ST. LOUIS, Mo. (May 28, 2013) – The St. Louis Cardinals announced that Social Media Night in the Budweiser Bowtie Bar at Busch Stadium June 4^th will focus on fan engagement, including giving fans the opportunity to take over the team’s twitter account (@Cardinals) for the game.

“Like radio in the early days of baseball, social media enables fans to follow the team, but with a modern twist that allows them to also be the voice of the Cardinals,” said Ron Watermon, Director of Public Relations. “We thought it would be fun to let fans in our ‘Twitter booth’ to help us call the game.”

The Cardinals will allow fans to tweet the play-by-play and story of the game during Social Media Night by selectively re-tweeting fans that include the hashtag #STLFanTakeover in their tweets.

Fans who buy a special ticket to the Social Media Night event at Busch Stadium will receive access to a pre-game Q&A program featuring Cardinal players who are active on social media. All fans may submit their questions for the players prior to the event via the Cardinals Facebook page (facebook.com/cardinals) and Twitter (@Cardinals, #CardsSocial).

Social Media Night is a great chance for fans of all ages to interact with their favorite “tweeting Birds” face to face, as well as engage with other fans and team officials. In keeping with the fan engagement theme, the team ran a social media contest on Tumblr to have fans design and select the t-shirt that will be given out as part of Social Media Night. For $25, fans receive a Left Field Porch Ticket for the 7:15 p.m.game between the Cardinals and Arizona Diamondbacks, access to the pre-game program featuring Cardinal players, the fan designed t-shirt, the chance to win autographed prizes and more. Tickets are still available at cardinals.com/socialmedianight. Social Media Night is presented by Budweiser.

Social Media Night at Busch Stadium is one of several unique personalized theme ticket promotions planned for the 2013 season.  Theme tickets are customized promotions that allow a select number of fans to celebrate a common interest while enjoying access to a unique promotional item and/or an exclusive pregame event.  Fans can learn more about Cardinals theme nights at cardinals.com/theme.

Welcome back to the annual Progressive Game Blog.  For the last four years, the United Cardinal Bloggers have come together to tell the story of an entire game from multiple voices on multiple sites.

This year, not only will you find the voices of many members of the UCB, you will also find some of our friendly Mets bloggers describing the game from their own standpoint.  You can read all of the entries by following along through the main “index” post over at the official UCB Site.

I-70 Baseball will bring you the third inning of today’s game as will Mets Fans For Life.

The Cardinals come to the plate in the top of the third down by three runs as the Mets plated three in the bottom of the second (read about the second inning over at Cards N Stuff.  Young centerfielder Shane Robinson will look to get the Redbirds started in front of pitcher Lance Lynn and the top of the order.

A Texas League single to right put the lead off man on board but an all to familiar story unfolded with Lance Lynn at the plate.  On three consecutive pitches, Lynn was unable to push a bunt into fair territory, and the opportunity to move the runner up 90 feet passed the Cardinals by.  Unable to move the runner into scoring position or out of a force play situation proves once again to be fatal as lead off hitter Rafael Furcal grounds into an inning-ending double play.  Give Shane Robinson credit for a solid attempt to break up the double play as Daniel Murphy attempted to make the turn.

A quick aside as we wait for the bottom of the third inning to play out: I don’t think I have seen any other team in baseball represented as well on the road as the St. Louis Cardinals.  No matter what city they visit, there is almost always a strong representation of Cardinal red in the crowd.  Not to be out done in New York, there is a young lady sitting directly behind the plate sporting the familiar bright red cap adorned with the white STL logo.

What Lynn lacks in ability to drop a bunt, he more than makes up for on the mound.  After a rough second inning, he took the mound to face the middle of the Mets’ order, starting with cleanup hitter Lucas Duda.  After falling behind Duda, Lynn battled back to get him to fly out to left fielder Matt Holliday.  Daniel Murphy would follow with a fly ball towards the right-center field gap, but the defensive positioning was in place to make it a routine out for Carlos Beltran.  Young Mets first baseman Ike Davis would fall behind in the count early and yet work a walk out of Lynn.  After falling behind shortstop Omar Quintanilla, Lynn battles back for his second strikeout of the game and keeps the Mets from causing any more damage.

Working deep into counts is hurting Lynn early on in this game and his pitch count is climbing to out of control proportions as he closes the third with 71 pitches, 41 of which are strikes.  At this rate, the game will soon be in the hands of the Cardinals’ bullpen.  It feels strange to say that any game in the hands of this bullpen is a major concern at this point.  If the Cardinals hope to pull this one out, they will need to get some offense going and some efficient innings for their starter.

Head over to Rally Birds to check out the top of the fourth inning.  Thanks for stopping by our corner of the Cardinals web-o-sphere to check out or commentary.  Here’s hoping this game turns around quickly.

For starters it can get you five to eight years (at 30 per) of the best player in baseball. It could get you another five or so years of roughly 328/43/127. At the very least it will get the Cardinals another 2.5 million fans through the turnstiles and continued jersey sales.

Come this November John Mozeliak is going to have a big decision to make. This decision ties directly into Mozeliak’s future with the Cardinals. The direction Mo and management choose to go with all that loot will determine whether he is the next Joe McDonald or Dal Maxvill. Perhaps the question should read “what should you get with $30 million” rather than what do you get.

Bill Dewitt is the father to Mozeliaks’ son. The situation reminds me of a father who gives his son a $50 bill and tells him he can spend it any way he wants…as the boy walks away the father yells from a distance but don’t spend it all in one place! Granted the scale is different. It is a lot easier to recover from misspending $50 as opposed to $30 million. But if there is a more fitting analogy for the upcoming Cardinals offseason, please someone tell me.

Should the Cardinals choose to invest the money into one player, Albert Pujols, it’s an easy sell to the fans. You keep the best player in baseball in St. Louis and make sure he retires wearing the Birds on a Bat. You create a reason to turn in and come out to the games. The marketing slogan writes itself, “Come out and watch Albert’s assault on the records books.” The fans will file in and the Cardinals will win some games.

The danger in this is a return to the McGwire era. A time when the Cardinals were relevant not for winning pennants or competing for the World Series but for their dominating super star. The games were must see TV and the team set attendance records year after year. And it is safe to say profits were up for Dewitt & Co. Well for myself and many other fans being relevant and winning some games is not enough.

Which leads to the another answer to the initial question. Follow the father’s advice and spread the money around. $30 million can get the Cardinals one player, a 3-time MVP. It can also get them two more years of a Cy Young winning pitcher, two to three years of a switch hitting 5-time All Star and either a legit middle of the rotation starting pitcher or an actual closer.

Anyone who has watched the Cardinals blow 24 saves and struggle behind Chris Carpenter is torn between rectifying those issue and locking up Pujols long term. From a logical, baseball point of view it should be an easy decision. As nice as it is to have the best player in baseball, the best player of a generation, perhaps the best hitter of all time a Cardinal, winning a World Series takes precedence.

As much as I wish the choice was mine, it is not. It is up to a group of individuals as concerned with profits as they are with winning. They will make the decision which way to invest more with their wallets than their hearts. Will it be Albert Pujols or will it be Chris Carpenter, Lance Berkman and Heath Bell.

Either way Cardinal faithful will fill the seats at Busch. But for how long. It has been four years (with Pujols) since the Cardinals last won a playoff game. If the empty seats this season are any indication, the fans are tired of mediocre baseball. The real question is, are the owners?

These are just my thoughts…keep on reading and you’ll get up to speed.

Derek is on Twitter @SportsbyWeeze and also writes for the Rams at RamsHerd.com
Also on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/SportsByWeeze