MINOR LEAGUE BASEBALL...THE LAMEST SHOW ON EARTH

I watched a Cardinals game live in person last night. The Palm Beach Cardinals vs. the Charlotte Stone Crabs. Who is that you ask? That, my friends, is Minor League Baseball. High Class A ball to be exact. Living in South Florida has its advantages all right: sunshine, warm weather year round, pools and the beach. As long as you don't mind the crabby old people (aka snowbirds) that flock down and take over in the winter months, it's really not that bad. Most of them have no depth perception and shouldn't be driving, but they are usually back up North by late April anyway.

I am 100% spoiled for 2 months out of the year, and I bet you can guess which months those are. That's right: February and March: St Louis Cardinals Spring Training in Jupiter, FL. Roger Dean Stadium and the Spring Training complex is 10 minutes from my house, and I promise you that I did not plan it that way. I decided to go to college in Florida because I figured if I had to finish my degree, Florida was the place to do it. The Cardinals were an unexpected but awesome bonus for me.The thing is, Spring Training only lasts a month and a half. When the trucks leave and the major leaguers fly back to St. Louis to start the regular season, what am I left with? Besides a handful of autographed baseballs and some great memories, the answer is that I am left with the Palm Beach Cardinals.

As of June 12 they are 25-37. There's still a lot of baseball left to be played, which means they could straighten things out, or it could be a really long season. Now to me, baseball is baseball. I enjoy watching almost any game. Minor League games are usually high-scoring affairs, which means that there is usually always some sort of action happening on the field. Even though most of the guys on the roster are people you and I have never heard of, they play their hearts out. Everyone runs out infield grounders and hustles back to the dugout when the inning is over, because everyone is trying to make it to The Show, and you never know who is watching. It's refreshing to see this.The Palm Beach Cardinals play in the Florida State League. Their opponents range from the Jupiter Hammerheads (Florida Marlins) to the Fort Myers Miracle (Minnesota Twins). One of the cool things about this is that we have the opportunity to check out some of the prospects in other organizations. Both of the Cardinals 1'st round draft picks in 2009 and 2010, Shelby Miller and Zach Cox, began the season in Palm Beach. Both tore it up down here and were promoted to AA Springfield in less than 2 months. Good for them, unfortunate for me. We are left with the guys who are probably going to be at this level for quite some time...

Understandably, it is hard to get people to come to Minor League baseball games. The interns at Roger Dean are forced to be creative in order to get butts in the seats. In between almost every inning there is some sort of activity on the field: racing the mascot around the bases, riding big wheels, dizzy bat spins. You name it, they're probably done it at one time or another.

Every weekend there is a promotion of some sort. The place will be full of little leaguers one night and cub scouts the next. With those kids come their parents. The kids want hot dogs and nachos, and the parents want beer. The lines are ridiculously long. This must be how the stadium stays afloat and makes any money: overpriced food sales, just like the Majors!

Last night was "Pooches in the Park". You can bring your dog to the ballgame. Most Major League stadiums do this once a year: Roger Dean does it once a month. Tickets for a Palm Beach Cardinal game are $8 a piece for adults, and $2 if you have your student ID. You can't beat that.

Minor League Baseball games aren't for everyone. The games seem to drag on. It makes the Majors look like a track meet, because the Minor Leaguers don't seem to be in any rush to get the night over with. The Cardinals pitcher hit one of the Stone Crabs last night. When our catcher came up to bat in the bottom half of the inning, the Stone Crabs pitcher threw behind him. The batter obviously took offense to this and charged the mound, chucking his bat at the pitcher. Both benches and bullpens cleared, and a lot of people got ejected. At least they try and make it interesting for us...

Just in case you were wondering, Palm Beach lost to the Stone Crabs with a final score of 8-2.

THE CARDINALS NEED TO SPICE UP THEIR UNIFORM OPTIONS

I missed Thursday night's 9-2 win over the Astros. Unfortunately, I saw every pitch of the 8-0 trouncing handed to us by the Milwaukee Brewers last night. Figures, eh? I don't have many good things to say about the Cadinals performance last night, save for a congratulations to Tony La Russa for managing his 5,000th career game.

Instead, I want to examine something that has bothered me about the Cardinals for quite some time now. OUR UNIFORMS ARE REALLY LAME. There's really not a nice way of saying it. The Birds on the Bat have been an institution for a long time now. The Cardinals logo and jerseys have not changed in forever. I'm not saying that a total overhaul is necessary, but a little facelift wouldn't hurt.

Take the Brewers for instance. Before they take the field, they have a few different options as to what they are going to wear. As a matter of fact, most Major League ball clubs have instituted a number of different uniform choices. The Padres have their camo, but most other teams have at least one choice of alternate shirts that they can wear. I read somewhere that for most teams, the starting pitcher gets to choose what jersey the team will don on a given night. There was a video online from the Chicago White Sox a couple of weeks ago, when one of their pitchers was warming up before the game and then realized he was wearing the wrong jersey. His teammates laughed at him while he changed.

Then you have the St. Louis Cardinals. None of our pitchers have to worry about that problem. The Redbirds wear white when they are home and gray when they are on the road. It has been like this for almost as long as I can remember. The only change is when they are playing Sunday afternoon home games, and they break out their "Bird hats". IT'S BORING. I'm not saying that they need to bring back the V-neck powder blues from the 80's. No one wants that. But a red alternate jersey would really spice things up. The batting practice jerseys that the Cardinals wear before games are pretty spiffy. Why not do a variation of that?

I don't know who makes these decisions. I'm assuming that John Mozeliak, the Cardinals GM, has better things to do with his time than worry about what his boys are going to wear each night. John, I think you should appoint someone as head of the Cardinals uniform committee. St. Louis is behind the times. The Rockies have 5 different uniform options, and we have 2. We need to get on the ball. I know that Major League Baseball games are not fashion contests. I just think that it's time to change it up a little.

Hopefully our boys play better tonight and I have something more interesting to talk about tomorrow!