Talking Baseball (Literally)

While I have let this personal blog slide somewhat, I've stayed active over at my Cardinal blog. I've got a day planned to talk about that later on, but as part of that blog, I'm involved with a group called the United Cardinal Bloggers. (OK, involved is a minor term. Founded, organized, run, that's closer.)

Out of that group has come a weekly Internet radio show called the United Cardinal Bloggers Radio Hour. Every Wednesday night, a couple of the bloggers (right now we are rotating through three different hosting teams) spend an hour talking about Cardinal baseball, what's happening, what we want to happen, etc. Rarely get any callers, but I think we have some people that listen to the show via download either from the site or from iTunes.

Anyway, this year has been a huge year for the show. We've had numerous people as guest on there, including two of the major writers for the Cardinals, Derrick Goold from the Post-Dispatch and Matthew Leach (three times, including recently) from MLB.com.

We caught a break with the All-Star Game being in St. Louis this year. I was contacted by a media rep and, through some back and forth, was able to land for others talks with Cardinal Hall of Famers Bruce Sutter and Lou Brock.

However, I got to do the first interview, because there was no way I was handing it off to anyone else. The original e-mail was to get a chance to talk to Ozzie Smith, my favorite player growing up. It wasn't anywhere near smooth, but it was fun. Little did I know that I'd be seeing him in person in less than a month.

We've talked to minor league players on the show, but we were even able to grab a major league pitcher as well. PJ Walters didn't spend a whole lot of time up in St. Louis, but he's played in the big show.

I was able to take part in interviewing probably the most influential person we've talked to. Bill DeWitt III is the team president of the Cardinals and son of the majority owner. It was fun to talk to him, get some insights on what the front office is thinking, and to make a pitch for a personal project of mine.

We've had a lot of fun with the show and we look forward to seeing what happens next year!