today is opening day for the cardinals: they play the cubs in the Sporting News' 1986 season replay via strat-o-matic. it's a promotion for TSN's online fantasy-sports division, and a lotta recognizable names are involved. the red sox will be managed by none other than curt schilling (who, by the way, is nearing a deal that would keep him in boston); former big leaguer doug glanville will be leading the phillies; howard stern sidekick baba booey is skippering the mets; and a lotta well-recognized bloggers (including 7 from SB Nation) are taking part. st louis will be managed by Deadspin editor will leitch. put yourself in his shoes for a second: after enduring the trials of the 2007 season, he's gotta spend all winter with an injury-riddled, slump-prone team that finished 79-82 . . . . . little bit of a Groundhog Day thing going there for him, no? lord knows why TSN chose to replay that particular season. never mind that it was worthless from a st louis standpoint; there wasn't a single compelling pennant race in 1986. in the nl, the mets won by 21.5 games and the astros won by 10; boston and california put the american league races away in early september. i hope they didn't go all fox sports on us and choose '86 solely for its large-market appeal. . . .

here's the box score from the real 1986 opening day. my older brother called me from one of the loge boxes at busch that night (i was at school in california); while we were on the phone, the cardinals got their only 2 hits of the game and scored their only 2 runs, which held up for a 2-1 win. most of us have forgotten by now that the cardinals got out of the gate 7-1 that year. whiteyball was at its height: the cards were the defending nl champs, coming off their 2d pennant in four years and their first 100-win season in nearly 20 years; happy memories. things fell apart in a hurry in 1986, but there was still some decent baseball left in that team.

news, notes etc.:

• the cards turned down the option on so taguchi. altho mozeliak holds out the possibility that the outfielder might return on a renegotiated deal, gooch's career is likely over. he was an ideal fit for the 2004-05 teams, and he delivered one of the most important hits of the 2006 postseason --- the game-winning hr off billy wagner in game 2 of the nlcs. he can still play a little bit (good speed, decent on-base ability), but he's 38 years old and the cardinals need to give that roster spot to somebody with upside. thanks for the memories, gooch.

• john dewan posted the best/worst fielders by position at his Fielding Bible site. the good news first: albert pujols had the highest score in all of baseball at +37, which means he made 37 more plays than an average 1bman would have. this is an extremely sophisticated, play-by-play-based system that accounts for the location and speed of each batted ball; this rating means that an average first baseman, given the exact assortment of batted balls that came albert's way, would have made 37 fewer plays. that's a rather phenomenal stat, and it translates into a savings of nearly 30 runs; i wouldn't believe it except for the fact that nearly every other advanced fielding system says pretty much the same thing. . . . . rolen was the only other cardinal with an outstanding fielding score (+15); both eckstein (-14) and edmonds (-10) were among the worst defenders at their position. my only quibble w/ dewan's system is that it's purely cumulative; there's no rate-stat conversion (such as, say, runs saved per 150 games) that would let us compare part-time players such as schumaker or ryan to a full-time counterpart.

• i've been keeping an eye on South Side Sox lately, watching for any tidbits that might surface re the chisox's interest in eckstein. the other day The Cheat posted his officially sanctioned off-season plan for the white sox roster; that franchise is in almost exactly the same position as ours. read a few excerpts:

• the other chicago team is said to be hot after kosuke fukudome and hiroki kuroda.

finally, here are the results of SBN's manager of the year voting:

my ballot went 1. melvin 2. piniella 3. hurdle; i'd have put la russa 4th. melvin's team improved by 14 games despite a 12 percent decrease in payroll, and he had very few push-button decisions; the dbacks had 1st- or 2d-year players at 5 of the 8 positions on the diamond, plus two rookies in the rotation and a bunch more youngsters on the bench. he deftly handled the kids while deflecting the loss of a veteran front-line starter (randy johnson). piniella was the cubs' most important new face for 2007, imho. he acted decisively to get dead weight off the roster (barrett, izturis, cedeno) and solved the bullpen problems that bedeviled the cubs early on, turning carlos marmol from a failed starter into a high-impact reliever. without sweet lou, the cubs don't win nuthin'. as for hurdle, there's something to be said for staying the hell out of the way. when the rockies got on a roll down the stretch and got themselves close, ol' clint didn't get himself in the middle of everything; he just showed up every day, made sure the lineup card got sent to home plate, and very consciously avoided waking his players from the incredible dream they were having. and he made some good personnel calls along the way --- changed closers at midseason (from fuentes to corpas), stuck w/ garret atkins while he hit his way out of his slump, dealt ably with three injuries in his rotation (hirsch cook and lopez). he's a terrible in-game tactician, but he did a nice job with this team. good man with a compelling personal story; it was nice to see him enjoy some success.

to close the loop on this entry: hurdle was a member of the 1986 cardinals that will leitch will be managing this off-season . . . .