Dr. Strangebird (or, How I learned to stop worrying and goof around)

Well my fellow Vivi Birders, it's early February. Baseball news regarding our Cardinals has slowed to less than a trickle. Surely Ben Sheets and Manny Ramirez wait by their phones, frustrated that they haven't received any calls lately from the 314 area code, keeping hope alive by rejecting offers from the Rangers and Dodgers, respectively. Like them, we fans wait for something mildly interesting to occur so we can talk about it. In light of this I've foolishly decided to create my first fanpost, a silly idea that will surely be ridiculed, but which may provide a fun diversion for a few minutes.

A long while ago there was talk about a film version of Three Nights in August, and murmurs of Kevin Pollak being connected to it. I know there is a film about Dizzy Dean, and I believe I remember Pedro Guerrero striking out in Rookie of the Year, and Bob Tewksbury and Ozzie facing Steve Nebraska and the Yankees in The Scout. Other than that there ain't much Cardinals movie presence. This got me ta thinkin'; who would play recent members of the team in a hypothetical film project? I present a few ideas of mine and invite partisan bickering enlightened discussion and other suggestions from you the VEB community. Most of my decisions are a combination of a physicl match and enough talent that I can justify it. Since this is all a dream anyway I'm mostly ignoring age and fitness issues; just imagine all these actors are magically the right age if they're too old now or something.

Tony LaRussa - Kevin Pollak. I'll start out with the skipper. I've always found Pollak pretty funny. He's not a terribly big guy, he has dark hair, can wear sunglasses, and is good at voices (look up his explanation of how Bill Clinton is a combination of Jimmy Carter and Elvis Presley). He was already connected to the project, so why not.

Dave Duncan - Jon Voigt. A veteran character actor, Voigt could pull off our curmudgeonly old pitching coach easily.

Juan Encarnacion - Jesse L. Martin. Detective Green from Law and Order (the black guy) just screams Don Juan to me. He kinda looks like him, is better looking, and he even portrayed an alien baseball player in the X Files. I am proud of this one. Accents don't matter because Juan never really talked.

Jason Marquis - Joaquin Phoenix. Again, it's eerily fitting. Looks like him, and played a failed baseball prospect in Signs.

Jose Oquendo - Luis Guzmán. I don't think I need to explain why this is so perfect. They're even both Puerto Rican for crying out loud!

Jim Edmonds - (a much younger, shaven) Tom Selleck. Jimmy Baseball, meet Mr. Baseball.

Albert Pujols - Dwane "The Rock" Johnson. I'm only kinda kidding about this one. I've always loved The Rock even though he makes some questionable career choices. He's kinda dark. He's big. He's handsome. He's athletic. He oozes charisma. The Witch Mountain teaser during the Superbowl convinced me he has slimme down a bunch since his wrasslin' days. The accent is my only concern... maybe he could be voice-coached.

That's all I've got for now. Please discuss amongst yourselves. I apologize to the poster with the item about Hill, I was just very very bored. In all sincerity, I just hope somebody finds this amusing. If this post seems like a waste of time, I don't mind since that's pretty much the whole point.