Hey Xanga, it's been about 7.5 months since I've written, but here I go:

Highlight of my day: I ran into a long-lost friend and talked for about five minutes.
Lowlight of my day: I watched Kansas win the whole bowl of wax.  To make matters worse, I won my pool.  No, I did not pick the Red Leggers to win it all - I had them losing in the second round, but everybody else picked Memphis to win.  What a dilemma.

    Where did Kip Wells come from?  I heard somewhere he's, like, 8-40 in his last 50 starts.  He's horrible.  Granted he has played on some bad teams, but his that can't be his only excuse.  He looked like Chris Carpenter last night - kind of.

    Pujols has been on fire.  He was 6-14 with 3 HRs in Philly.  The leader is now leading, even though he has been all season, just not as much in the past.  So-called fans and critics are stupid to say, "Where has Pujols been this year?"  He's still the Cardinals leader in HR, RBI, batting average, and runs.  He and Chris Duncan have been our offense this year.  Maybe Albert getting mad w/ Tony after the All Star Game helped out his own game, even though Tony was an idiot for not putting in Albert.

    Even with the ESPN bias against the Cardinals, I must agree with this article.  We haven't played well for many reasons.  But we can only blame ourselves for putting us in our hole.  Walt Jocketty, Tony LaRussa, and Dave Duncan are the people most responsible for this. 
    Jocketty has made some good trades in the past but recently he's slipped a lot.  Just think if Danny Haren were on our rotation instead of Mark Mulder.  I'm tired of seeing these reclamation projects he's using.  The aforementioned Kip Wells, Mike Maroth, Adam Kennedy, Juan Encarnacion - Jeff Weaver last year - are washed up and taking up roster and payroll space. 
    Jocketty needs to start looking into our depleted farm system, trade possibilities and free agency for help.  Our team is old and changes should be made.  Just look up the road and you can see two teams that are better than us because of better decision-making from the management.  The Brewers are getting it done with their young talent that came up from their farm system.  The Cubbies are getting it done by spending close to $300 million buckaroos this off-season.
    Dave Duncan has always been an average pitching coach in my mind.  His line up usually has never amounted to much.  Until last year around September is when things finally kicked in but those "things" kicked out around October 28, 2006.  He needs to realize he can't fix every washed-up pitcher in the league.  Todd Wellemeyer, Kip Wells, and Mike Maroth aren't starting material. 
    Tony LaRussa has gone crazy this year.  I don't know where the discipline and awareness has gone from the previous years of his teams.  Granted about half of the starting lineup this year is on the DL, their fill-ins aren't cutting it.  You can't really do much if these guys are making mistakes but you can coach them enocugh to make them shy away from costly errors.  Eckstein is back, Edmonds is almost ready, Rolen was back, Yadi's back, nobody really knows about Carpenter, and nobody really cares about Mulder anymore.
    Things can change in the second half but we must be the ones who desire that change the most.  Who wants to come in third after the Brewers and the Cubbies?  I don't.