The Cardinals marketing department must have a different dictionary than the rest of us.

Legends: Legends are people that, because of the tie to a historical event or location, are believable, although not necessarily believed.

In other words, Legends are borderline unbelievable… but true. In the context of sporting, I’ll take this to mean the greatest of the great. The men who accomplished feats, broke records and inspired thousands of fans to melt by their performances.

You know, like John Mabry.

You might think that Mabry was just another pretty average ball player that had a couple of year under contract with the Cardinals amongst other teams. But when it comes to selling you entry into a paid fantasy camp?

John Mabry = LEGEND!

Would it be cool to shoot the shit with former Cardinal players and get a Cardinals uniform with ‘Hooks’ on the back? Yes. Yes it would.

Do I believe for a second that a conversation with Ricky Horton around BP is going to be a story I can tell my grandkids? No. No I don’t.

So let’s reign in the hyperbole, Cardinals Marketing. We get it. You want to sell people more stuff that they don’t need and make some of the money back you lost by flopping in 2010. Let’s just try to get a bit more real about the situation.

Life is a marathon, folks, not a sprint.

Bonus: Cardinal fan or player I'm not able to identify.

We like to put images on posts to make them POP.

Actually, we do it because it's scientifically proven that Americans do like words. They like pictures of Jen Sterger's rack and Brett Farve's dong. And when they see a bunch of words, it's lights out for the site. Gimme TMZ nom nom nom!!!

95% of the time we just go to Google Images or Bing and type in "Cardinals" and hope for something funny to come up. Copy the URL, insert into article editor... and BAM- you've got yourself a post that people won't dump out of after the first paragraph.

But a funny thing happened on the way to hack blogging 101- every time you don't specify 'St. Louis Cardinals' in the search box, a whole ton of Arizona Cardinals pictures pop up. Everything from Max Hall to University of Phoenix Stadium with TLR or Big Mac sprinkled in. And for the past couple of months, I've just kind of made a mental note of how weird this was and then made my search more specific.

Then, yesterday, it hit me.

The Arizona Cardinals... they're actually MORE RELEVANT than the St. Louis Cardinals.

Maybe it's because I work in the Internet field, but I know that Google has one goal and one goal only- to get you the most relevant result for whatever you put in that box. And over the course of the past four years, the AZ Cards and not the STL Cards have been more relevant to not only Google, but the sporting world as a whole.

Blasphemy?

Not so fast.

The AZ Cardinals, since 2007 have made the playoffs twice and currently lead their division. In the same time span, the STL Cardinals have been to the playoffs only once and it ended with an embarrassing exit. Take into account the opening of a new state of the art stadium, the power of the NFL in the overall sports landscape and a confluence of stars like Kurt Warner and Larry Fitzgerald ...

Holy Shit! The AZ Cardinals aren't just gaming the system- they actually have eclipsed the STL Cards in pretty much every-one's eyes, sans us. The ones closest to the situation.

To be blunt- this is alarming and awful. The STL Cards have the best player in baseball. They have some of the best fans in sports. But Google runs the world and Google has decided that the AZ Cardinals are the ones people want when they come for 'Cardinals'.

If you need more proof that the past 3 years have defied expectations in all the wrong ways, then look no further than the sweet search algorithms of Silicon Valley.

Ugh.

Many of you have been asking about Tony LaRussa’s decision these past couple of days. When’s he going to make it? What’s it going to look like? Who gets custody? All of those things.

Oh, we don’t know if he’ll be coming back to manage. I’m sure he’ll figure that out soon enough.

We’re talking about his other decision… to keep the baby he’s made with The Jersey Shore star Mike ‘The Situation’ Sorrentino.

A CD exclusive reveals what the sordid love child would look like. Click the ‘Read More’ to see. no comments

Just as we planned, there only needed to be three "No Sympathy For The Reds" articles here at the CD. It was really hard to root for the Phillies, but any team that steamrolls the Redlegs in three straight gets a nod of appreciation from us. You know, I think I remember a three game set not too long ago where a team swept the Reds - they rose to the occasion, featured dominant pitching and had timely hitting. Nah, I'm probably just misremembering things again...

Man, who saw this Scott Rolen, 1 for 11 with 8 K's performance coming? The Reds pitchers could have done that.

And as for Aroldis Chapman, he's an incredible talent. But we've seen over the last couple weeks of the regular season and playoffs, he's definitely human. For the Cardinals: let's not act like you're holding toothpicks in your hand next year when you face this guy. Start taking notes, you'll be facing him for a long time.

Uh oh, some DoubleStuf Oreos were demolished at around 11pm last night.

Sorry Harry Potter, the magic is over. /rimshot

Of course, some assclown Phillies Sign Guy had to be there...

A priest, Von Hayes, and this guy walks into a bar...

Yes he's wearing batting gloves and wristbands, why would you think otherwise?

See you next year Brandon. I'm sure you'll be working on that NL Central Champion ring tomorrow morning.

Be sure to check out our other two entries of "No Sympathy For The Reds":

Orlando Cabrera Edition

Horrible Defense Edition 

If America thought the NL Central was a joke before the playoffs started, the Reds didn’t do much to discourage that notion as they got manhandled by Philadelphia in three non-competitive games. If people were inclined to give the NL MVP to Joey Votto simply because his team was able to pull its collective self from the quagmire of non-DH baseball played in the Midwest, then perhaps they can also take that vote away? It won’t happen, unfortunately.  Oh, and that no hitter by Roy Halladay? Not that impressive in retrospect. I vote for an asterisk since it was against this feeble Reds team…

What’s the proper bandwagon analogy for the Rams? The ‘wheels coming off’ isn’t strong enough. Perhaps careening into a dynamite factory with no wheel s tossing sparks everywhere? Maybe spontaneously combusting into ether and re-incarnating itself as regret and self-loathing? Whatever it is- we are there. A truly humbling loss to the previously winless Detroit Lions gives any whiff of the NFC West crown we thought they could have an odiferous stench…

Hammer Time…

Do you play fantasy football? I do. And I hate every single moment of it. You agonize over decisions all week that you can’t fully commit to until 10:30 on Sunday morning when you find out if all the guys on the injury report will or won’t play. Then you make the wrong decisions and get pissed or you barely win and you don’t feel joy, just a bit of relief. I like to think that I have some sympathy for NFL coaches because I know what they go through every week. We’re like brothers almost. Those guys got tough jobs…

I bet that Rangers and Rays series would be fun to watch if they didn’t start every game at 8 am…

I know the BCS will say that everyone arguing about the polls makes each week like a ‘playoff’ in the regular season, so they don’t need a real playoff to decide the national champion.  And that’s not a completely invalid argument. But it’s also kind of like drinking O’Doul’s; a flawed concept that brings you no ultimate resolution. The NFL is great because we get a champion at the end of the year and no one can really argue if it’s the right 2 teams that are in the Super Bowl. I’ve always said that CFB, with its natural rivalries and true passion, could be better than the NFL if it had a playoff system.  Imagine Michigan/OSU or Texas/Oklahoma for the championship? That’d be INSANE…

A movie about Facebook. #1 in America two weeks in a row now. Farmville, the most successful online game of all time. Started on Facebook. People, please bring me your ideas on how we can make money off of Facebook so we can get on with our filthy rich lives…

We’ve got a guy at the office who for the 2 years he’s worked here has an unblemished streak of awful ringtones. He’s not a bad guy, but if you just knew him by his ringtones, you’d hate his guts with a burning passion…

The Cardinals are thinking about trading Colby Rasums are they? Well if you’re wondering about what Tony LaRussa’s decision is going to be, I’d stop. At this point if TLR isn’t back for his sixteenth season (yeah- it gets a driver’s license) then it’d be a monumental upset. I know the haters are going to flood the interwebs with hate when it’s official, but really, who is better out there? TLR, love or hate him, is still a better option than most people that could realistically take this job…

Before any weenie Reds fans jump into the comments section, let me say one thing - yes, I'm a bitter Cardinals fan. And yes, I'm bitter that the Cards aren't in the playoffs right now. We all are; you don't have to remind anyone around here.

But I sure enjoy the fact that I'm up late on a Friday night writing this, knowing that the Reds have one more game to go until their season is dunzo. I really had no intention of shit-talking on the Reds, until that whole Orlando Cabrera ordeal happened (is bitching and moaning the right phrase I'm looking for? No, the Reds don't do that...).

And if being no-hit wasn't a bad enough start to your playoffs, Jay Bruce - on the one year anniversary of Matt Holliday knocking that James Loney liner down with his groin - botched an equally simple liner off the bat of Jimmy Rollins in game two.

VIDEO HERE

Simply stated Reds fans: we know how you feel. We know you're sick to your stomach. And we're glad your guys are the incompetent ones on national TV, not ours. I don't keep up with the trends very often, but maybe "letting balls zoom right by you" is the new "taking it off the nuts," I don't know.

Don't worry, this guy'll throw out Werth...whoops!

And while we're here, how 'bout a hand for Rick Ankiel and his game winning bomb into McCovey Cove? If anyone's going to have too many chicks to bang in San Francisco, it's Rick the Stick.

The Wall Street Journal is a great paper... except for the fact that you've got to give them money to read their articles.

Unless you're a fan of The CD. In which case, we're going to re-purpose interesting baseball realted fare here sometimes. Like this excellent piece from last week.

Enjoy!

The Anatomy of a Baseball Broadcast

By David Biderman

As Major League Baseball's postseason begins Wednesday, the sport's fans are prepping for what they'd call the most drama-packed month of the year—a time when families huddle around the television to see upsets pulled, heroes born and a World Series won.

But let's face it, they're also liable to spend lots of time watching guys standing around during pitching changes, dawdling on the mound or stepping out of the batter's box to perform some idiosyncratic ritual that involves tapping one's bat on one's shinguards.

It all got us thinking: Exactly how much genuine baseball action is there in an average baseball game?

Following the model of a similar study we did about football last season, we reviewed a pair of nationally televised nine-inning baseball games from earlier this season, one shown on Fox and the other on ESPN, and used a stopwatch to break them down into their component parts.

The stopwatch would start when a pitcher lifted his leg to begin his pitching motion. The timing would stop when the ball hit the catcher's mitt or, if it was put in play, when the presiding umpire made a call or the players all stopped moving (pickoff attempts and steals were also counted as action).

The result is that during these games, there was a nearly identical amount of action: about 14 minutes. To put that in context, that's about 10.9% of the total broadcast time (excluding commercials). It's a fraction of the roughly 88 minutes the players were shown standing around between plays, nearly 45% more than the 10 minutes of replays that are shown and almost four times as much as the cameras show players lounging in the dugout.

Click 'Read More' for the rest of the story...

So the Cardinals, as we all know, pretty much sucked to watch in 2010. They were boring as all hell. Not only did they lose all the time, but they were painful to watch. If only science had something that proves that so we could end the debate once and for all that the '10 Cardinals were brutal to follow...

Wait, there IS?

What the F is that Hooks?

That's a chart created by the website Thuuz showing the excitement level all season long for all 30 MLB teams. Let's let them explain:

"It was another last-place finish for the Kansas City Royals, but by one measure, they were baseball's most-exciting team. Statistics company Thuuz analyzes games by accounting for things like run differentials, upset wins and comebacks. This system gave the Royals, who played in 57 one-run games, an MLB-high excitement score of 52.2. The cross-state St. Louis Cardinals were baseball's most-boring team by this standard."

That little blurb from the Wall Street Journal is pretty much saying that there is a science to deciding what games are exciting and that the Cardinals didn't have many in 2010.

Obviously excitement isn't a precursor to success (see: Royals, KC) but if you're not going to be playing in October, then at least it's good to be entertained, no? And the close games? Maybe that's just an indication that the Cards didn't give a crap for most of the games they played in.

Extrapolate what you will from this chart (hard to see, I know...) but it is, by any measure, the most tangible proof that your eyes weren't deceiving you... the Cardinals were a hot mess in 2010.

Now, the Friday Links...

• This is what you do when you live in a swamp. LINK HERE (HT: JRH)
• Why you don't bring dogs to a wedding. LINK HERE (HT: JRH)
• Car faces. When your car starts to look like a face. LINK HERE
• For the marketing people: You're logo makes me barf. The site. LINK HERE
• 5 great spitting moments in film. LINK HERE
• You need to visit 'Smiling Cigar Guy' now. LINK HERE
• Is this the worst Family Feud of all time? Possibly. LINK HERE

That's it. Those are the links. That is the post.

UPDATE (10/10/10) Friend of the site @CardsChic is having her class participate in a pretty cool little blog project. Please drop by and comment if you get a chance. LINK HERE

But before we go, a very historic milestone for Fresh WC and The Waterboy has been reached today. Hope your 20's was worth it.

-30-

Now why the hell would Tony need to go there?

To take a tour of the Flowbee Factory, duh. I'm sure everyone knew that, so carry on.

Any road trip out west has to include Las Vegas. Unfortunately Tony wasn't there to take in a Carrot Top show or hang backstage at the Wayne Newton concert. He was there for an epic boxing showdown with former friend Buzz Bissinger:

Is that Kevin Slaten and Dunc' at ringside? And Dan Caesar as the referee? What a star-studded event - I bet Elayne Boosler is there somewhere too. Why didnt' we go?

And finally, home. Instead of kissing his wife and lovely daughters, Tony races into his office, sits down for two hours and emerges with his lineup card for Dinner. It's kind of odd that he'd go against conventional wisdom and swap the wine and dessert at the bottom of the lineup, but no one at the LaRussa household is going to question this: