WHAT I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS---FREDBIRD'S CARDINAL CAR

It's arguably the best time of year for the sports fan. Baseball free agency begins. College and pro football are more than in the swing with some teams already in the Leinart/Bush chase for the number one draft pick. In Mt. Vernon and Bureau County, high school football playoffs are in quarterfinals. Pro hoops just got started. College basketball teams are thrashing Washington Generals wanabees and are cover stories for sports magazines. Even the Benchpressers are riding high in the MVRL Fantasy Football League after whipping up on poor Hud in the annual Hud Bowl.

The possibilities in baseball with free agency are definitely food for thought around the old hot stove. Already I've read reports that the Cardinals are interested in obtaining Alphonso Soriano and David Delucci from the Rangers, Brian Giles of the Padres, Juan Pierre of the Marlins, Bret Boone and his newly dyed hair ostensibly to make him appear younger than 36, Ichiro Suzuki, Rudy Seanz, Braden Looper, just to name a few.

I really feel like, and Scott alluded to this in a blog entry recently, the Cardinals are tired of not hitting in the playoffs and are ready for some wholesale changes. And with the cubbies overpaying neifi p., it looks like the dollars for the Grudz just escalated, pricing himself out of Baseball's Best City. Because of another blog and some hilarious pictures, I think Reggie Sanders is gone, too. Along with Derek's pictures, I still have a mental image of the shot he hit off a hanging curve ball from Matty Mo in Arizona in 2001. What a blast!

So I don't know who's gone in trades or who the Cardinals will sign, but it makes for some good possibilites to ponder while the frost settles on the pumpkins. Although usually out here, our frosts don't come until after Christmas. Man, I hope we have Giles or Soriano by then. Or maybe we'll get Ichiro. Right after I get the Fredbird mobile.