Yesterday, the Cardinals celebrated the demise of Busch Stadium in their typical style. Lassie did doughnuts in centerfield in his truck (I’m not making that up) and Ray King did doughnuts (intravenously) in the clubhouse.

The Cubs’ season has been over so long, we’ve almost forgotten what happened. Yes, it’s been kind of nice. But come on, you don’t want to forget completely. Nah. So here it is, the completely updated “I resent the inference” for 2005, from the start of Spring Training to the final day of the season.

But wait, there’s more! We’re having it published into more costly book form. It’ll be ready as a handy stocking stuffer for anyone you don’t really care about. I’ll let you know when it’s available. I’m sure you’re on pins and needles with anticipation.

Corey Patterson still hasn’t decided whether or not to play baseball this winter. I’m pretty sure the reason he hasn’t decided is because the Cubs haven’t been able to find a winter league team willing to play him.

He sat down with the “lovely” Carrie Muskat in Mesa, Arizona where he’s watching fall league games involving his brother and trying to teach Eric how to swing at and miss pitches thrown both over his head and in the dirt. He’s truly trying to make his little brother a multi-dimensional K victim, just like him.

“It’s nobody’s fault. I did it,” Patterson said in an interview in Mesa, Ariz., where he was watching his brother, Eric, play in the Arizona Fall League. “Sometimes you have to make things simple and get back to basic stuff.”

What is so complicated? If a pitched ball is heading either a) over your head or b) burrowing it’s way under home plate…don’t swing at it. This is not rocket science.

I know, I’ve seen all of the episodes of “From the Earth to the Moon” and not once did hitting a baseball come into it. Sure, there was the guy who liked to bounce the ball off the outside of the building, but nobody was trying to hit it.

Cubs’ minor league swinging and missing hitting coach, Dave Keller, said he felt Corey learned a lot during his (all too) brief time in the minors this year.

“How many guys will come to Arizona in July?” Keller said. “We hit in that cage and it’s 115 degrees and we’re hitting on the field, and it was hot. It was smokin’ hot. We worked.

“There were drills I wanted to do with him just to figure out where his balance was, just to figure out where he was with all his movement,” Keller said. “There were some drills he didn’t like, and some he liked. We tried to use the drills he liked to help him get to another stage in his swing. It’s hard — you can’t just go tell somebody, ‘You need to change, and I want you to make this move with your body.’ It’s very, very hard physically to get guys in the right position. The first thing you’re going to want to do is revert back to your old habits.”

Well, it certainly worked.

Wow, look at that improvement! It was like an all-new Corey. Tremendous. I wish this guy could work with all of the Cubs’ hitters.

Keller was very impressed with Corey’s ability:

“It’s amazing to think he can create that much bat speed and that much leverage with the body he has. That’s why he has special ability.

“Everybody I talked to — and this shouldn’t be taken negatively — I’ve never been around a player that small who has that much bat speed, that much hand-eye coordination, that much power,” Keller said of Patterson. “The ball jumps off his bat.”

I think we’d like to see this “special ability” that Corey has. What we’ve seen is a guy who has a special ability to forget where the strike zone is and the perfected skill of never trying to get to first base on a dropped third strike. Those are the “special” things we see from Corey.

Corey says he knows his strengths and weaknesses.

“I know I can do everything in this game. I know I need to work on my hitting.”

Apparently, delusion is one of his greatest strengths. He knows he can do everything, but he knows he can’t hit. Great?

Eventually, Patterson will join teammate Michael Barrett, who has established a baseball camp in the Atlanta area. Cubs Minor League infielder Richard Lewis also was expected to participate.

That should be quite the camp. Michael will teach young catchers how to avoid getting in front of pitches in the dirt and he’ll show them the worst possible time to call for a breaking pitch. Richard Lewis will teach campers how to perform the perfect pop-up slide, where you hit the bag just right to force your leg up and force your tibia through the skin. Corey will be there as a camper, not as an instructor.

Keller asks himself the $64,000 question.

“That’s the big question — is this guy salvageable? Does this guy still have a chance to be a big league player?

You can imagine what he thinks. Of course, we know the sad truth. He’s wrong.