieu of the more traditional forms of Pirate booty.)

Yes, they’ve stolen him right out from under the Orioles’ collective nose (beak?), it would seem. Scalliwags! As I said earlier, the best thing Burnitz brings to a prospective employer is his 1940s uniform aesthetic; he’s exactly the kind of average player one does not generally sign to 2 year, $12 million contracts.

The most interesting part of the story I linked above is this: “Simon declined to offer specifics, but it is believed that Burnitz’s contract would be for two years with a total value in the range of $12 million, which would make it the richest free-agent signing in the Pirates’ history.” This is the part where we as Cardinals fans count our blessings. $12 million? The Cardinals spend that kind of money on Bud Light vendors. (The “Budlightonastick!” guy doesn’t come cheap.) To know that the biggest deal in Your Team’s history was for midrange money, and didn’t even involve peak Burnitz, is to know stark, escapeless depression and stare it in the face, Ingmar Bergman style. But don’t go shivering your timbers yet, Pirates fans–if, uh, that’s a bad thing, I mean. Signing Burnitz to this deal means the Pirates are probably priced out of adding Sosa.

You have to take the small victories.

Sorry about the light posting; there just isn’t a whole lot going on in Cardinals-land. They seem to be in none of the sweepstakes still going on; I count Tejada, Manny, Zito, and, inexplicably, Tampa Bay closer Danys Baez. And, really–me posting isn’t worth the Cardinals being rumored to acquire Danys Baez.

While I’ve been slacking, other Cardsbloggers have been finding ways to be interesting. Rob, from the Birdwatch, has crunched the projected numbers and sees… mediocre things. redbirdbrain, who I don’t believe I have on the sidebar yet, has a photo update of progress on the New Old-looking Ballpark, as I’ve called it for… the last five years. I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and the question on my mind is this: How do I feel about it now, out of the shadow of Old Busch?

Well… I pretty much still hate it. This whole retro ballpark craze has always struck me as counterproductive, since most of the stadiums they replace have thirty or more years of history behind them. (Behold, the same infield where David Eckstein and Hector Luna once patrolled!) The problem is that this Camden-Yards-vogue of an idyllic, pastoral pro baseball being played in wool uniforms at little bandboxes built against a meat-packing plant during the Wilson administration, while Little Bobby and Gimp Tony watch in their makeshift treehouse–it just isn’t consistent with reality.

If you want retro baseball stadiums forget the Family Knothole Wackiness center in left field and the mobile sushi buffet in right, and just put a bar out there. Plaster it in cigarette ads, and be sure to include some animatronic models of former players with bum knees drinking themselves to death. While you’re at it, make sure to obstruct every fifth seat with a giant wooden pillar; you’ll have a few chances to work it out, because every few years you’ll have to burn part of the Grandstand down.

I guess it’s my problem, in the end; for me, at least, retro is run-down, cookie-cutter stadiums and steroidball. I have no doubt that, thirty years from now, Busch 4 will be built to resemble a cross between RFK Stadium and the Astrodome, and all of the concession stand workers will be forced to wear flannel or new-wave makeup; it all comes down to that bizarre tendency for humanity to focus all their nostalgia on weird, not-quite-true pastiches of times they kind of remember. But for now, I guess, I’m the wrong age to enjoy it.