El Hombre

Last night Albert Pujols proved why he's not just the 2006 MVP, but most likely will wind up the best player in Cardinal history. Now, he still trails Stan the Man, Bob Gibson, maybe Rogers Hornsby, but he's gaining and gaining fast.

Seven game losing streak, and the Pads are up 2-1. Two outs in the 8th, and even though there are a couple of runners on, it continues to look like the season is slipping away. The Padres bullpen has been a strong point, and if they get out of the 8th, the all-time save leader, Trevor Hoffman, will come in and likely turn out the lights. Houston is tied with Pittsburgh, so there's still a chance they will win and cut into the Cardinal lead. And the magic number will be again stuck on 5, as it has been for a week.

All--well, most, since Houston did pull out a 15-inning win--of that changed with one swing of the most powerful bat in baseball. A shot into Big Mac Land made Cardinal Nation across the fruited plain delirious with joy and the release of a week's worth of tension.

My father saw Musial play, and I know that he was Dad's favorite. I have a feeling it was similar to watching Pujols play. AP should play long enough for Benjamin to remember seeing him play, but I'll be telling the grandchildren about him for a long time to come. He's the perfect counterpoint to Musial. Then there was The Man, nowadays it's El Hombre.

And now for something completely different.................

On the radio as I'm getting to work, the news is talking about this group of 100 cheese workers in Wisconsin (surely it was Wisconsin, otherwise it's just strange!) who pooled together and won the $200 million Powerball lottery. Great story, could see that it could cause some major problems for the company since if 100 of your workers quit at one time, that's noticeable, but nice story. But then they played a quote from one of the people who one. Seems that the group rubbed the stomach of a Buddha statue (PPT guys, no ideas!) before buying the ticket. Harmless, right? Maybe, but then this quote really struck me wrong:

"I don't know if rubbing the Buddha statue brought us good luck. I don't know if our prayers to God were answered."

Hang on, there. You are equating a superstitious "good luck" action with your prayer life? How honest can these prayers be? It seems to me that at least this person was trying to play all possible covers. "Let's see, I've got my rabbit's foot, my four-leaf clover, and, oh, yeah, I'll pray about it as well."

God is not intended to be a good luck charm. That's not what He's there for.