JUPITER, Fla. — Infielder Skip Schumaker’s first diving play in a game this spring training came this afternoon at about 1:30 p.m. EST, for those of you keeping score. Dashing to his left, Schumaker dove, snared Joe Thurston’s speedy grounder, got to his feet, and …

Threw high to first base.

“I have to realize I have more time,” Schumaker said later. “I can only learn that in games.”

Schumaker said his goal is to improve each day…

JUPITER, Fla. — What with its keystone combination of Rogers Hornsby and Ozzie Smith leading the way — batting .346 and .325, respectively — and center fielder Jim Edmonds topping the team with 10 home runs and 47 RBIs, the St. Louis Cardinals would appear to be a virtual juggernaut in the virtual world of Seamheads.com’s (simulated) Historical League.

And, yet, the ‘Birds are struggling. Could be that injury to Stan Musial.

Hall of Famer Rick Hummel is at…

TOWER GROVE — The St. Louis Cardinals sudden and curious move to release Adam Kennedy on the eve of spring training leaves them with a hole at second base and an open casting call for the job.

So, it’s business at usual down in Jupiter.

With all due respect to the St. Louis Blues, whose revolving door in goal was chronicled and counted in this morning’s paper by Dan O’Neill (ah, where have you gone Tom Barrasso?), the real…

CAIRO — During the tour-bus caravan to Giza and the Pyramids, two British friends of mine sat near an American who recited that widespread legend of how the Sphinx lost its nose and  tsk-tsk’d the members of British military for daring to use the Sphinx for target practice.  Thanks to me, my friends were armed with a response.

That may be so, they said, but it was Americans who pelted it with baseballs.

Timed my reading of…

TOWER GROVE — By definition, any list of the top 10 or top 30 prospects within the St. Louis Cardinals system is flawed. The concept itself has one glaring weakness: Cardinals prospects are compared only against Cardinals prospects, leaving the reader to wonder if a top-10 talent here is a top-five talent in Cleveland? Maybe a top 20 talent in Boston … and so on.

Rankings prospects within an organization has value. It just doesn’t have…

TOWER GROVE — An outcome of the Mitchell Report, which was published a year ago during the offseason, was that Major League Baseball and the players’ union agreed to release publicly a review of the drug-testing program. The audit does not include names, just facts and figures, but it offers a snapshot of how a sport once described as “infested” with performance-enhancing drugs is addressing the issue.

The report, issued by the Independent Program Administrator Dr….

TOWER GROVE — As I start writing this entry I’m watching another replay of Don Larsen’s perfect game on the shiny new MLB Network — man,  could I really go for a Gillette shave — and the game is just about to enter the ninth inning. What a new year’s treat to see the gem of the 1956 World Series and hear Vin Scully deftly avoid the karmic land mine that would be mentioning the perfect game.

Instead…

TOWER GROVE — According to the formula Major League Baseball and its member clubs use to determine a club’s overall payroll, the St. Louis Cardinals had the 11th-highest payroll in baseball last season and the American League champion Tampa Bay Rays had the third lowest.

The team with the highest payroll goes without saying. Check today’s headlines.

The payrolls for all 30 clubs were published this afternoon by The Associated Press, and the info is chocked with…

TOWER GROVE — In this crowded field of mailbags and Q&As and message boards and chats and blogs there are only so many questions about Skip Schumaker playing second base to fuel so many different give-and-take platforms. Good thing PostCards has Frank Fuhrig.

The mailbag was loaded with questions answered better elsewhere or answered often before, but on election day into the hopper Fuhrig fired this gem: Who manages the St. Louis Cardinals in 2010?

The poll…

TOWER GROVE — As the weekend arrived, the St. Louis Cardinals continued to work Friday on the details of the deal for lefthanded reliever Trever Miller while also keeping conversations open with other lefthanded relievers and free agents on the market.

Miller, 35, came to St. Louis on Thursday for a physical, a clear sign of the team’s and player’s mutual interest and what some baseball sources believed was a step toward finalizing a deal. The…

TOWER GROVE — The awards season peaked locally Monday with the announcement that St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols is this year’s National League MVP. But if you thought this league’s race for the MVP was something, take a peek at the other side of the majors.

The American League MVP has a favorite and a challenger on the same team; it has a record-setting closer and a superb slugger whose injury cost him the last…

TOWER GROVE — While President-elect Barack Obama swiftly pieces together his White House staff, the New York Yankees, that tattered dynasty from the 1990s, can start shifting their trophy case(s) around to make room for a 27th World Series title.

So says the trends, according to The New York Times.

The Yankees have not won a World Series with a Republican president since 1958. Their last eight titles, including four during the Clinton Administration, have come with…

SOUTH GRAND — The only thing worse than Major League Baseball moving toward the World Series becoming some sort of neutral-site circus would be to dismiss the idea entirely and ignore all of the suggestion its inspired.

Coming out of the rain-delayed 2008 World Series and staring at a 2009 postseason that likely won’t end until the first week of November, the drumbeat for change echoed around baseball coverage. “Neutral Site” was the new black. ESPN’s…

TOWER GROVE — Gentlemen, start your transactions.

General managers from around baseball are converging at AIG’s favorite hangout in Dana Point, Calif., today and all week for the first round of window-shopping and swap-talking. Unlike last year when the pitching market was headlined by Carlos Silva and trades were the currency of winter, this offseason has the high-watt free agents (CC Sabathia and Manny Ramirez) and the superstar trade chips (Jake Peavy and Matt Holliday). There…

SOUTH GRAND — With his hulk having whiffed his way through Game 1 of the World Series, Philadelphia Phillies manager Charlie Manuel dared the media, the fans at home and maybe even the Tampa Bay Rays to doubt the power of Ryan Howard.

“Take him for granted,” Manuel said. “Start throwing to him. See what happens,”

What has happened in the past three games of the World Series is Howard, the local boy done good, has found…