Cards sink Mets; UCB Radio Hour Reprise

Just who exactly has inhabited Joel Piniero's body, and what can we do to make the change permanent?

Eight efficient innings, 91 pitches thrown, 13 batters retired before David Wright's double leading off the ninth; he's also drawing walks and scoring runs. Yes, put me down as a big fan of the improvement.

And, he leads the NL in wins with 3. Nice to see he's earning the cash the team is paying him, becuase we sorely need him to be good right now.

Piniero's start ended a string of bad starts by the Cardinals staff. He is the only one with a quality start this time through the order, and the only one to make it to the seventh inning.

Coupled with Chicago's loss, St Louis starts the day back in first place by a game at 11-5. They go for the sweep of the Amazin's today.

I mentioned on last night's show today should seem a little more cheerful with the Cardinals back on top of the division. Which is a nice segue to the show. I hosted the UCB talk radio hour for the first time last night; and although I am an obviously biased reporter, I thought it went well. Other than the fact that I had some technical issues and couldn't get the chat board to show up on my computer.

We had Dr. Doug Feldmann on the show for the first 10 minutes, discussing his new book, St Louis Cardinals - Past and Present. It is a coffee table book, heavy on pictures, describing the rich history of our favorite franchise. Dr. Feldmann was a gracious guest, answering questions on his book, some of his other books, and a wide range of other topics. Turns out Dr. Feldmann is from the Chicago area, but saw the light at an early age regarding the Cubs/Cardinals. He can be forgiven for being a bit of a White Sox fan, as (I believe it was his uncle, although my memory escapes me) played in the White Sox organization for a time. Thank you, Dr. Feldmann, for dialing in.

Last night's game ended right about the time Doug left, and Josh from Redbirds Row called in, Josh and I spent the next 45 minutes or so talking about the game, as well as Blaine Boyer, Ludwick's playing time, Khalil Greene, what's wrong with Rick Ankiel, and other topics of interest. Thanks to Josh for dialing in. Josh didn't have the technical issues I had with chat, so we were able to get to questions posted there by our on-line listeners.

I believe the broadcast is available for download, and if I ever figure out how to post those audio files here it will go up. But, since it was the first time I had hosted a show in 20 years (back to my college radio days), it's definitely one for the books for me.