That's a (Game 1) Winner!

The St. Louis Cardinals (Go Redbirds!) beat the San Diego Padres 8-5 to take game 1 of the National League Divisional Series.

Outfielder Reggie Sanders hit a grand slam (and set an NL division series record with six RBI) while Chris Carpenter pitched six scoreless innings and left with a nice padded lead of 8-0.

Well, those pesky Padres couldn’t be shaken. Besides scoring once in the seventh, they added another run in the eighth and then got right back into it in the ninth after Jason Isringhausen was brought in to end the game, but, things didn’t go according to plan as ‘Izzy’ made things interesting (interesting for Padres’ fans, absolute hell for us Cardinal fans) by allowing the Pad’s to cross the plate three times and load the bases with two outs before he struck out Ramon Hernandez to end the game.

(Sigh. I’m going to need a lot of alcohol to get through this series, I just know it.)

And here’s an interesting (to me at least) sidebar.

Usually, a couple of days before the series starts, the Mayor of each team’s city places a wager on their team winning the series, IE St Louis Mayor Francis Slay would make a ceremonial wager with his counterpart in the opposing team’s city (San Diego).

In last year’s NLDS against the Dodgers of Los Angeles (not to be confused by the Anaheim Angels of Los Angeles), Mayor Slay put up some Bissinger’s chocolate, toasted ravioli (a St Louis delicacy) and some cases of Budweiser against cobblers from a famous pie shop – the “Kobbler King” – offered up by then L.A. Mayor James K. Hahn.

So what would be the gamble with today’s opponent, San Diego? Some t-ravs for tasty California fish tacos? A case of Bud Select for a stuffed Zoo animal? Frozen custard for a copy of the Charger’s schedule?

Sounds like fun, except there’s one slight problem:

San Diego doesn’t have a mayor.

Apparently, there is some political turmoil in City Hall (much like the White House – but that’s an entry for my other blog site: (http://thebushwhackedleague.blogspot.com/)

In the wake of a pension fund investigation by the federal government, the sitting mayor left office with three years left on his term. So now, a surf-shop operator (and you thought Harriet Miers was unqualified for her nominated position) and a former police chief are now vying for the office that will be decided by a special election November 8th.

In the meantime, the city is being run by an acting mayor who apparently is not up for some friendly civic gambling. (Maybe he’s just hedging his bets, I mean, who would bet against the Cardinals anyway? – and of course as soon as I say that the Cards will lo—
…why do I open my mouth?)

Game 2 is Thursday (why a day off when there is no traveling? Who knows.) at 3:05 central with the Cardinals’ Mark Mulder facing off against the Padres’ Pedro Astacio. Again, I will be at work while the game is on and have no means of even listening to it. My computer does not have streaming capability (apparently that would cause the hamster on the wheel to get tired) so I will have to make do by having ESPN.com’s Gamecast on…gotta love technology.