Cardinals chairman Bill DeWitt insists the organization is not "permissive" about the presence of performance-enhancing drugs within the game but is ready to "move ahead" rather than fixate on findings that may or may not have been independently corroborated.

"I think we all agree the game has had a problem with certain substances. But I believe it's also fair to say Major League Baseball has reacted to the problem and taken steps to correct it," DeWitt said. "It's not something we condone. At the same time, you take it seriously, you address it and move on."

With five players cited, the Cardinals' is the only spring training clubhouse to have more than three players mentioned in the report, a statistic that has led to allegations of a laissez faire attitude within the organization.

"I don't think that's fair," Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak said Monday before heading to the team's game against the Washington Nationals. "If that's what some people want to write, they can run with it. But it's an inaccurate characterization."

"We did our due diligence," Mozeliak said about the Cardinals' research prior to signing Gonzalez to a conditional $750,000 contract on Feb. 4. "We asked ourselves: Is there something we're missing here? But obviously they were never able to prove anything as they didn't discipline him."

Spiezio and his wife, Jennifer Spiezio, went to dinner Dec. 30 at Ruth's Chris Steak House in Irvine. There, the player allegedly had six Grey Goose vodkas with cranberry juice while his wife drank champagne. After dinner, they went to Ten, a restaurant in Newport Beach, where together they ordered more vodka, food and an energy drink.

Spiezio left Ten alone in the couple's silver 2004 BMW 745 LI. A short time later, witnesses told police they saw the car speeding, cutting across lanes and crossing into oncoming traffic before driving over a curb and crashing into a fence at Campus Drive and Carlson Avenue.

When police arrived, they found Spiezio's iPhone and Louis Vuitton wallet in the car. In the wallet were Spiezio's Illinois drivers license and credit cards.

In the meantime, Spiezio called a friend in the condo complex and asked him to meet him downstairs. The friend, Robert Stuart, saw that Spiezio appeared drunk and that his right hand was bleeding so he took him to his condo. There, Stuart and another friend of Spiezio's — former minor league pitcher Mike Parisi (not the Mike Parisi who is now with the Cardinals) — tried to clean and put Neosporin on the wound. Stuart also told police he called Spiezio's wife and asked her to come help.

As the two men were helping Spiezio, he began vomiting. Parisi asked Spiezio why he couldn't make it to the toilet. Angered, Spiezio grabbed Parisi and began wrestling him. Parisi tried to protect himself and Spiezio said, "You know I can kick your ass."

After releasing Parisi, the reports says Spiezio hit him in the left eye and then pursued him. He grabbed Parisi again and threw him against a wall, causing a dent in the drywall, according to statements in the file.

The records gave this account: Jennifer Spiezio answered the door and said police couldn't speak to her husband because he was asleep, sick with pneumonia. She told them she would check on him but came back a minute later and said she didn't want to wake him.

After police told her they believed her husband had been injured in a crash, she said they could come in but that she wanted to wake him first. She returned crying, said he wasn't in the room and that she didn't know where he'd gone but that they could look for him.

Three officers went inside and couldn't find him. "However," one report reads, "there was what appeared to be a storage closet that we were unable to gain entry into. … It seemed that the door was being held shut from the inside, or was locked from the inside."

Another report read: "It is believed that Scott Spiezio was hiding behind this door."

JUPITER, Fla. -- The Cardinals will lend former pitcher Sidney Ponson a place and a mound to throw for scouts Thursday at lunchtime.

Ponson, who made 13 starts for the Cardinals in 2006, is said to have slimmed down to 245 pounds and cranked up his fastball to 91 mph.

Because he'll be on their spring-training campus, the Cardinals will have scouts in attendance, and they are interested is seeing what he has. "Just keep an open mind," manager Tony La Russa said.

3:28pm: Fielder gets $670K, to be exact.  Doug Melvin was surprised at Prince's public displeasure.

1:46pm: Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports that Prince Fielder is not pleased with his contract renewal, executed this morning.

Rumored to be in the $650,000 range, Fielder's agent, Scott Boras, indicated his client's displeasure. Ryan Howard's $900,000 contract for 2007 was cited as the figure the first baseman hoped to fetch for the season.  Fielder made $415,000 last season.

According to Haudricourt, the Brewers used a formula they go by for players with zero to three years experience, a formula which they also used to renew the 2008 contracts for Ryan Braun and Corey Hart.  While the amount of Hart's renewal is unknown, Braun's contract was renewed at $455,000. Haudricourt goes on to conjecture that this morning's renewal has hurt the Brewers' chance of negotiating a multi-year deal with Fielder before he is arbitration-eligible next winter.

Haudricourt has predicted that Fielder will pull roughly $10MM if his case goes to arbitration, in light of Howard's recent arbitration victory.

Upsetting the youngest player to reach 50 HRs seems like an unwise decision on the Brewers' part.  It would be nice to lock up a player of Fielder's talent long-term, but it seems the Brewers have made that prospect less likely.

SARASOTA, Fla. (AP)—Cincinnati Reds shortstop Alex Gonzalez has a broken knee.

Team physician Dr. Timothy Kremchek examined Gonzalez on Friday and said the infielder has a compression fracture on his left knee. Gonzalez will be evaluated again in three weeks.

Cincinnati said this week that Gonzalez was expected to miss the first few spring training games because the knee was sore. He sat out an intrasquad scrimmage Tuesday with a bone bruise in the knee. It also bothered him at the end of last season.

Gonzalez hit .272 with 16 homers and 55 RBIs in his first season with the Reds. He didn’t start a game after Sept. 12 because of a bone bruise in the same knee.

Earlier this week, Milwaukee Brewers manager Ned Yost told reporters he might bat Jason Kendall ninth this season, behind the pitcher. On Tuesday, St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa announced his pitchers would bat eighth all season.

Why are managers flying in the face of baseball convention?

I first encountered this strategy in a paper by Tom Ruane, who used Markov models to determine the optimum lineup for each league:

“I did notice that there are a lot of lineups as productive as the traditional ones that would look very odd to players, fans and the sporting press. A lot of the lineups near the top of many of these lists feature pitchers (in the NL) hitting other than last, as well as other weird orderings.”

JUPITER, Fla. – Albert Pujols walks into the St. Louis Cardinals’ clubhouse with Ace bandages wrapped around nearly his entire torso, pecs to pelvis. He eases into a seat and spoons yogurt into his mouth. He uses his hands to help him stand and meanders over to his locker, where trainer Barry Weinberg awaits. It’s 8:03 a.m.

Pujols should give Weinberg a promise ring, if not a full-blown platinum band, for all the time they spend together. Plantar fasciitis, lingering hamstring trouble, a strained ligament in his throwing elbow – Pujols, at 28 years old, is a walking cornucopia of injuries and ailments, and Tuesday, not even two weeks into spring training, he complained to Weinberg of general discomfort.

“Take it light,” Weinberg said. “I want you to stay the course.”

“I was sore,” Pujols said. “I won’t do that again.”

Wait, Jason Kendall's a Brewer? The state that gave us Ed Gein and Jeffrey Dahmer now houses Jason Kendell? When the fuck did this happen?

Newly acquired catcher Jason Kendall caught reliever Derrick Turnbow in Saturday's workout, the first day pitchers threw to batters and actually did a little more than just spot fastballs, and gave a glowing review to manager Ned Yost and the media.

"The ball explodes out of his hand," Kendall said Sunday morning. "He threw the ball real well. He hit his spots and he's fun to catch. I was very impressed."

Yost said some of Turnbow's problems last season were caused by him rushing his delivery and not making the adjustments to correct the faulty mechanics. Turnbow would sometimes rush his delivery, leaving his arm dragging behind and never finding his release point. The results were high, flat pitches.

"It's all about getting to that release point," Yost said. "If he slows down during those periods and makes his adjustments, he's going to be lights out."

Manager Ned Yost has said for a week that he has a brain-full of ideas when it comes to his batting order, but it is way too early to commit to any one of them.

But one of the most interesting of possible orders would have Ryan Braun batting second, a pitcher batting eighth and catcher Jason Kendall batting ninth. This idea isn't set yet, and it may not ever be used. It is just one of a flurry of ideas whizzing around inside the skipper's head. St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa has done this some during the last few seasons.

Yost's reasoning is that he wants Braun to have more plate apperances, but still be able to have guys on in front of him. So with Kendall's ability to see pitches and get on base, it would essentially translate to Braun still batting third while racking up about 40 more plate appearances, as stats show. In this lineup, Prince Fielder would bat third in the order, but it would be like having him in the clean-up slot.

"Common sense tells me you want your best hitters to have the most at-bats," Yost said.

For a more detailed explanation of the theory, check out our spring training notebook in tomorrow's JS.

With the passion of a baseball man and the arguments of a lawyer — he's both — La Russa steadfastly refuses to believe that Mark McGwire used performance-enhancing drugs. He manages five players in spring training who were implicated in the Mitchell Report — three more than any other team in baseball. He tried to bring in Barry Bonds, endorsed the signing of Juan Gonzalez and compares McGwire to Roger Clemens as if it were a good thing.

And makes no apologies about any of it.

I interrupted him.

"Wait a minute, Tony. You still don't believe McGwire used performance-enhancing drugs?"

"Absolutely not."

"Come on."

"Absolutely not," he said. "If you see Mark today, he still looks like he did then."

"No, he doesn't," I said.

"Yes, he does," La Russa said.

"No, he doesn't," I repeated.

La Russa tossed his hands in the air and looked at me in frustration. "Are you asking for my opinion or yours?" he said.

"I'm asking your opinion," I said. "But we're having a conversation, and I'm disagreeing with you."

Yeah, because ignoring the intangibles of being a statue in LF, being a complete dickwad, and facing Fed charges all for the sake of your favorite stat is a good way to build a baseball team

The possibility of free agent home run king Barry Bonds hitting behind Albert Pujols in the Cardinals' batting order remained intriguing enough this winter for manager Tony La Russa to take the idea to general manager John Mozeliak and team owners a second consecutive year, La Russa confirmed Sunday.

nd for a second straight winter, the idea died in committee.

"When you look at somebody dangerous to hit behind Albert, Barry was the guy I thought of," La Russa acknowledged before Sunday's workout. "For whatever reason, at the general manager or the ownership level, they didn't agree."

Try this: Prince Fielder is a vegetarian.

That 6-foot, 260-pound build is powered by wheatgrass, soy and tofu nowadays. No meat. Not even fish.

A distinct buzz followed former MVP Juan Gonzalez and his batting-practice rockets Tuesday as he joined the St. Louis Cardinals for their first official full-squad workout of spring training the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

The Cardinals signed the 38-year-old outfielder to a minor-league contract and invited him to spring training. There is a spot open on the team for a righthanded power-hitting outfielder, and the Cardinals became intrigued by first-hand accounts this winter of Gonzalez's health and what coach Jose Oquendo called "a renewed desire." After his first day of what could be his last chance at a big-league return, Gonzalez said he's fit and eager to improve on the wealth of numbers he produced as an RBI juggernaut in the 1990s. Numbers, he insisted, he produced cleanly.

"Because you have goals in your mind, you're trying to come back to finish your goals," Gonzalez said. "I'm close to 500 home runs and 400 doubles. It's the goals. When you have goals in your mind, you try inside your heart to try again and see what happens."

NEW YORK (TICKER) —Major League Baseball on Wednesday suspended St. Louis Cardinals minor league pitcher Scott Vander Weg for the first 50 games of the 2008 season for violating the league’s drug prevention and treatment program.

The righthander went 5-5 with a 4.12 ERA in 63 games out of the bullpen for Class A Palm Beach of the Florida State League last season.

Under league rules, the 50-game suspension is the penalty for first-time offenders. Two-time offenders receive a 100-game ban while a third offense is a lifetime ban.