Between stops on the tour of interviews the Cardinals organized to introduce him as their first new leader of baseball operations in a generation, Chaim Bloom joked with a colleague how relieved he was to skip the customary to-do list for any incoming executive.

“I don’t have as Item 1 on my list to, like, introduce myself to everybody who works here,” Bloom said. “It is the start of a new phase. But in terms of, you know, my having both feet in on the St. Louis Cardinals ... feels more like a continuation.”

A year after the Cardinals announced Bloom would take over as president of baseball operations, he did formally Tuesday in a news conference the likes of which the Cardinals had not hosted in 18 years. Bloom spent most of the previous two years with the Cardinals as an adviser, first

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