BASEBALL; The Cards are a collapsible deck

The old saw about baseball's being 80 percent pitching never rang more true. Just look at the cellar-dwelling St. Louis Cardinals, who should be miles ahead of everybody based strictly on their hitting statistics. The Cardinals not only own baseball's best team batting average, but five .300 hitters as well -- Ken Reitz, Keith Hernandez, Ted Simmons, George Hendrick, and Garry Templeton.

Where St. Louis runs into problems, of course, is on the mound. The club's combined 4.34 earned-run average is easily the worst in the National League.