Voting Begins Today for St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame 2014 Class

Starting today, you’ll have your chance to decide which two players from eight nominees will be inducted into the new St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame in August. Fan voting runs through April 22 at cardinals.com/HOF.

St_Louis_Cardinals_1998-present_logoThe nominees are Jim Edmonds, Bob Forsch, Keith Hernandez, Willie McGee, Mark McGwire, Matt Morris, Ted Simmons and Joe Torre.

“Induction into the Cardinals Hall of Fame is one of the highest honors the team can bestow,” Bill DeWitt Jr., Cardinals chairman and CEO, said. “We think it is appropriate to have the best, most knowledgeable fans in the game of baseball choose the two Cardinals players who will be part of this first elected class.”

The St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame was established as a way to recognize the exceptional careers and significant achievements of the greatest players in Cardinals history. To be eligible, players must have played for the Cardinals for at least three seasons and must be retired as a player from Major League Baseball for at least three years. The eligible pool of players is divided into two categories, modern players and veteran players. If a player retired more than 40 years prior to the induction year, he is classified as a veteran player.

Following is a description of each nominee’s career as a Cardinal.

Continue reading

Catching Up With The Cardinals: Saturday Edition

Welcome back, Jake Westbrook. Welcome to the 10-win club, Adam Wainwright, and congratulations on strikeout number 1,000 (and numbers 1,001 through 1,005).

And the performances by Westbrook and Wainwright — and Friday night’s and Thursday afternoon’s games — proved that great pitching and pitchers’ duels are a lot more fun, and a lot less frustrating, to watch.

Westbrook-WainwrightYet both games are just part of baseball. It’s trite but true — can’t win ’em all. Sometimes the worst team in baseball beats the best team.

Which is exactly what happened Friday as the Marlins beat the Cardinals 5-4. Westbrook allowed all 5 runs, though only 3 were earned, and 8 hits in his return from the disabled list while the Cardinals struck out 13 times on their way to scoring those 4 runs. Ouch.

And sometimes expected pitchers’ duels — like Wainwright vs. the Mets only good pitcher this season, Matt Harvey — actually live up to expectations. The Cardinals prevailed 2-1, Waino won his major league leading 10th game and Edward Mujica earned a shaky-yet-successful 19th save.

Ah, well, both of those games are now baseball past. Today is a new game — and today is also the 30th anniversary of a trade that Chris Jaffe describes at The Hardball Times as “one of the most incredible and obviously one-sided trades of the 1980s occurred” — the Cardinals trade of Keith Hernandez to the Mets for Neil Allen and Rick Ownbey.

Continue reading