So I am sitting in doors on beautiful Sunday afternoon in Yuma...its 75 and sunny and I am sitting in doors...only because I can and everyone back home is miserable. SOOO I thought I would write something.

Friday night I had a hankerin' for baseball (shocking). Not just any baseball, but random pre steroids, oh my God the Cardinals are horrible (we should all prepare for that again) baseball. I tried to find random pirated video clips on the internet, I am sure they existed at one time, but any trace has been assumedly cleaned up by the attorneys and powers that be at Major League Baseball. So, I was forced to sign up for the MLB.com "Baseball's Best" archives to find a game. As I scanned the games available I realized that I wasn't really getting into anything that they were offereing...I almost watched the 89 NLCS game where Will Clark gives the Cubs the "Thrill" (I am lame) of being losers for another year and almost settled for the 1982 game seven of the world series to watch the Cardinals stick it to the Brewers ...but the 1982 Cardinals were never really one of my Cardinal teams...I was two years old. BUT then, among the greatest WS games of all time, greatest career accomplishments, I found the Gem of all the futile efforts (I use the word effort in its lightest sense) of the Joe Torre era...the game where Mark Whiten hits four homeruns and collects 12 RBI. I was giddy as a school girl.

This was a tough time for Cardinal fans...my greatest memory of this time is it being around the 100th year anniversary of the Cards and McDonalds had this set of Cards cards (!), celebrating the greatest players of the franchise.  You couldn't buy the set, you had to put it together yourself while eating hundreds of double cheeseburgers (or at least I did). You got like 3 cards for 3 bucks and my Grandma Pat and Aunt Lois didn't sleep until I had the whole set (It was the first time in 60 years that a kid said "FINALLY I got a Chick HAFFEY card!) I believe that Augie had died already and this may have been one of the last seasons that Anheiser Busch, Inc reluctantly ran the club. Also, if I remember right Augies son hated baseball and he was in charge...I have visions of Joe Torre motivating the club in the locker room with a half naked cut out of the evil owner, Augies son, ala Major League. I have sick visions.  So I sat down with an 18 pack of Busch Light and began my journey back to a simpler, pre GNC time. Here are a few things I found interesting....

Holy crap the Cards were horrible. That's not fair, really, they won 87 games (That's four more than the 06 World Champs) but this was before we had the Central Division. This game was the night cap of a doubleheader, that due to rain delays didn't start until 10:15 Cincinnati time...so a lot of players got the night off, i.e. Ozzie. So, I was kind of bummed I wasn't going to see the Wizard. But Torre's line up card more than made up for it...Geronimo! Pena, Lonnie Maclin, Bernard Gilkey (OR "Bernie" to Joe B. and Al H. on this particular night, I guess it never caught on), Todd Zeile, Gerald "Tyler" Perry, "Home Run Hitten" Mark Whiten (which, I must assume before this game was "No emotion face" Mark Whiten), Tom Pagnozzi, Tripp "Dear Lord, Please Kill Ozzie Smith" Cromer and Tewks on the mound.  

This game was at Cincinnati's River Front Stadium and there isn't a single advertisement on anything...everything was green...green walls, green backstop, green turf, green empty seats...so I had a thought...the Cookie Cutter stadiums were huge and vast with little in the way of facades and such, so little room for advertising...SO maybe the push for retro stadiums was an effort to create more advertising space and bricks. Just a thought.

There was nothing on the screen but baseball. No score. No scrolling "crawler" and the bottom of the screen. No dancing robot. Just baseball. Can you imagine a time when you could watch a baseball game without knowing who was winning the WNBA finals?

Everyone was skinny. Whiten, by today's standards was skinny. Even the umpires and the fans looked skinny. It was nice.

Two comments were made that I never would have imagined being uttered, ever. Joe Buck gets the credit for both and they are both loosely paraphrased... "It looks like they will pitch around the threat of Zeile" and "After his homerun in the first game, Zeile is chasing Barry Bonds".

The game was, as I mentioned was a late start, and Joe Buck and Al Hzfghnoirabosky were calling the game. I assumed I wouldn't be hearing from Jack. Then the 3rd inning started...I was stunned hearing Jacks voice...it was like eating chicken and dumplings at my Grandmas...incredibly familiar and comforting.

Mark Whiten hits a grandslam in the first inning and it is hardly a "no doubter", however, it was not to be a fun night for Larry Luber. Later, I cannot recall what inning it was, I think the 3rd, the bases are set to be loaded, but the Reds 2nd baseman mishandles the ball and Bernie heads home. The next at bat, Whiten hits a homerun that should have been a grandslam. Bernie's heads up play cost Whiten an RBI and the all time record for RBI's in a game (he is tied for 1st with 12). Rumor has it that Mark Whiten hasn't talked to Bernie since.

The second HR by Whiten was particularly funny. When he hits the ball he gives the bat a Tom Lawless flip and trots to first...the ball begins to drop and Whiten sprints the rest of the way to first because it looks like its not going to clear the fence. It clears by inches, also like the Tom Lawless "blast".

Mark Whiten hits another home run off of Mike Anderson. As Whiten gets back to the dugout, Joe Buck and Al say "Da-na-na, Da-na-na! referencing SportsCenter. This may be the first time this ever happened.

None of Whiten's homeruns were hit particularly far and none would qualify as the best homerun of the game...that honor would go to Gerinmo! Pena, who absolutely crushes (in Geronimo Pena terms) a pitch off of Rod Dibble in the 8th. The ball soared down the right field line, into the 3rd deck. It was Geronimo!'s 3rd of the year. It was September.

By the top of the 9th inning there are 15 fans left. I assume that it was well past midnight. Mark Whiten comes up again, facing Rod Dibble, and knocks it out of the park. Joe Buck is going relatively crazy and says something to the effect of "Wow, this game was actually worth staying up for". This may be because it is after midnight, but I am guessing it has more to do with going through the motions in a dismal seasons whose outcome was probably decided in the first week of august. Then he follows with another "Da-na-na, Da-na-na!" Mark Whiten looks like he just drove in a run with a sacrifice fly for his teams only run in an 18 to 1 blowout. He may have smiled, but not what you would have expected from someone who just had one of the most individually productive evenings in the history of sport. Finally, the 12 people left stand and cheer until Mark jumps outside of the dugout and tips his hat for a curtain call. The Cards won 15-2 and Tewks pitched a complete game for his 16th win of the year. It should also be mentioned that the Cardinals lost the first game even though they put up 13 runs.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun for watching a 15 year old baseball game on a computer while drinking alone.