There are always things to fret over, but the news on the field can't be any better than it has been. The Cards are 43-24 with an 8.5 game lead on the Cubs. Their second-best position player returned yesterday and their second-best starter is looking like a Cy Young candidate again. While pitching injuries are always a concern, the Cardinals have three solid Plan B's waiting at AAA, although the most talented one is on the DL for ten days. The Cardinals are almost certainly the best team in the National League and probably the best team in baseball.

However my mood has turned melancholy as the Cardinals seem intent on moving from KMOX to KTRS.

I've been listening to the Cardinals on KMOX for twenty years now, and even with the advent of Extra Innings and even with all the static and the battles with Fidel Castro over the airwaves, it's still my preferred method of following the Cardinals. I fondly remember Steve Lake's homer at close to 3 AM and Jason Simontacchi, Jeff Fassero and Rick White matching Roy Oswalt, Octavio Dotel and Billy Wagner for nine innings and LaTroy Walk-ins versus Mike Matheny. Then after the game there was Shirley calling into Jim White's show.

KTRS can't reach Indiana though, so that'll be history soon enough. While I could get used to more coverage of the current team and maybe some Cardinal-ographies and Redbird Classics, I'm losing the ability to follow them on the road or in my backyard. This nostalgia for baseball on AM radio makes me something of a dinosaur, I suppose. Maybe it's not the radio itself, but rather the connection to my late grandfathers, who combined to get me started on this habit, that I'm lamenting. Whatever the cause, even if I get some new-fangled satellite radio working, it won't be the same without KMOX.