What's In A Name?

Hello everyone. My name is Josh. I grew up in St. Louis but went to college with baseballwallets.com purveyor and uberbaseball fan Mike Austin. I'm an environmental lawyer and a foremost expert on American cheese. Mike asked me to write this blog, a chance to explore why my chosen team, the Cardinals, is both better than your favorite team, but also will suck more this upcoming season too. You can really have it all as a Cards fan.

I figured I should just start off by explaining the name of this blog. One of the most vexing aspects of being a current Cardinals fan is Tony LaRussa's insistence on giving lots of playing time to highly worthless players who he feels have more "intangibles." Veteran leadership. Grit. Hustle. Gristle. This results in lots of starts being given to retreads like Sid Ponson and Kip Wells, and innumerable at bats for the likes of Black Hole of OPS Aaron Miles (henceforth known as BHOPSAM. He's back for 2008! Oh boy!)

Hence, a few years ago, I combined a few of the team's least talented, but most prominently featured, players into one borg-like fictional person: Preston Wilson (the old and injured outfielder), So Taguchi (powerless, speedless, but still plays almost every day), and Skip Shumaker (see: Taguchi, So) became "Preston Taguchimaker." When looking at the lineup every day, I would often say things like "Oh, Adam Kennedy has a hangnail. Time for another start by Preston Taguchimaker!" Or, in a late-game situation where we need a righthanded power bat off the bench, I can yell at the TV, "Tony! This is a perfect chance to squander an important at bat on Preston Taguchimaker!"

So, as 2008 dawns, I decided to pay tribute to this unsung amalgam of all that is wrong with the Cardinals by naming my blog after them. So Taguchi and Preston Wilson may be gone (Is he? He might still be in the locker room getting iced down. Someone should check on this), but their spirit lives on. Particularly when Aaron Miles gets 500 at bats this year. Awesome.