That picture is Cliff Lee’s head in a trash can.

Because he was trashy last night on the mound. That’s why I MS Painted it into this post. It’s meant to be literal. Cliff Lee got the loss and gave up a bunch of runs when he was not supposed to give up a bunch of runs. It was not a pitcher’s duel last night. It was the opposite.

If I sound like a guy on Baseball Tonight, it’s because of the tone. They talk to us like we’re 4 years old and dad’s putting the ball on the tee for us to hack at. Why? Because baseball has a habit of making people sound like they don’t have a mothertrucking clue what they’re talking about. Everyone and their mother was telling you to settle into game 1 for a epic 0-0 struggle until dawn broke.

Final run total? 18.

Or about 17 more runs than the Cardinals scored in August.

Now the pendulum swings back the other way for pundits and prognosticators.  What a wild series this will be! Oh the runs! The sanctity of defense!!

You know what? We have 6 games max left to go in the 2010 baseball season. We didn’t expect to see Rambo Lee turn into Frank Stallone last night when he took the pill. But he did. And even thought the ratings were down 25% from 2009, I think the people watching the World Series this year are the same people that love baseball not because of the hype or hyperbole, but rather for the fact that any given game can produce something memorable.

Here’s to more misdirection and baffling play. We ain’t got much of it left.

It’s always fun for me to get marketing inquires about the site.

Why?

Because it really gives us some insight into what the people that read this crap are all about. So it comes as no surprise that the “World Series of Beer Pong” is having us run a contest on their behalf.

Questions:

What is Beer Pong? It’s a drinking game. If you really need to go to THIS WIKI to read the rules, this contest may not be for you.

What is the World Series of Beer Pong? It’s an organization giving away a bunch of prizes for being good at beer pong.

What is this event? Shannon’s Outfield (which will be closed and heated BTW) is hosting a satellite event on November 27th from 11a to 5p CST where the winner will be flown to Las Vegas with an all expenses paid trip to compete in the big Word Series of Beer Pong Finals competition. You can win up to 50,000 real dollars there. You can also win some great prizes here in the STL tournament.

What does it cost? 50 bucks per 2 person team. You’ll drink more than 50 bucks of beer that day. You will.

Other question you haven’t answered yet? Go to THIS WEBSITE for all the details. They’re only giving us so much.

SOOOOO…

I’ve got a free 2 person entry to give away. Let’s make it a contest.

Guess the final score of tonight’s SF vs TEX World Series Game 1 and you will win the free entry. This is transferable, so even if you want to give it away to someone else, that’s cool with me. You or they will be taken care of good by the World Series of Beer Pong people.

Post your guesses in the comments. Contest closes tonight @ 7p CST. Tell your friends or potential partners about this ASAP!

Also, a portion of the money raised will go to the Boys Hope Girls Hope charity. So don't feel too bad about having a big time.

We're not here to judge you.

You thought Mark McGwire did a good job as hitting coach for the St. Louis Cardinals in 2010. So did the Cardinals and they hired him back for another stint in 2011. You like this move.

The bigger question is... are you also on board with Mark's favorite TV show of all time?

STAMOS!

What ever happend to predictability?
The milk man, the paper boy, evening T.V.
You miss your old familar friends, but waiting just around the bend.

Everywhere you look (everywhere)
There's a heart (there's a heart)
A hand to hold on to.
Everywhere you look (everywhere)
There's a face of somebody who needs you.

When you're lost out there and your all alone
A light is waiting to carry you home
Everywhere you look.

What the fuck is this?

I'm not all het up about the quality of St. Louis fans, but the Phillies must know that their fans consist of a bunch of riotous assholes and the puker.

The Rams are amazing losers. They can lose big, then can lose small- they can lose them all! I'm torn between accepting the fact that the 2010 Rams are actually making watching their games entertaining and that the winning will come in a more consistent matter soon. But I'm also of the belief that losing winnable games in the midst of a terrible division race is pissing away a great opportunity. This team SHOULD be 5-2 right now with wins over AZ, Oakland and TB on the list of shoulda, coulda, woulda's. Instead they're 3-4 and I'm completely bummed about it...

Movie Snot: "The Kid Stays In The Picture"- I was tooling around on Video OnDemand and remembered hearing this documentary was fairly entertaining. It was. Robert Evans has had a damn interesting life. Punctuated by sleeping with every single woman on the face of the Earth. I mean the dude was literally hanging out a pool when some lady 'discovered' him. Next thing you know he's getting hate mail from Ernest Hemingway. And that's just the first 5 minutes of this beauty. You will hate and love Robert Evans. B...

No news with the Pujols deal is not good news...

Random Tweet of the weekend that made me feel good about myself...

I guess you can't argue with that, right? And yes, he was serious.

I was moaning about the Rams game. I noted that the Rams are good at losing. Tim decided to take his frustrations out on me. The same guy who Tweeted how in love I was with the Rams earlier in the game. But I digress...

Who else finds the whole Brett Favre dong-gate to be a little bit creepy. He's now apparently admitted to leaving some creepy VM's, but not to sending lewd pics. Then his wife gets on national TV with a priest to promote some sort of new book she has out about how to struggle through tough times? Priests, philandering husbands, stepford wives- I'm voting we get out of this rabbit hole before we start to remember #4 for something other than lousy interceptions...

The Dragon thinks it's false advertising if I drink Smart Water. He told me such...

Tony LaRussa has been ALL over the TV the past week with his goodwill media tour playing slap ass with all the Cardinals cover-ers and making them forget all about his surly nights this past summer. Plus he's got these Prop B commercials that I think are supposed to stop puppy killing or something. This dude is in my life way more than he needs to be...

Congratulations to the Tigers on beating the #1 team in the BCS on Saturday. I have no interest in OU or MU, but it was a crazy atmosphere in CoMo, I'm told. In fact, it was almost worth the 2:30 drive to be there last night. So I did the next best thing and rubbed bronzer all over myself and drove to Harpo's...

The Blues have gotten at least 1 point in 6 of the 7 they've played this season and should really be 6-1-0 at this point after blowing 2 games with 2-0 leads. This weekend they took out the past 2 Stanley Cup champions in back to back nights. I'd look at getting on board with this team...

Friday night I ordered Jimmy Johns. Decided to go with a French roll and forgo the cracked wheat bread. As usual, I ordered online. About 3 minutes after hitting send, my phone rang. It was Jimmy John's. They wanted to make sure I wanted French bread- since I usually get wheat. I don't know what this means, but it can't be good...

I know it’s been mentioned in various places before- but why does FOX insist on getting super facial close-ups of these baseball players when it gets to the post-season?

I’m not talking about sort of close-ups… I mean you’re freaking seeing their ingrown facial hairs close. I wouldn’t want to see these shots of gorgeous women; I really don’t want to see these of middle-aged Mexican men.  Perhaps FOX thinks that the drama is built through this camera direction. But it isn’t.

Oh, it isn’t.

Then again, I’m now intimately familiar with Freddy Sanchez’s lip mole. Perhaps that makes me a better person in the long run? Let’s hope so.

In non-dermatological baseball related commentary, it appears that both the ALCS and the NLCS are heading to Texas and Philly, respectively, with 3-2 advantages for the better underdogs a week ago. How the Giants are this far along in the post-season, I seriously have no idea. That line-up they put out there is just a bunch of guys that are not intimidating on any level to me. I mean, I guess Cody Ross is hot and I guess Buster Posey is a talent… but I mean, this is not a team that should be playing in the NLCS right now.

Should it? How did Pujols and Holliday not make it to the post-season? HOOOOWWWW?

In the AL, I was going to spout off about how I saw an HBO Real Sports piece once about how Mark Teixeira's whole workout is pretty much stretching every inch of his body... and then he goes and yanks a hammy in the ALCS. But then I found a HBO Real Sports piece on... wait for it...

THE TWISTER? Really? They sent Armen Keteyian to profile the biggest, baddest goon in St. Louis Blues history? Ooooo, let's watch:

The perfect way to start off a big weekend of Blues hockey. Well played HBO.

Now, the Friday Links

• Lesbians who look like Justin Bieber? LINK HERE (HT: Hippy)
• 6 death-defying stunts that are actually easy to do. LINK HERE
• Billboards improved on with some graffiti. LINK HERE
• How to wrestle an alligator. LINK HERE
• Pornographic pumpkin templates. Pornkins. Seriously. LINK HERE (NSFW)
• The most massive game of scrabble ever played. LINK HERE
• The bestest tombstones ever made. LINK HERE

So there you have it. Pornkins. If any of you pervs actually take the time to carve on of those suckers out, I'll give you 5 bucks and put a picture of it up on this site. You have my word.

Remember May? We were all cocky and confident that the Cardinals would cruise to the NL Central title, and the main concern was trying to build a team that could knock off the Phillies in the NLCS.

Man, they came so close...

Since that was a long time ago, let me refresh your memory. On May 6th, the Cardinals were 18-10 and the front office was counting down the days until they could hit the Print button on playoff tickets. It was the final game of a four-game series in Philly, and we had a huge pitching showdown between Roy Halladay and Kyle Lohse. Combine the two starters and you've got over $30 million dollars of 2010 salary, seven All Star games, and a Cy Young - plus you can add a perfect game and playoff no-hitter too. Holy shit, those two are amazing; what a match-up!!

But I, being the Cocky Bastard of the Year (nine years running), decided it would be smart to write this:

The Roy Halladay Beatdown Preview

Admittedly, I only wanted to post the picture of the chick wearing the Halladay shirt, and I didn't really care what my typing fingers produced. But after a 7-2 Cardinal loss, I looked like an ass, for probably only the first or second time that day.

I've been waiting for my chance to get redemption, Halladay, and today is the day. Yes, I respect your greatness. Yes, I'd "off" some important people to have you pitch for the Cardinals in 2011. But no one...NO ONE makes me look bad in an article that 100% of our readership forgot about already.

So let me officially state that Tim Lincecum will give Roy Halladay a resounding defeat tonight, to send the Giants to the World Series. (This time without everyone being on steroids! Especially Marvin Benard.)

Note: I promise to not write a third article when the Phillies win 11-0 and end up going to the Series.

And because I know what is going through the minds of our lovely readers, here's a pic of Roy's other half for your enjoyment/ridicule:

You want a hack blog post?

You got a hack blog post!

Tony LaRussa has a presser scheduled for later today where he will announce he is coming back to the Cardinals for the 2011 season. He also has an option for the 2012 if Albert Pujols is singed or something.

If you want in-depth analysis… well here it is: who were the Cardinals going to get that was better? Probably no one. Are we even sure that managers do anything anyway? Couldn’t you have gotten 86 wins out of the 2010 Cardinals?

Not to be flip, but getting a legit fourth starter and another bat in this line-up are more important than who the camera will catch furtive glances of when Kyle Lohse melts down in the fifth inning.

But TLR’s stay in St. Louis is nothing, if not historic. In fact, he’s been in St. Louis since 1996.

Nineteen Ninety SIX!

That’s a long time. So long, we’re going to do some half-ass Googling of what was going on in 1996 and blow your MIND.

The Year of LaRussa's Arrival -- 1996

+ The year 1996 was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. -- Mission accomplished!

+ Jamaican authorities open fire on Jimmy Buffett's seaplane, Hemisphere Dancer, mistaking it for a drug trafficker's plane. U2 singer Bono is also on the plane; no-one is injured. --  WHOA! Think of all the Landshark we would have missed out on.

+ Garth Brooks refuses to accept his American Music Award for Favorite Overall Artist. Brooks says that Hootie and the Blowfish had done more for music that year than he did. -- Think old Garth would like a mulligan on that one?

+ A Beijing court sentences former student leader Wang Dan, now 27, to 11 years in prison after a show trial in a sealed courthouse, silencing the last of the communist regime's prominent domestic critics. Wang played a major role in the Tiananmen Square democracy movement 7 years prior. -- I’m no poly-sci major… but when your last stand against the brutal iron fist of communism is ‘Wang Dan’, then you don’t have a prayer. Sure he’s a good family man, though.

+ President Clinton signs legislation August 20 raising the minimum wage from $4.25 to $4.75 --  I knew we were getting screwed on the Larry Bigbe deal. DAMN YOU BIGBIE!

+ The PalmPilot shipped in April, which fits into the palm of the hand, can connect the user to the Internet. -- The Palm Freaking Pilot? That one really drove home how long TLR has been here. Damn those things were awful.

+ Golfer Tiger Woods wins an unprecedented third consecutive United States Amateur tournament, quits Stanford to turn pro August 28, signs endorsement deals worth $60 million, and by October 20 has won two PGA Tour events. --  I imagine that Stanford is a breeding ground for sexual deviants? Is that the takeaway here?

+ Top of the Pops? Macarena -- Oh Macarena.

And finally…

+ There was no YouTube, Digg, Google, Twitter, Facebook, or Wikipedia. There was no instant messaging or online MP3′s. Amazon was just getting started and only sold books. --  HOW DID WE LIVE!?!?

Love him or loathe him, you'll have to live with him for at least one more year. 

Story HERE & HERE.

What do you think, Cardinal Nation?

So the Rams, right?

I don’t know if Sam Bradford is the sole reason the Rams are 3-3, but he’s a big reason. I’ve gone from cautiously optimistic about this dude to full on man-crush in a matter of 6 weeks. This Rams offense isn’t much different from the Rams offense in 2008 or 2009. And in fact, you could make a strong case that the receivers are worse than those years.

But instead of languishing at 0-6 or 1-5, the Rams are 3-3 and probably should be 4-2 or even 5-1. Why?

Bradford.

That dude oozes winning.  Some guys have it, most guys don’t. And so the Rams are probably going to end up at 6-10 or maybe 7-9 at the end of the season. But that’s a whole shit ton more wins than we’ve seen around here for a long time. And regardless, 2011 is going to be something to look forward to in a real way.

Plus, you want to see why drafting a QB is good for the NFL in STL?

That’s why.

Also, I was going to do a whole bit about Pujols jerseys and Bradford jerseys and a little side by side comparison, but I couldn’t find any good pics of people all wearing #5.

But I did find this picture from Sports Illustrated where Stan Musial appears to be addressing the crowd at Sportsman Park. Cool...