ST. LOUIS, MO -- The St. Louis Cardinals will have to face the Reds without a second baseman tonight because Mark Grudzielanek refuses to stop watching the first-season DVD of “Who's the Boss?” long enough to take the field.

Reds' first-base coach Randy Whisler, a big fan of Tony Danza who played Tony Macelli on the show, presented the DVD to Grudzielanek before the game this afternoon for good luck going into the postseason. Whisler knew the gift would be popular.

“But I didn't think he'd refuse to play because of it,” said Whisler. “That certainly wasn't my plan all along.”

But not everyone in the Cardinals clubhouse was excited about the gift. Grudzielanek and David Eckstein nearly came to blows when Eckstein questioned Macelli's manliness.

“Dude, he lives with this broad for like, five years and never gets any action?” Eckstein teased. “What's up with that?”

In fact, “Who's the Boss?” ran for eight years, and only in the last season did Macelli and Angela Bower (played by Judith Light) even acknowledge their feelings for each other. This is among the many tidbits Grudzielanek will happily share about the program that he calls “deep and inspirational.”

“The lessons I learned from Samantha and Jonathan have been invaluable to me in my life,” says Grudzielanek. “Tony was so wise, and Angela was so strong. Oh, and that wacky Mona!”

“Even it's theme song has a message. 'There's the path you take and the path not taken, the choice is up to you, my friend.' That is so true.”

Grudzielanek says his connection to the show is due to the fact that Danza's character had also played second base for the Cardinals on the show before taking a job as Angela's housekeeper. He hopes to continue following in Macelli's footsteps.

“Maybe some day I'll find my Angela,” he said with a sigh.

Grudzielanek is expected to be back on the field to contribute to the Cardinals' massive late-season collapse Saturday or after the one where Tony walks in on Angela in the shower.