For my fellow Yadi fans

Authoritative, no?

I know there are plenty of you out there who, like me, are big fans of Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina. (If you're ever at the same Cards game as me, I'll be one of the 4,000 or so twenty somethings wearing a Molina jersey.) You may or may not know that Yadi was is on the front cover of the current ESPN The Magazine looking quite authoritative.

The story was written by the granddaughter of Yogi Berra (assuming here that Lindsay is a girl), so you have to believe she had a little insight into the mind of catcher going in to preparing for and writing the story. For what it's worth, I would have enjoyed the story even if my love for Yadi was significantly less because it is well written.

My favorite line from the story, which you can read here, was actually a quote from Kyle Lohse:

"Last year, I shook Yadi off only four times," says Cardinals starter Kyle Lohse. "And I gave up three hits."

(How do we explain this year then? Yikes.)

I learned a few new things along the way as well. For example, I think Dave Duncan's theory that the reason Yadi is so good at calling games is because he did it growing up instead of than relying on a coach to call pitches from the dugout makes a lot of sense.

It reminded me of a game I covered a few weeks ago involving the Jackson Senior Babe Ruth team that just narrowly missed a regional title this week. I was surprised to learn that Jackson catcher Bret Steffens called every pitch of Garrett Fritsche's shutout and has been calling his own games for years. The two players couldn't stop giving each other enough credit for the performance with Fritsche saying he never shook Steffens off the entire game.

I'm really not sure how common or uncommon that is, but it is something to think about. Of course, something tells me Yadi would've been OK either way.