[Yesterday's UCB rountable question came from Ryne Gery, who asked "Cardinal nation seems to be split on the topic of Mark McGwire's return. Some will boo him, others will cheer him. Where do you stand on the McGwire issue? Love him, hate hime? Do you think he will be a success as hitting coach or do you wonder if he really has the credentials to get the job done?"]

Our thoughts on Mark McGwire returning are well-documented already, so we won’t rehash that. As for whether he will be successful as a hitting coach, we get the feeling that local media and members of the organization doth protest too much (the sycophantic coverage from the Post-Dispatch and others borders on mawkish). More directly, with so much hype and emotional and reputational investment from “the boss,” it’s hard to imagine that any player who feels McGwire isn’t doing the job is going to a) feel empowered to speak up and b) have much hope that anyone would do anything about it, anyway. With most coaches, the benefit of the manager’s doubt usually rests with the players; if a coach isn’t cutting it, it’s the coach who is reprimanded or fired and not the player. In the Cardinals’ current situation, the balance of power seems to have swung the other way. Think about it: What surer way to land in Tony La Russa’s doghouse than to raise concerns about McGwire? At the first hint of dissatisfaction, the ensuing media coverage will be amplified well beyond what happens in a normal situation, potentially causing even minor indiscretions to end up in dysfunctionality. Little good can come of this tendentious hiring, but plenty of bad. The team will have enough to worry about trying to win a title without the added disruption of “office politics.” La Russa’s selfish gambit to reinstate his crony has already divided fans; it wouldn’t be surprising if it divides his clubhouse.

[The United Cardinal Bloggers have begun their preseason roundtable. Yesterday's question came from Nick at Pitchers Hit Eighth (and how we wish they still did!).]

What is your first memory as a Cardinal fan? It could be attending your first game, or the first time you watched a really important game with your family, or perhaps the first Cardinal cap you received as a gift, or listening to Jack Buck on KMOX. For many folks there is a certain historical and/or family aspect that goes along with being a Cardinal fan, and I’m anxious to hear yours. For those who were “transplanted” into Cardinal Nation, I’m just as curious to hear how you wound up with the Redbirds.

Being from southern Illinois, my mom grew up admiring Stan Musial and Red Schoendienst, whom she’d met as a girl, and with my dad’s Chicago ties, I assume they must have settled early on that, wanting the best for their kids, they’d raise us as Cardinal fans. My earliest — or at least strongest — memories are from the 1982 championship season. Of the handful of games that my family would attend each year, I would get to buy a souvenir once a season (at one of the booths outside the stadium). My first real souvenir — as in something that had the staying power of a Star Wars figure — was a plastic bat bank. The little white bats had the logos of 10 of the National League’s 12 teams (for some reason, the Pirates and Padres weren’t represented) and clipped into the red bank, encircling it like the World Series trophy that the Cardinals would win that October. In that series, I remember feeling the vindication when Keith Hernandez, my favorite player, broke out of his slump in Game 6, and, after the Game 7 win, listening and dancing with my little brother to Kool and the Gang’s “Celebration” on our record player.

[Posted on behalf of Jim Rygelski, chapter president.]
There were 26 people at the February 22, 2010, monthly roundtable of the Bob Broeg SABR Chapter at the Original Crusoe’s Restaurant in South St. Louis. For two members, it was “bring the son/daughter to SABR night.” The meeting featured two new agenda items for the chapter which are to become regular features. Under Researcher’s Tip, Jeff Ecker demonstrated how one can find selected batter vs. pitcher matchups under www.retrosheet.org (he used Babe Ruth’s pitching performances as an example). In The Game I’ll Never Forget, Jim Rygelski brought his scorecard and newspaper clips in recalling the June 29, 1966, game between the Cardinals and Giants in the first weekday “businessman’s special” at the then-new downtown Busch Stadium; the Cardinals won 2-1, helped by an upper deck homer by Orlando Cepeda off former teammate Juan Marichal. Steve Pona outlined further the 150th Anniversary of Baseball in St. Louis Project, with which chapter members will be assisting. Under research presentations, Bob Tiemann discussed the 1940 American League season, focusing on the comeback of the St. Louis Browns, who finished sixth at 67-87 yet improved by 28 victories over their disastrous 1939 season. John Schoon reviewed the book “Baseball and the Blame Game,” by John Billheimer. Bob Tiemann won the monthly trivia quiz, which was on Babe Ruth. The next roundtable is Tuesday, March 23, at Crusoe’s, Compton and Osceola avenues.

Babe Ruth quiz

1. List the years in which Babe Ruth was born and died.
2. What the name of the religious-order Brother who helped guide young George Herman Ruth at St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys in Baltimore?
3. For which professional team did Ruth first play?
4. Within three wins and losses, what was Babe Ruth’s record as a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox?
5. How many times did Ruth set the single-season record for homers?
6. Against which team did the Babe hit his first major league homer?
7. True-false: Babe Ruth actually hit 60 homers in 1921, but one of those home runs came in a game rained out before the fifth inning, which didn’t count and reduced his season total to 59.
8. True-false: Once he joined the Yankees, Ruth never pitched another game, even in relief.
9. How many pennants did the Yankees win during Ruth’s 15 seasons with them?
10. Why did the Yankees give Ruth uniform No. 3?
11. In how many seasons did Ruth strike out more than 100 times?
12. A reporter once asked Ruth if he could have hit .400 if he hadn’t tried for home runs. “Hell, I could have hit ( fill in batting average)” he responded.
13. Sportswriters hung several alliterative nicknames on Ruth (Sultan of Swat, for example). Give one other such alliterative nickname.
14. After his retirement as a player, Ruth was a coach for which N.L. team in 1938?
15. In justifying his salary one year being higher than that of the President of the United States, Ruth quipped that he’d had “a better year.” To which U.S. President was he referring?

(See comments for answers.)

[The following is a quick take on the question that HotStove.com posed this week: Should the Cards Keep LaRussa Past 2010? We also touched on the issue earlier in the offseason.]
After the 2010 season, it’ll be time for Tony La Russa to pack his bags. The nominal effect on winning that he might have — The Hardball Times puts the maximum positive effect at a mere two games — isn’t worth La Russa’s ego, petulance and exorbitant salary. Some cracks are starting to show in the foundation of the man who managed two of the game’s most notorious PED users but who has recently had to eat the words he spoke in 2005 about being “absolutely certain that Mark [McGwire]earned his size and strength from hard work and a disciplined lifestyle.” In bringing back McGwire as hitting coach, La Russa displayed either a stunning aloofness to reality or an arrogant disrespect for the game and contempt for fans. And with his recent comment that he “would rather have a closer than a No. 1 starter,” it would appear that at least some of his success has been in spite of his ideas, not because of them. Come 2011, the Cardinals can and should spend that $4.5 million on a player who can make an impact on the field — without the baggage that La Russa brings.

For the last several years, the Cardinals’ outfield hasn’t exactly had an explicit platoon, and yet it has been anything but stable. The team hasn’t had three outfielders start at least 100 games each since 2002. They’ve averaged eight different left fielders a year during Tony La Russa’s tenure with the team. And they haven’t had anyone start more than 90 games in left field since their current first baseman did in 2003. Is 2010 the year in which the outfielder that the team submits this spring as its all-star candidates will be the same ones actually patrolling the Busch Stadium grass throughout the summer?

Let’s look at the sometimes motley crew of outfielders that La Russa has employed during his time in the Lou:

To be sure, it’s possible to win without having regular players in the outfield: The 2006 Cardinals used 12 different outfielders and only one of them started more than 100 games (Juan Encarnacion). Then again, that team won only 83 games. But the point is that while quality matters more than lack of quantity (in terms of number of players it takes), better players are usually the ones that you want to play the most, and so it’s natural that regular players produce more (though not always).

How could they do it? Undoubtedly, Matt Holliday is the lynchpin to a stable outfield. But Colby Rasmus, back for his sophomore season, and Ryan Ludwick, who is the only right fielder to have repeat 100-GS seasons for La Russa, provide a reliable complement.

Using the most conservative projection for Holliday — CHONE has him at 148 games — we’ll figure that, given his career percentage of games started to games played (99%), he’ll start 146 games in left for the Cardinals. That in itself would be the most of any Cardinal leftfielder since Vince Coleman started 150 games in left in 1987 (and the most of the La Russa era since Albert Pujols had 113 starts in 2003).

CHONE projects Rasmus to play 135 games, which, at the 82% rate at which he started games his rookie year, would be 111 games started, most or all of which will be in center.

Of the major projection systems, the Fans were most bearish on Ludwick, whom they figure to play 137 games (perhaps owing to his injury past). Even so, given his career games-started percentage of 81, that comes out to 111 starts.

If all three players hit anywhere near their projections, they’ll be the most regular Cardinal outfield since Pujols-Edmonds-Drew eight years ago. But what does all of that mean for the team this spring? Practically, it means that the outfield bench spots won’t matter as much as they have in the past. Whether it’s Joe Mather, Daryl Jones, Allen Craig, Shane Robinson, Nick Stavinoha or Jon Jay, the backups figure to spend a lot more time riding the pine than wielding it at the plate.