Spring is just around the bend…

We’re less than a month out until Spring Training starts. It can only mean one thing. Not just the fact that March Madness is just around the corner but college basketball serves as a lovely bridge between the end of the World Series and Opening Day. Baseball was what held me over to the end of October when my teams in college and pro football were struggling. I certainly wasn’t expecting that. Not with the Cards having been down 10.5 games at towards the end of August.

For those of us that don’t have a subscription to MLB.TV, fans are in luck in that ESPN is airing the St. Louis Cardinals’ first game of the season. While the Chicago Cubs and WGN have yet to announce their broadcast schedules for the season, I am almost positive that the Cardinals’ home opener will air on WGN.

This past week, the Cardinals were honored by President Barack Obama at the White House. While it is disappointing that neither Albert Pujols or Tony La Russa were in attendance, the Cardinals were standing with the president as he named them “the greatest comeback team in the history of baseball.” You can read the president’s complete remarks or watch the video at WhiteHouse.gov.

It’s true. There’s only one other club that could even come close and that is the 1964 St. Louis Cardinals. Of course, the game of baseball was different then. I’m not talking about the size of the pitching mound but the amount of playoff games that were played.

Matt Holliday may have had the line of the day when talking with reporters when he said that he hopes “we can do it again next year.”

While visiting Washington for the ceremony, the Cardinals also met with wounded veterans at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Derrick Goold wrote a great article on that, which you can read here. It’s heartwarming, indeed.

Meanwhile, St. Louis Cardinals manager Mike Matheny, who has previously recieved an endorsement from Hall of Fame manager Whitey Herzog, will have a lunch meeting with the White Rat at some point in the next week. In fact, Herzog is hoping “to be able to accept an invitation from Matheny to sit on the bench with him during spring training games in late March.”

I hope former Cardinal shortstop (and also Hall of Famer) Ozzie Smith will be on the bench with Matheny as well. We know that he and Tony didn’t have the best of relationships while Tony was at the helm so let’s hope that things are different for the relationship between Smith and Matheny.

In one sad closing note, my thoughts and prayers go out to Gary Carter and his family. Carter, who has been fighting brain cancer, has taken a sad turn for the worse.

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