Oh man, I wanna go!

Bullpen lets Carp down.
Ludwick's 11th inning
walk-off jack saves game.

I got an email from Dustin Block, a fellow haiku enthusiast and Brewers fan. Dustin's blog is Brew Crew Haiku and features daily haiku game recaps. He challenged me to a haiku war during the 2-game Brewers/Cards series at the end of August. Unfortunately, I'll be unable to accept the challenge since I'll be at Burning Man without access to the internet or my cell phone, completely cut off from all things baseball.  But hopefully we can have a haiku duel down the road. I also noticed on Dustin's site, there's a blog called The Cubs in Haiku.  Now if somebody would just start haiku sites for the Astros, Reds, and Pirates, we could cover the whole division 5/7/5 style!

Hello dear readers, CardinalGirl is back! I have a goal to be a faithful blogger for the remainder of the season. OK, there will be about 10 days where you won't hear from me because I'll be out of internet and cell range at Burning Man, but other than that, I'll be here! 

It's not that I haven't been paying attention to the Cards. I have, somewhat, and I've been impressed at their performance overall and glad to see them in the thick of the chase in what we all expected to be a rebuilding year.  I've just had a very busy summer.  First off, I met a fella, who doesn't like baseball but has enough other good qualities that I can overlook this (and perhaps he can be trained).  Secondly, I've had some visitors from St. Louis and New York, so I've been playing tourguide. Check out my pics from Disneyland and Legoland.  I threw a birthday party for The Edgar Winter Dog, with a doggie cake and an agility trainer giving lessons to Edgar and his canine pals. I also took a trip to Albuquerque and Roswell, where I attended the UFO Festival.  Work has been busy, and I co-captained the Google team at the Santa Monica Relay for Life (we raised $12,000 to fight cancer - it's not too late to donate!) and led the planning on the Google Santa Monica and Irvine offices joint summer picnic, which we had at Long Beach on Friday.

Phew!  I'm out of excuses. If Carpenter can come back from Tommy John surgery, the least I can do is write some daily haikus.

Glaus' late homer
gives hope, but Lidge causes that
hope to slide away

They say it never
rains in Southern Cal. They lie.
Cards weather the storm.

Tuesday, I drove down to San Diego from LA to catch the Cardinals game. Unfortunately, I picked the one game of the three they lost, making me 0-2 this season.  I was really impressed with Petco Park - very cool place to watch a game. We were sitting in field level seats, between third base and left field.  As usual, there were quite a few Cardinal fans in the house.

Foodwise, I sampled their big hot dog which was probably the biggest I've seen and cost like $7 or something insane like that. It was good but nothing really special - not up to the Dodger Dog level.

I think the coolest aspect of Petco Park is the construction that incorporate the old Western Metal Supply Company building into the stadium, so there are actual luxury boxes in the building.  They shot off some nice fireworks when Kouzmanoff hit his game-winning 3-run homer, but of course I wasn't cheering.  I'd love to go back next season when the Cards visit - hopefully with a better outcome.  

Troy Glaus shines in his
homecoming game; Kouzmanoff's
three-run shot sinks Cards

It was a scary moment at Petco Park on Wednesday, when Padres pitcher Chris Young got hit in the face by an Albert Pujols' line drive.  Fortunately, Young wasn't knocked out and emerged with only a broken nose. Albert immediately went to check on Young to make sure he was okay. Albert knocked out two Padres unintentionally in the inning, after sliding home into catcher Josh Bard's foot, leaving him with a sprained ankle. Tony took him out of the game, as he was clearly shaken up.  Read the full news story here and Albert's comments.

Warning: the video is not for the faint of the heart.

Yadi ejected,
turned fight with ump into a
Chippendales try-out

Check out the video of Yadier Molina fighting with the ump and leaving his catcher's equipment scattered on the field in disgust. Tony got tossed too, for coming to his catcher's defense. Tony kept his uniform on.