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There hasn’t been a bigger failure to communicate since the 1967 movie “Cool Hand Luke” starring Paul Newman. This failure starred St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa and his band of merry men. OK, maybe not so merry after losing Monday night’s Game 5 of the World Series to the host Texas Rangers 4-2.
Such hard decisions: A photo of Jaime Edmondson or of the St. Louis Cardinals Rally Squirrel? .
The Series returns to St. Louis with the Rangers leading the best-of-seven Series 3-2.
As for that failure to communicate? It involved La Russa calling to the bullpen in the decisive eighth inning to have relievers warm up. At first a second reliever failed to warm up. Then the wrong reliever did.
“That phone in a loud ballpark, it’s not an unusual problem,” La Russa said. “I mean, it doesn’t make it right, but …”
Aside from that, there was Albert Pujols saying he called a hit-and-run in which Allen Craig was thrown out trying to steal while Pujols did not swing at the pitch in the seventh inning. Curious. One would expect La Russa to be furious.
La Russa did say he sent Craig in the ninth inning with nobody out. Craig was thrown out as Pujols struck out on a 3-2 pitch that appeared to be ball four.
And for those who enjoy second-guessing or critical analysis or whatever you want to call it, there was the question of removing Cardinals starter Chris Carpenter from a 2-2 game for the Rangers’ eight inning after he had thrown 101 pitches.
Your humble correspondent was able to view Game 5 as part of the party thatWith was the Jack Brickhouse/Rudy Malanti Sr. Benefit at Pizano’s Pizza and Pasta in Glenview, Ill. But only after serving as a celebrity bartender for the fund-raiser for Children’s Memorial Hospital. Thankfully, about the most difficult part of pretending to be a mixologist was preparing a vodka and cranberry juice. Undertaking that task is the excuse for not recording the football forecast from Playboy Playmate Jaime Edmondson for the Monday night contest. Jaime chose Baltimore over Jacksonville, for those of you keeping score of such things.
And so you know why Jaime is atop today’s effort. Well, if the choice was a picture of that or of some scribe preparing a mixed drink, then it realy was no contest.
A few Tuesday thoughts before all is done:
* With a travel day off for the World Series, it merely prolongs the waiting for Fox television analyst Tim McCarver to explain how teams trailing the best-of-seven Series entering Game 6 need to treat the contest as if it could be the last of the season.
* Cardinals management once again will refuse to address Pujols’ impending free agency. But only after addressing 2012 plans for the Rally Squirrel’s place in the organization.
* After his introductory press conference Tuesday, Chicago Cubs president of baseball operations Theo Epstein will go to Billy Goat Tavern for lunch where he will utter a seemingly never-ending string of profanities before he is asked to refrain. He then will declare the end of the Billy Goat curse.
Anyone up for some unrelated video from the recent Fitness Midwest event at Harper College? Well, here’s some even if you aren’t: