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The Cardinals Way: A Book Review From The Latest Howard Megdal Masterpiece

cardinals way

Andrew Martin (Featured Baseball Writer/Owner – baseballhistorian.blogspot.com) 

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To the uninformed, the game of major league baseball may look simplistic. You run; you throw; you hit; and at the end of a game, a winner is determined.

However, as fans know, an enormous amount of work goes into each franchise and how they cultivate and maintain their organization from year to year. Some teams have greater track records than others, and there are few that can match what the St. Louis Cardinals have done over the years.

Howard Megdal has thrown the curtain back and provided a glimpse behind the scenes at what makes the team click with his recent work, The Cardinals Way: How One Team Embraced Tradition and Moneyball at the Same Time (Thomas Dunne Books- an Imprint of St. Martin’s Press).

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Sully Baseball Daily Podcast – September 6, 2014

Getty Images

Getty Images

 

Ron Washington stunned the baseball world by resigning suddenly on Friday. Not only was his leaving the team unexpected, but there is a slight aura of mystery regarding why the beloved manager is walking away.

To help make sense of it all, I brought in Texas Rangers fan and creator of The Scoop, Jamie Kelly, to talk about Wash’s legacy and her reading between the lines of the press conference.

It is an emergency and STOP THE PRESSES episode of The Sully Baseball Daily Podcast.

_RYUu_2XFollow The Scoop onTwitter by clicking HERE.
 
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Read my latest piece for The Scoop, comparing David Wright with Dan Aykroyd by clicking HERE.

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Top Ten Stat of The Week: Team Wins Since The Start of the 2003 Season

Monday  July 23, 2012

With only one World Series Win and a 2003 Loss to the Florida Marlins, it hasn’t stopped the Yankees from raking in wins every year. They have averaged 95 wins a season since 2003.

Chuck Booth (Lead Baseball Writer and @chuckbooth3024)-  This weeks installment is actually a top 11. I bent the rules a little to accommodate the A’s.  It is hard to maintain a great franchise in today’s Major Leagues.  Sure the heavy hitters like New York and Boston will always be sniffing around the top of the league with their huge payrolls, but most teams don’t have the luxury to spend like these two teams do because of their limited revenue streams.  In the last few years, the Phillies, Angels and Tigers have entered the echelon of top spenders.  Spending money doesn’t always equal great results.  The Texas Rangers have only had success lately and were often victim to heavy payrolls and not great results.  How many years did Peter Angelos try to buy a contender with Baltimore?  He has dedicated himself back to the right way of building a team the last couple of years and it has worked through player development.

Minnesota and Oakland have been run incredibly well for a long time.  If this list was for a five-year stretch, you would have seen the Tampa Bay Rays as part of the top 10.  These are the small market teams that have been consistently playing well against the  big boys.  The Twins have only faded back in the standings in the last couple of seasons.  The Atlanta Braves finally had their consecutive playoff years stopped in 2005 and they were only mediocre for a few seasons.  Right now, they might be the best team in the National League. The Angels, Twins, Dodgers, Athletics, Dodgers and Braves did not make any World Series appearances since 2003.  Out of these teams, the Angels have the most wins.

According to the movie ‘The Natural,’ losing is a disease, and like other diseases, (insert disease here) it is curable.  Most of these teams have not even struggled in the last 10 years.  The Yankees have only won one World Series in this time frame, despite dominating the win total every year.  In fact, the last time the Yankees has a losing season was 1991.  The Cardinals and the Red Sox both have won 2 World Series, and the Cardinals are the only team  to have appeared in the Fall Classic 3 times during  this stretch. Read the rest of this entry