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Tonight, the Cardinals started the holiday weekend off with a bang.

On Thursday, July 2, I went to the new Yankee Stadium for the first time. Overall, I was much more pleased than I originally thought. I had expected much different things from the stadium, and I will describe everything that I saw, and explain all of my opinions.

CINCINNATI—Some losses are easy to take. Some are harder than others. Then you have the true heart breakers. The final stage of losses are the ones that make you sick—literally, like head over the toilet sick.

Friday night's Cincinnati loss to St. Louis falls into the latter category.

Homer Bailey started for the Reds and had his best outing in the three years that the team has been shuffling him up and down between the big club and the minors.

A clear sign that your bullpen is pitching well is when, with two outs in the ninth inning with no one on base and two outs, the closer is summoned from the bullpen, just to get some work.

Clutch: the word that is tattooed into every idiotic baseball fan's vocabulary, and into the ears of every intelligent baseball fan during an argument regarding a player's talent. 

Why is it that we assign more value to performances in the seventh, eighth, or ninth innings as opposed to the previous six innings? 

Why is it Joe Crede can strike out three times, leaving nine men on base, but if he hits a solo home run in the ninth inning to send the fans home, he is glorified for his performance?

As the San Francisco Giants try to determine whether they are going to buy or sell at the July 31 non-waiver trading deadline, right fielder Nate Schierholtz is beginning to prove that he is a legitimate major leaguer.

We always heard that Schierholtz could play, but because of a variety of things—reliance on older players or the lack of regular playing time in the majors—he hasn't seen any real opportunity to show he could hang with the big boys.

The 2009 season for the Chicago Cubs has not gone exactly as planned. Injuries, power outages, suspensions, "lack of fire"—you name it, it's gone wrong for the Cubs so far this year.

One bright spot for the team this season has been midseason call-up Jake Fox. In 23 games over his two stints with the big league club this season, Fox has hit .317 with three HR and 12 RBI. Prior to his call-up, he was lighting up AAA Iowa, with obscene stats of .409 BA, 17 HR, and 53 RBI in just 45 games. 

"Ya gotta believe" are the magic words, the "open sesame" of baseball history, immortalized by Tug McGraw in 1973. But the baseball good wish fairy doesn't always respond. Chicago Cubs fans and players remember the year, 1969, when the wish was never fulfilled.

In the span of two months, the Cubs slipped from nine-and-a-half games in front of the Mets to eight games behind.

"It's true," said the late Jack Brickhouse before his death in 1998. He watched it all go down in '69 from the great heights of the radio announcer's booth. "The Cubs lost it," he said.

It was in a fit of boosterism, some two years ago, when I took leave of my senses and banged out some tripe on this very blog about the bourgeoning third baseman of the Tigers, Brandon Inge.

I all but called him Mr. Tiger, declaring that he would never play for another big league team. Since his career would extend a dozen or so years in Detroit, why not go ahead and erect a statue of him in left center field at Comerica Park to join the other Tigers' greats in bronze?

Well, guess what? I stand by that boisterous tripe.

On Wednesday night, the Chicago Cubs beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 4-1 behind seven strong innings from rookie Randy Wells.

Derrek Lee hit a two-run homer in the victory to win the three-game series in Pittsburgh.

But the news from the Steel City wasn't Lee going yard, or Wells dominating another team.

It was Lou Piniella getting ejected and showing emotion for the first time in what feels like a year.

In the sixth inning, on a bang-bang play that appeared to have been blown by the first-base umpire, Piniella left the dugout to argue that Wells was safe.