Yesterday’s deadline came and went. \u00c2\u00a0Albertageddon peaked yesterday morning, but by the end of the day had calmed back down. \u00c2\u00a0Life goes on.<\/p>\n
The man himself\u00c2\u00a0showed up today at camp<\/a>. \u00c2\u00a0He spent a good half an hour talking to the press, in a situation\u00c2\u00a0reminiscent\u00c2\u00a0of Mark McGwire’s address to the media last spring training. \u00c2\u00a0McGwire spoke openly and candidly about his steroid use and it wasn’t much of a topic again. \u00c2\u00a0Albert seems to be taking a page out of that playbook, according to the media tweets. \u00c2\u00a0A quick recap:<\/p>\n “What do I want? \u00c2\u00a0I want to be a Cardinal forever.<\/a>” \u00c2\u00a0He\u00c2\u00a0hopes the fans understand<\/a> what is going on. \u00c2\u00a0Apparently both sides\u00c2\u00a0laughed at some of the numbers<\/a> that were being reported. \u00c2\u00a0He’ll deal with the issue by “flipping the page<\/a>.” \u00c2\u00a0If you think he’s greedy, “you don’t know who I am<\/a>.”<\/p>\n If nothing else, those kind of comments set some minds at ease. \u00c2\u00a0He didn’t come out grumpy, he didn’t come out sounding like he had a chip on his shoulder from the whole thing. \u00c2\u00a0He affirmed his commitment to the team and the fans. \u00c2\u00a0There wasn’t a lot of “we’ll see what happens” or “no guarantees.” \u00c2\u00a0Of course that’s implied, but he still comes across as perfectly happy to stay a member of the Cardinals for the rest of his life.<\/p>\n Hopefully now we can move on from that. \u00c2\u00a0We have actual baseball stuff going on now, not the dead of the hot stove league, so there should be other things to catch our attention.For instance, the starting rotation\u00c2\u00a0sat down with John Smoltz<\/a> for a televised chat this morning as well. \u00c2\u00a0Though looking at that picture, I’m a bit confused. \u00c2\u00a0Did Jaime Garcia win a bet and get to collect Adam Wainwright’s beard? \u00c2\u00a0Waino looks a bit strange cleanshaven and we’ll see if Garcia keeps the facial hair all spring long.<\/p>\n See, real baseball stuff, like facial hair. \u00c2\u00a0You just can’t get this during January.<\/p>\n Dave Duncan has been watching these pitchers this week and, as benefits the optimism that usually comes with the beginning of camp,\u00c2\u00a0likes what he sees<\/a>. \u00c2\u00a0I’m pretty interested to see if Lance Lynn can’t be that de-facto sixth starter, the first guy up from Memphis. \u00c2\u00a0I also loved the comment on Michael Cleto, who the Cards got in exchange for Brendan Ryan; he “so far hasn’t displayed the significant control problems that have plagued his career.”<\/p>\n