THE DOG AND PONY SHOW

It's not often a guy hits three home runs in a game. It happened twice yesterday by the two MVP candidates in the NL: Mr. Albert Pujols and Ryan Howard. Oh, I have respect for Howard, but he has to earn the Mr. title from me over a period of time. Say one and half more weeks. I saw him in the Arizona Fall League and told a friend who drafted him in Rotisserie Baseball that he had a stud. Also, he's from St. Lou. How did he not sign with the Cardinals? Oh well. They missed another local boy back in '66--me.

By that's not what I was blogging about today. It was all about Build a Bear. Our grandkids love them, and our youngest was falling way behind in his number of bears. In fact, he only had one. Until yesterday.

Before the Cardinal game we lined up in one of the long lines. You see, at the New Busch Stadium. they have a ton of other things to do than watch the Cardinals. At one place near our seats they had a open area bar where fans sat sround and were watching tennis. On two screens. While the game was going on. While Albert was mashing Pirate offerings.

The worker told us that we would get to our seats by gametime. As we got there, they were playing the national anthem. How'd she know? But Nathan got a heckuva bear. Catcher Bear, he dubbed him, and outfitted him in glove, ball, bat, cleats, Cardinals uni complete with belt, and of course a Cardinal hat. He slept with my wife and me last night in our kingsize bed. Nathan was there, too. Only once did Catcher Bear stick me in the back with his left cleat. I put him back in his complete uniform this morning.

As Mike Shannon, my all-time favorite announcer says."Just fun at the old ballpark."