Cardinals to Particpate in Strange Pitch to Save Earth ... For an Hour

Yesterday I received a curious e-mail about a press conference at Busch Stadium scheduled for 2 p.m. this afternoon. The event sounded so preposterous that I immediately responded to the sender with the query: "Is this for real?"

No, no! Came the reply from St. Louis marketing firm Geile/Leon. The event is very real and the folks at Geile/Leon are very excited about it. (Of course, marketing firms are paid to be very excited about many things.)

So here's the skinny: Today at the ballpark St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay, St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley, Cardinals president Bill DeWitt III and Gieile/Leon representatives will gather to endorse this year's "Earth Hour" to be held March 28.

For those of you who recall when Earth had an entire day and not just an hour, allow me to explain: Earth Hour was started a few years ago in Australia and encourages people around the globe to turn off their lights for an hour to raise awareness for climate change. Apparently it's really caught on, and this year the Cardinals will switch off the lights at Busch Stadium from 8:30 to 9:30 on March 28.

How this will make any difference in the global-warming debate is beyond me, seeing how Busch Stadium has no events scheduled for March 28. A truer commitment to global warming would be if the Cardinals switched off the lights during an actual game. Now that would immediately "raise the awareness" of about 40,000 people left seated in the dark.