Play catch (up) with the St. Louis Cardinals?

If you haven't been paying attention to the Cardinals off season, then here's the way to get most of the news quickly.
I'll provide some links and a quick recap of the story. Stories are mostly called from MLB.com, but if you haven't been following their feed then this should get you up to date on some of my picks for the greatest news have this offseason.

David Freese avoids arbitration - David Freese signed a 1 year deal to avoid arbitration.

Carpenter out - Chris Carpenter most likely out for the year with continued problems in his throwing arm. It could force his retirement.

1/29/2013 | Taveras ranked No. 3 among Top 100 Prospects Outfielder Oscar Taveras has been named baseball's third-best prospect in MLB.com's Top 100 rankings. 1/28/2013 | Cardinals agree to one-year deal with Cedeno Seeking a veteran middle infielder to provide depth and insurance behind shortstop Rafael Furcal, the Cardinals, after sifting through a thin free-agent market, have signed Ronny Cedeno. 1/24/2013 | Thousands pay respects to Musial at visitation A six-hour public visitation for Hall of Famer Stan Musial, who died at the age of 92 on Saturday, brought thousands of people out to the Cathedral Basilica in St. Louis on Thursday. 1/24/2013 | Musial's 1942 club was Cardinals' best Stan Musial played on three World Series winners and watched many, many more. However, the Hall of Famer, who passed away Saturday, said the 1942 Cardinals were the best in franchise history. 1/22/2013 | Motte, Cardinals reach two-year agreement Closer Jason Motte has inked a two-year contract with the Cardinals that will buy out his final two seasons of arbitration-eligibility. At the end of the deal, Motte will be a free agent. 1/21/2013 | Molina excited to have brother as Cards coach Having never had the opportunity to play professionally with his older brother Bengie, Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina spoke Monday about his anticipation over the prospect of donning the same uniform this season. Along with that came an endorsement as well. What do you think the biggest news of the offseason has been?

Stan Musial and Consistency

What do Stan Musial and email have in common? 

It might be a stretch, but trust me on this one. Are you ready for it? I don't ask this question to demean "The Man" in anyway, only to highlight one of his character traits that I value highly. Consistency is probably their only commonality.


Have you ever purged your email inbox for the junk email that you receive ad nauseam? Seriously, I have received enough pizza deals and job postings and tech deals and _____ (fill it in for yourself) emails to last me a lifetime. Mind you this is not spam, this is legitimate email that I have signed up for in the past. But, I am realizing that it costs me a lot of time to look at this junk. So, in the past couple of days I've been reevaluating my need for cheap pizza and random job postings and... I've unsubscribed to quite a few of the email newsletters I thought I wanted in the past. I still choose to keep a few of them coming or turn down their frequency, but let me just say that I am very thankful for the unsubscribe link at the bottom of each of these emails.

I can turn on the Priority Inbox from Gmail (see here), but I tend to like to do this myself. I understand the need to organize, but I'm not as disciplined in this area of my life as I'd like to be. I tend to rely on my memory for many things (even more before smartphones), but my piles of things of "like-subject" tend to be just that... piles.

So, what's the point of all this and does it have anything to do with the St. Louis Cardinals? The ambiguous answer is yes and no. I want to de-clutter my life so that I can focus on better things rather than having to think about where my bills are located or if my clean socks ended up in their drawer. I want to think of noble things like how to be a better dad, how to live courageously, how to be a good friend, and how to work harder.

Better Consistency like Stan
The other part of this is that as the 2013 baseball season approaches, I want to be a more consistent blogger. So, I have the plan to new post a new blog each Wednesday. This is a bonus post this week. As I have reflected on the life of certain Hall of Fame players such as Ozzie Smith or the beloved Musial, one characteristic seems to stand out. They were consistent. Musial made 24 All-Star teams through his consistent excellence. Ozzie's back-flip before the first pitch was the highlight for many a young fan, including myself. So, we have the choice to be consistent. I'm working at being consistent.

Where in your life do you want to gain more consistency or lose the clutter?