Lefties

Is a left handed specialist all that necessary? Not when his name is Trever Miller. His job is to come in, face one batter and get him out. Let's see how well that is working out for him this season. He has allowed 18 of 39 1st batters reach base this season. That is a .462 OBP (2nd worst in MLB). Look, if your job is to come in and face lefties and get them out and they are getting on nearly 50% of the time you have no business being on the team.

On a much happier note, from out of nowhere Skip Schumaker is hitting .350 since June 4th and has raised his average from .207 to .288. I gotta admit I never would have expected that to happen 38 games ago!

Back to bad news the Cards have hit into 111 double plays this season and are on pace to eclipse their old NL record of 166 set in 1958. I guess having a high team batting average has to come with some sort of downside.

I am Lazy

But right now I want to say this:
MLB and Holiday Inn decided to donate $1,000 for every hit during the All Star Game tonight to cancer research. Really, a whole $15,000? I know every penny counts, but come on! MUCH smaller companies have given over $14 million to Cardinals Care for the StL Cards turning double plays the last ten years. That is a bit over a million a year, and you put up $15,000. That is officially weak.

Apocalypse Now

I was watching Apocalypse Now the other night for the first time in a long long time! I forgot how great of a film it truely is. Its such an intense piece of work. How it didnt win the Best Picture of 1979 I will never understand. Robery Duvall as Col Kilgore is just simply fantastic! What a crazy jourbey the whole movie is. I watched the Redux version so there were some added scenes not in the original film. I remember reading about how Marlon Brando showed up for filming really fat and thats why his scenes as Col. Kurtz are shot in the shadows so you cant really see him, funny thing is I think this actually worked to make the film better. I would like to see what the plans were for the Character Col. Kurtz would have been had Brando been in shape? I always enjoy films where the main character is a mystery, here in this film you have Martin Sheen as Capt. Willard. Really kind of a non likeable character yet you find yourself interested in his mission but eventually you start to understand how truely screwed up he is becoming and you start to feel for him and also Col. Kurtz to an extent. The stories about the making of the film are as interesting as the film itself! A true fim classic!