CINCINNATI, OH -- The St. Louis Cardinals forfeited tonight's contest just hours before game time when a bizarre series of events left their line-up in tatters.

The first of the unusual occurrences happened late this morning when Cardinals' shortstop David Eckstein was abducted by an unidentified elderly woman while he was jogging. Witnesses report that the woman put the diminutive infielder in her purse and wandered off, mumbling about her collection of Hummel miniature figurines. Eckstein is presumed to be in no immediate danger unleess he draws the attention of the old lady's cats.

The rest of the visiting Cardinals fanned out throughout the city in search of their teammate. That's when an atypically large yellow canary flew overhead, catching the attention of Cardinals' young catcher, Yadier Molina. Molina mistook the canary for his favorite television character, Big Bird, and took after the canary in pursuit of an autograph. Molina was last seen sprinting down Mehring Way singing “Come and play, everything's A-OK!” at the top of his lungs.

“That's a risk you run with such young players,” explained Cardinals' manager, Tony La Russa. “You'd never see that happen with our outfielders.”

However, something did happen with an outfielder, unfortunately for the Cardinals. While running to stop Molina, center-fielder Jim Edmonds was the victim of a well-placed load dropped by the canary. Edmonds then hurried back to his hotel room and has refused to emerge ever since, except to demand a box of Just for Men to cover up the mess.

The forfeit brings the Reds' winning streak to two and is certain to compound the team's momentum.

“Looks like we finally got a break,” said Reds' second-baseman Ryan Freel. “Of course, we were going to beat them anyway. This is just better because now I don't have to risk my sore toe tonight while we were kicking their butts.”