[This is the inaugural post in what's going to be an ongoing feature here at VEB. Matt Lemmon (aka "itsalemmon") will be filing periodic reports from Springfield about the Double A farm team. He found out some cool stuff during the big-league team's visit to Springfield this past weekend ---- see especially his inquiries about "classic mechanics" and the very frank comments from Adam Ottavino about his first season and a half in the St. Louis system. ---- LB]

My name is Matt, and I’ve been hitting this site on pretty much a thrice-daily basis for the better part of three years. I don’t comment often, but I read every day. Over the winter I approached Larry about being a regular Springfield Cardinals correspondent, and he took me up on the offer. I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to keep VEB Nation up to speed on the AA Cardinals.

For this initial post, I get to write about not only the AA Cards but also the big-league Cardinals, who wrapped up their exhibition season with two games in Springfield. It was the big-league club’s first visit here since 2005, a very big deal. The stadium holds 9,000-something people, but I’ll bet they were pushing 10,000 in attendance, at least for the cold-but-dry Friday night game.

Before that first game, I managed to chat briefly with players from both teams. A few of those exchanges are below ---- but first let me tell you how I happened to get down onto the field.

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