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Detachment Means...

Not checking the baseball start-times and wishing it was 7:15. At 11 AM. On a perfectly noble day that the Lord has made. Oh, but how I love baseball! Give me an inning or two to watch the starting pitchers, and I can tell you probably how it will go. Adam is pitching for the Cardinals tonight. That's Adam Wainwright to you uninitiated. He might be the best pitcher in the National League. (15-7, 2.58 ERA this season) For a certainty, though, he is the Cardinals' "ace." It's a semi-formal term to identify the starting pitcher with a track record of winning, the one who stops losing streaks, the one everybody counts on in a special way. If Adam were here in this room, he'd say, "Hold on, buddy. 'Carp' [Chris Carpenter] is still the ace of this staff, until he hangs 'em up." Fair enough, Adam, fair enough. We've been without him for awhile, though. I still hope he makes it back for 2014. Even if only for one game. Wouldn't that be poetic? Carpenter is the guy who has 14 wins in the postseason, not far from the all-time mark of 19, held by Andy Pettitte of the New York Yankees. His overall stats are not impressive, but it was after coming to St. Louis early in the last decade that he found his greatness. I have only enjoyed watching one pitcher more, and that man is Greg Maddux, he of 355 wins, 4 Cy Young Awards (given to the best pitcher in each league each season) and an absolute certainty to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame next year. I mean to say that my favorite guys act like pitchers, whether they have Hall of Fame numbers or not. They are the guys who can have a bad day, give up 5 runs in an inning, and you don't even think of pulling them out, because the team says, "We can still win this thing!" It's a weird trust that teammates and fans give. If you earn it, it is seldom revoked, no matter how old the man gets. Lance Lynn could easily win 17 games this year, but he's not the ace. He knows it, the fans know, the press knows. Now, if he does that for 5 years...maybe a different story.

Random Baseball Thoughts, by JK. Tune in next time...never mind.

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