Lindbergh Reference or ABA Reference?
You may remember, in the distant past, that the St. Louis Cardinals briefly employed Ian Snell, who attempted to make the team out of Spring Training and was slated to start the season in the rotation of the Memphis Redbirds. He retired abruptly in March, and it seemed like yet another career of a former Pittsburgh Pirates luminary would end in weird indignity. That lasted less than a month, or .06 Michael Jordan Units.
Matthew Leach, among others, is reporting that Snell has been given his release and been allowed to pursue other pitching opportunities. Snell could still have some miles left in his arm; he looked, briefly, like a fine young pitcher with the Pirates before he seemed to fall apart all at once. In any case, this seems like a better idea for him than retiring to pursue a career in professional basketball.
I'm going to just codify this right now: Former NL Central flash-in-the-pan pitchers are hereby advised to avoid Spring Training with the St. Louis Cardinals. Rich Hill spent a month in camp sounding like Tony Robbins before struggling with serious control problems in AAA; Ian Snell didn't even get that far, retiring and now unretiring to try to avoid the Cardinals hoodoo. Mark Prior could not be reached for contact, which is a good move on his part.
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Edited by Dan Moore
Dan Moore has been writing about baseball on the internet since that was a novel thing to do. A graduate of the University of Missouri, he lives in Springfield, Illinois. See my profile
