I suppose I should put this someplace so I don't forget it later, and that place might as well be here.

My favorite player is, was, and always has been Ozzie Smith. I'm not sure why. My dad likes him too, maybe that's why. He was an amazing shortstop but not a flashy bat; in little league, I couldn't hit for beans and I was ok in the field, maybe that's why. He seemed like a guy who kept his head down, worked hard, loved what he did and did his job well. Maybe that's why. He had a great story.

I can't say I had a favorite active player on the Cardinals; I like almost everyone who puts on the red cap and has fun on the field. I'm not a superfan either. I think I went to one regular season game in 2011. But I am a fan. I watched or listened to a lot of games. I enjoyed going to the ballpark. And you better believe I jumped on postseason tickets when I got the chance.

A few moments stand out to me:

2004

I was at a fantastic game where the Cardinals traveled to Wrigley Field in July 2004. A highschool friend had a single spare ticket -- he and his girlfriend, and I in the backseat, drove from my hometown up to Chicago (about two hours). We parked in an impossibly tight parking spot behind a home in Wrigleyville, then walked to the stadium. I had been there once before, on a trip with my college floor, but it was the Pirates in town.

I was still -- am still -- enamored with the stadium, the history, the tradition it all represented. The seats on the rooftops beyond the ivy-covered walls. The hand-operated scoreboard. The feeling. Did I have a Chicago Dog from the vendor behind homeplate? Yes. Did I have an obstructed view? Also yes. Did I have an amazing time, a Cardinals fan at Wrigley Field? Absolutely.

This is perhaps the first time I ever saw Albert Pujols play baseball in person. It is most certainly the first time I ever took a photo of him, if he's in there someplace.

Aided by the fine folks at Baseball-Reference.com and retrosheet.com, I can relive that day. I have vague, fuzzy memories, but the story is better with details. A-like so:

Tony Womack led off with a walk against the Cubs' Glendon Rusch and Pujols, as ever batting third, doubled to left to score him in the first inning. Nothing more would happen until the Cubs came up in their half of the second when the Matt Morris lost control.

Moises Alou led off and walked. Derek Lee homered (2-1 Cubs). Aramis Ramirez doubled to right. Michael Barrett homered (4-1). Alex Gonzales mercifully struck out, but the bleeding wasn't about to stop: Rusch singled to center and leadoff man Todd Walker walked in front of a Corey Patterson double, scoring them both (6-1). Sammy Sosa, as was his custom, flew out. Patterson moved over on a wild pitch and then scored on a Moises Alou single (7-1). Finally Tony LaRussa brought in Matt Morris, who got Derrek Lee to go down swinging to end the awful, awful inning.

At that point, Cubs fans were elated. The fans wearing red were relatively morose. But it was the top of the third.

With both men in front of him getting out, Pujols hit a first-pitch homerun. 7-2 Cubs.

Ramirez answered in the Cubs' half though, with a leadoff homer, to bring the lead back to six.

After two innings of nothingness with an 8-2 score in favor of the home team, I remember the mood in the stadium being one of mostly boredom. Get the game over with, thought the happy and in-control Cubs fans. Get the game over with, thought the disappointed and outnumbered Cardinals fans.

The Cardinals started swinging their bats in the top of the sixth, when Pujols led off with a line drive single to center. Scott Rolen moved him to third with a single and Jim Edmonds also singled, scoring Pujols and putting Rolen on second (8-3). After Edmonds' single, Francis Beltran came in to pitch for the Cubs.

He did not do a good job.

Reggie Sanders walked to load the bases. Then Mike Matheny walked on five pitches, scoring Rolen (8-4). Then So Taguchi singled to shortstop (8-5), and Dusty Baker had seen enough. Kent Mercker came in and managed to get the first out of the inning when pinch hitter Ray Lankford hit a sac fly to score Sanders and bring the Cards to within two (8-6). Womack and Edgar Renteria would go down quietly and end the threat.

A few more people were paying attention now. Kiko Calero sat down the Cubs' 1-2-3 hitters in the bottom of the sixth.

Albert Pujols stepped to the plate leading off the top of the seventh, and crushed Kyle Farnsworth's first pitch for a homerun to pull the Cardinals within one.

In the top of the eighth, with one out, So Taguchi tagged Farnsworth for another homer to tie the game. Ray King sat the Cubs down in order in their half.

Top of the ninth, tie game. Renteria bounces LaTroy Hawkins' first pitch to short and is safe at first. Pujols steps to the plate and takes a ball. The next pitch he takes out of the park, a homerun to put the Cards up by two. Sanders would also hit a solo shot in the inning, giving the Cardinals a three-run cushion.

The Cubs' final chance (against Jason Isringhausen, natch) saw a groundout, a walk and a flyout by Sosa. Then Alou singled to right and Lee walked, loading the bases and bringing the winning run to the plate in the form of Ramirez. He took a 1-1 pitch to center, but it was caught by Edmonds to end the game.

Cardinals win, 11-8. Pujols goes 5 for 5 with 4 RBI and three homeruns, including the tiebreaker.

At the end of the season the Cardinals finished 13 games ahead of the Astros to win the NL Central. The Cards beat the Dodgers 3-1 in the division series and took the championship series in seven from the wildcard Astros. Then came the Red Sox.

To keep this one short and sweet, I entered the lottery for World Series tickets. And acquired World Series tickets. For Game Five. Of course, Boston swept the Cards to win their first championship in 86 years. Bummer.

2005

In 2005, the Cardinals made another run but fell short in Houston, losing the NLCS 4-2. In Game 5, Pujols broke Brad Lidge with a top of the ninth two-out two-on go-ahead monster of a homerun.

2006

In 2006, I happened to be visiting St. Louis in late October for a collegiate journalism conference. On Friday, Oct. 27, we took a bus from our downtown hotel to the Moolah Temple in Grand Center to watch a couple movies before their national release (Borat and Stranger Than Fiction, for some reason). On the ride back, people kept getting updates as to the score. After we got back, the Cardinals were leading, and I decided to head down to the stadium. The Cardinals led the series 3-1.

I walked down Broadway to Clark and tried to find a place to see in. The crowds were incredible and I remember being in awe of the noise from the stadium coming out through the gap in left field. Hold in your mind the stereotypical "large crowd cheering" noise, and that is precisely what I heard. I remember being surprised at how accurate the actual noise mapped to the stereotypical noise that was in my head.

And then an even bigger roar went up. And then there were fireworks. And the Cardinals had won their first World Series of my lifetime. I was sprayed with champagne as I made my way back to the hotel. I bought a Stadium Edition of the Post-Dispatch, and held it high as I walked back, getting car horn honks and high-fives all the way. I set out, foolishly, in my car, into the worst downtown traffic St. Louis had seen in years, because a colleague and roommate needed dress clothes for an interview at the convention. I decided to make the best of it --  I rolled down my window and held the paper up high for all to see.

2008

In 2008 I moved to St. Louis. For Christmas that year I got a "Pujols Pack" of tickets to ten games the following season. I also bought my family each a ticket to the Bank of America Club for one game when the Cubs were in town. I started a habit of going to games when I could, and going to sports bars for dinner when I couldn't.

2011

Skip ahead to this season. 2011.

I particularly remember two games in June. June 4, a Saturday, I had been out driving and listening to the game on the radio. The Cubs were in town. The Cardinals scored two in the fourth on a Pujols homerun, the Cubs came back with four in the sixth, and the Cardinals tied it in their half of the sixth with Pujols doubling to bring the first run home. The game went into extra innings and the Cardinals managed the threaten in the tenth when Pujols was intentionally walked to load the bases with one out. The move paid off when Lance Berkman and Tony Cruz got out to end the inning. Jump to the bottom of the 12th inning. Ryan Theriot and Jon Jay both get out facing Jeff Samadzija. Pujols walks to the plate, takes a 2-1 count and knocks a walk-off extra-innings homerun to deep left field. Game over, Cardinals win 5-4.

And he did it again the next day. On June 5, the Cubs grabbed the lead in the fourth with two runs. The Cardinals made up one in the sixth but took their sweet time before tying it on a 2-out double down the left field line by Theriot, scoring Cruz. That's all they could manage and the game went into the tenth. Fernando Salas set down the Cubs in order with ten pitches. Then Pujols stepped to the plate to lead off the bottom of the tenth. Just like the day before, the count was 2-1 before he crushed a Rodrigo Lopez pitch to deep left center. Game over, Cardinals win 3-2.

The stretch

I had just bought my house and I was training for the marathon on October 23 when the Cards began their historic comeback. I specifically remember the last night of the regular season -- September 28: I returned from my training run and turned on the radio. The Cardinals were about to win an 8-0 complete-game two-hit shutout by Chris Carpenter with 11 strikeouts. The Braves were leading Philadelphia in Atlanta, which meant that the Cardinals and Braves would have a play-in game for the division series. But it was not to be: In the top of the ninth, Chase Utley sacrificed the tying run in, and the Braves went down in order to send it into the tenth. The Cardinals would finish their game 15 minutes later, but had to wait in Houston's locker room to find out where their next game would be. Nearly an hour and a half later, in the top of the 13th inning, Hunter Pence put the Phillies on top and they would stay there, giving the Cardinals the Wild Card and sending them to Philadelphia for the Division Series. (there was a bit of drama in the American League as well. ESPN has a timeline of what some people have called the best night of baseball)

NLDS

What more is there to say but the Rally Squirrel showed up at Busch in Games Three and Four, followed by the Game Five spectacular complete-game shutout by Chris Carpenter, winning 1-0 against Phillies' ace Roy Halladay. The Cards win in five and head to Milwaukee.

NLCS

Milwaukee played terrible defense throughout the series. I got tickets to Game Five, in the outfield near the Cardinals' bullpen. My dad came down and Kitty went with us as well. The Brewers weren't even in it -- the Cardinals plated three in the second inning and never looked back. Milwaukee had four errors on the night. It was a fantastic experience to be in the park for playoff baseball. The Cardinals went back to Milwaukee up three games to two and took game six in a 12-6 homerun derby.

World Series

I remember the wins but not the losses against the Rangers. I remember Game Three -- it was the night before the marathon. It also happened to be one of the six games of the entire 2011 season that lasted more than four hours. Luckily, it was mostly scoring. Pujols went 5 for 6 with three homeruns (joining Babe Ruth and Reggie Jackson as the only players to accomplish three homers in a World Series game) and the Cardinals won 16-7. I watched at home, and didn't get nearly enough sleep before Sunday's marathon.

After losing Games Four and Five, the Cardinals were down to their last game. I was invited to Doug, Joan and Kitty's for a bonfire. Doug had the TV set up in the back yard, and we all gathered around. It was a back and forth game, and the mood was tense. We were all sick when David Freese was at bat in the bottom of the ninth with two strikes, down by two. Then elation after the deep double that tied the game. That quickly turned to dread after Josh Hamilton's two-run homer in the tenth. Delirium after Theriot's and Berkman's RBIs to tie it up again in the bottom of the tenth -- and Berkman's again with two strikes and two outs. Cautious optimism after holding the Rangers in the eleventh. And then full-blown dumbfounded disbelief after Freese's full-count leadoff walk-off to center field accompanied by Joe Buck's echo of his father's call "We will see you tomorrow night."

And slowly came the realization, "I get to go to Game Seven." A coworker had got standing room only tickets and offered to let me buy one. So I did.

It was by all accounts far less exciting than Game Six, except by virtue of it being Game Seven. We couldn't see much -- most of the crowd was standing for most of the game, understandably. But I was there. For Game Seven. At Busch.

The Cardinals completed their comeback. I saw them win. The fireworks and confetti. The unbelievably loud cheers. And, even after the awards presentations, the interviews, the celebrations, there were the crowds and traffic, reminding me of my 2006 experience. I bought another stadium edition newspaper. But I was there. Inside the stadium this time.

I was at Game Seven. The last game Pujols played as a Cardinal.

Pujols

I told all those stories to get to this: I think my feeling on Pujols is a sadness that a potentially great story won't get a chance to be told.

We should be used to that in sports. If only the fielder was playing another step or two out...if only the hitter had pulled the ball three more inches...if only the pitcher had put a touch more movement on the ball.

We already knew how the story began. Wonderfully crafted, it was exciting from the very beginning. An attempt and failure in 2004. Redemption in 2006. An incredible comeback and proof it wasn't a fluke in 2011.

How would that story have ended? A massive contract for Pujols, yes, much of it for what he'd already given for the team. A strong core lineup for at least a few more years. Record chases. The chance to watch the best player in baseball take his final bow at home, wearing the Birds on the Bat for his entire career and on into Cooperstown. It's almost sacrilege, but he would have in deed, if not in word, been the greatest Cardinal. A legend.

But now I don't get to watch that story. I can't tell that story. Great stories don't end in the middle.

I'm not angry or bitter or spiteful or accusatory. Tens of millions of dollars is a lot of money. Pujols will probably give a good chunk of it to organizations that do great work, maybe work they wouldn't be able to do without his money. That's a good thing. And he'll put on the halo and get down to spring training and go to work and do his job and do it well. And that's a good thing too.

It surely is his story to write, and it surely is his right to choose his own path. But I can't help but feel a little sad that one of the greatest stories in Cardinals history -- maybe in Major League Baseball history -- won't be told.

I’m pretty fascinated by the Newseum today and how newspapers decided to play the news of Penn. State football coach Joe Paterno (and Graham Spanier, the university’s president) being fired over allegations of covering up the alleged sexual abuse of young boys, some on Penn. State’s campus, by former football coach Jerry Sandusky.

It seems like papers were all over the map about how big to play this story.

Pennsylvania papers all played it big, of course.

Some papers in or near Big Ten towns did too:

• Champaign-Urbana, Ill. (The News-Gazette)
• Evanston, Ill. (Chicago Sun-Times) — it was stripped across the top of the Tribune
• Iowa City, Iowa (The Des Moines Register)
• Ann Arbor, Mich. (The Detroit News and The Free Press)
• Minneapolis, Minn. (The Star Tribune and the (St. Paul) Pioneer Press)
• Lincoln, Neb. (the Lincoln Journal Star and the Omaha World-Herald)
• Columbus, Ohio (the Columbus Dispatch)
• West Lafayette, Ind. (the Journal and Courier)

And some didn’t, though there was still a presence on the front:

• Madison, Wisc. (the Wisconsin State Journal)
• East Lansing, Mich. (Lansing State Journal)
• Bloomington, Ind. (The Herald-Times)

It’s one line stripped across the top of the Birmingham (Ala.) News, but is the centerpiece of the Opelika-Auburn (Ala.) News.

The Bakersfield Californian played it huge on the front with five mugs showing those fired and charged, but refered to page 58 for the story. It’s not on the front of the L.A. Times.

Other papers with pretty big treatments are the Washington D.C. Express, the St. Petersburg Times, The (Bloomington) Pantagraph, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, lots of New Jersey papers, including the (Newark) Star-Ledger, and even the New York Times.

This also fits in the “topics I know almost nothing about” category.

There are a few confusing bits in the story about Apple’s iPhone collecting location data.

I downloaded the app and checked it out – there were a few out-of-place spots, but all in all it was relatively accurate. But, the points were all laid out on a grid, which I thought was odd (one, supposedly the locations were the phone’s position triangulated from cell towers, and two, even if the locations were the cell towers themselves, I’m pretty sure they’re not on an exactly laid out grid across metro and rural areas over three states). Additionally, the time progression of the app was broken down by week – I’d hoped it would be more granular. And finally, the points weren’t clickable or anything – you couldn’t tell anything about what time any of them was generated.

Luckily that page also gives instructions for digging through the raw data without the program, which I did.

Here I’ll repeat the preface that I don’t really know what I’m doing. But based on my amateur, inexperienced, unknowledgeable analysis of what I found, it appears the iPhone isn’t tracking so much as collecting.

Dataset

In my dataset of nearly 10,000 individual pairs of coordinates over 300 days, there were – as far as I could tell – no duplicate latitude-longitude pairs. None.

Additionally, during times when I traveled, many, many more data points were collected than usual. For example, almost a third of my 10,000 pairs were collected during a two-day trip to Chicago from St. Louis. Another 1,000 or so were collected during other out-of-town trips totaling another week or two.

So, nearly 4,000 of 10,000 data points, two-fifths, were collected in less than 30 days, one-tenth of the total time.

Based on the data, there are about 33 pairs per day, on average. Except that, as I said, about 4,000 points were collected over 23 days out of town, or about 175 points per day. That leaves 6,000 points collected over 277 days, or about 22 per day.

Analysis

Ok, so Chicago to St. Louis is about 300 miles. Double it for the round trip, 600. I won’t even tack on any for wandering around while I was there. Nearly 3,000 points for 600 miles. That’s about 5 points collected per mile traveled.

That seems ok. But the rest of the time? The 6,000 points over 277 days I spent in and around St. Louis? I put 5,000 miles on my car during that time. That’s just 1.2 points collected per mile.

Conclusion

So what’s the difference? The difference is that Chicago (and the ground covered between here and there) for two days is entirely new ground. The 5,000 miles in St. Louis is largely already-covered territory.

So, given the lack of duplicate points combined with the huge uptick in recorded points whenever the phone is in new territory, I think “tracking” is not the right word for the behavior. Tracking would imply recording a new point every time the phone moved, or a new point at a given time interval.

This seems a lot more like “collecting”. The phone seems to be collecting locations and associating them with cell towers. It doesn’t need to collect a place more than once (unless, probably, if something changes – the best tower servicing a given latitude/longitude).

This is probably an outdated analogy, but think of business cards: You collect business cards from contacts. Each time you meet a new contact, you’ll ask for their card. If you go to meetings and professional gatherings in your town, you might collect a new one now and then (both from the occasional new person in town as well as from someone who’s changed phone numbers or companies), but go to an out of town convention and you’ll come home with a thick stack, because you met a bunch of people whose cards you didn’t have.

The phone is collecting data about where it was at what time, and there’s no opt-out. That much seems clear. I’m not quite sure that automatically implies that it’s tracking its whereabouts all the time. I can’t wait to hear from people who really know what they’re talking about.

Welcome to “Musings On a Topic I Know Nothing About”, where I muse, discuss, ask questions about and generally BS for a while on a topic I know nothing about

Competitive Swimming & chemicals. How long have we been putting chemicals in the water where we swim competitively? Are there regulations about what chemicals to use and how much of them?

Someone defines the lane length and width, height of the starting platform, legality of suit materials, etc. Do they also regulate pool additives? How long have they been doing that, and was there a noticeable difference in records when they started?

Do the chemicals have any effect on the swimmers' speed? In other words, take your typical Olympic pool, and then one filled with water but with no chemicals added. Do the swimmers perform better, worse or the same?

My guess is that the effect is absent or so small as to be unnoticeable. But I don’t know… Hmm…

This has been “Musings On a Topic I Know Nothing About.”

The thing that is most disturbing to me about these videos of the tsunami hitting cities in Japan is not how overwhelming the damage is, but how inevitable. If there were these videos after the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, I missed them.

It was an idealized, humorous conception formed by Saturday morning cartoons, I'm sure, but while I realized a tsunami could be overwhelmingly destructive, I pictured it as the classic "giant wave" that you can perhaps see rushing toward you, and then suddenly everything is engulfed.

These scenes are much more horrifying. The water rises...and then just keeps rising. Keeps covering things that should not be covered. It moves benches and trash cans, then small cars. Then large trucks. Then, surely it couldn't be, but it is -- that building is moving -- very slowly at first, but as the current takes it, it picks up speed. A building.

Where minutes ago was dry land, sidewalks and roads is now covered with rushing, swirling, rising ink black water. I have, of course, seen the Mississippi out of its banks in St. Louis, but to imagine it happening in a matter of minutes -- and potentially just not stopping for 30 to 40 feet is entirely inconceivable.

A dream I occasionally have is a typical one, I think -- falling. Thing is, falling isn't like being shot or drowning or something sudden. You have time to contemplate what is happening, and to ponder the inevitable conclusion. I got the same dreadful, bile-filled feeling watching the tsunami videos as when falling in the dream. This thing, this terrible thing with a foregone conclusion is happening. You can't stop it or even mitigate it a little bit. It just is, and it will be until it is done and there is nothing for you to do but wait until the end.