Looks like mom isn't too happy with the Cardinals.
And I can't say I blame her. Pretty much how everybody feels. (If you didn't see it, the Cards blew a 5 run lead. Again. And this is the VM I got right after that rookie served up a Benes-esque meatball down central.)
Yes. That's my real mom. She's great!
You’ll excuse me if I gloss over last night’s 9th inning debacle, but I haven’t quite finished processing it yet. No amount of hypnotherapy can undo the damage that game did to my fragile and damaged psyche. You see that dog’s face? I think he speaks for all of us, no? ANYWAY, speaking of head cases, has anyone 
checked in on Carlos Zambrano lately? (See how I so deftly switched topics there? Mental breakdown AVOIDED!) I haven’t heard much about his anger management therapy, but I have a hard time believing it’s really helping. I actually saw Ryan Dempster in a Starbucks by Wrigley a couple of weeks ago and had half a mind to ask him if they’re going to pad the dugout in anticipation of Zambrano’s return. However, it was early in the morning and I really wasn’t in the mood to have a latte dumped on my dress pants. Besides, I think we all know that Carlos will be heavily supervised after this and not allowed out of his strait jacket except for practice, meals and maybe 90 minutes of television per day. (Maybe Hooks can send him copies of the Bachelorette on DVD? That seems like something Carlos would enjoy, what with him being such a hopeless romantic and all. Who will Ali choose? AND WILL HE PROPOSE???)
In any case, Big Z resumes practice this week, so he’ll likely be back to terrorizing water coolers everywhere right after the All Star break. As a three time All Star himself, one has to wonder how he feels about his situation as that annual, yet useless celebration approaches. We are less than a week away, people!!! THIS REQUIRES MULTIPLE EXCLAMATION POINTS!!! For those of you that don’t know me, (which I assume is almost everyone that reads this blog except my dad,) I have a hard time getting excited for this yearly event. I know that a lot of people will disagree with me, but I find little entertainment in watching an exhibition match with no major implications. In fact, I spend most of the time feeling conflicted over any Cardinals being on the team, lest they pull a hammy while half assedly circling the bases in what will likely end up another AL victory. I understand the pomp and circumstance, the tradition and what have you, but I don’t like meaningful baseball being truncated so abruptly in the middle of the season so that the MLB execs may indulge in a circus of self congratulation and ass grabbing. You, gentleman, are harshing my buzz. (Or would be, I suppose, if the Cardinals didn’t currently want to make me pour battery acid into my eyeballs.) Last year, I think I caught about two and half innings of the game itself and approximately 20 minutes of the homerun derby. My favorite part of the whole affair? Watching Nelly play outfield in the celebrity softball game. (Don’t judge me! COUNTRY GRAMMAR IS THE SOUNDTRACK OF A GENERATION!) I feel like I should feel guilty for this, yet I really, really don’t. It all seems arbitrary and unnecessary, so I have a very difficult time actually CARING about the outcome. Home field advantage, blah, blah, blah, can this just be over so we can go back to being invested in and excited about stuff that actually matters? Like how much money Albert Pujols must spend in shaving cream every year? That goatee is METICULOUS.
Anyway, in more important (to me!) news, I recently found out that I’m going to have a niece. This is only relevant here because my family recently took a trip to a Babies R Us (admittedly my first time), in which we pretty well wiped out their Cardinals inventory. Between my dad, my brother-in-law, my very, very patient sister, my bemused mom and me, this poor child does not stand a chance. She’s going to be swearing at Skip Schumaker and Aaron Miles THROUGH THE WOMB by the end of this pregnancy. Guaranteed. For good measure, my dad did a couple of victory laps through the store and hid as much of the Cubs merchandise in the back of the racks as he could. He’s a visionary, that one. It’s impressive, really.
Okay, I think I’ve held off long enough. It’s time to stop blabbering on like an Alzheimer’s patient and finish watching the game in progress. Under the heavy influence of alcohol, of course.
no commentsI forget what year all that ‘Hard Nine’ crap flooded St. Louis, but Tony LaRussa’s mantra was all the rage around 2005 or 2006. 
A blue collar town, crazy about the Cardinals, LaRussa saw how well the Rams resonated with ‘Gotta Go To Work’- Dick Vermeil’s similar slogan- and ran with it. It humanized millionaires. Made it seem like guys who play a ball game for a few hours every night know what it’s like to have their asses handed to them by a foreman or get burnt out on a roof from 6a to 8p six days a week. Like most marketing the Cardinals do… it worked. We believed that LaRussa, and by extension the players, were not the type of people that wouldn’t give 110% until that final out was recorded. They were like us; hard workers. Maybe they didn’t win every game, but they damn sure weren’t going to lose from trying.
Last night the Cardinals lead the Colorado Rockies 9-3 heading into the bottom of the ninth inning. They lost the game 12-9. We are awash in blame today.
Randy Winn absolutely butchered a ball in right field. Aaron Miles was shaky at best at second base. Molina let a passed ball by that plated a run. Franklin served up some serious meat. Reyes was a gas can. LaRussa played for extra innings before he even got there….
The list goes on.
But it doesn’t matter. Great teams in baseball lose 60 times a year. Playoff teams can lose 70 or more times and still win it all. Baseball is a game of failure. Where succeeding 3 out of 10 times makes you an All-Star, not an also-ran.
More bluntly- baseball is a fucking grind. A athletic sausage factory that’s relentless and cruel. The teams that can keep it in the casing the best are the ones that are playing in October.
The Cardinals have exactly 1/7 of the NL All-Star team in 2010 on their roster… RIGHT NOW. All of them are playing, none are injured. Night after night, they roll out one of (theoretically) the best line-ups in all of baseball. So why are they mired in second place? Why can they not get the traction we all expected by now?
As cliché as it may be… these guys just don’t play a hard 9.
And that’s on Tony. And Albert. And every other player on this team. Because you shouldn’t turn 6 run leads into 3 run losses in the bottom of the ninth. You shouldn’t be laughing when Reyes hits for himself in the top of the inning and doesn’t run down the line. You shouldn’t be hoping the other guy makes a play and not take the onus of the game unto yourself.
No. You have to respect the fact that the other side has paid players that want to win too.
St. Louis takes a lot of horse shit from the Cardinals. And we take it because we all love baseball. But I can promise you one thing: St. Louis never has and never will take a team that cashes checks.
We’re all working our asses off today, Cardinals. Wish we could say the same for you last night.
no commentsDid you independence your dignity this weekend?
Good.
You probably ate like a fat kid, too. I know I sure as hell did. (BTW- Papa John’s might just have the most foul chicken wings on the planet. Consider yourself warned if a pizza/wing special sounds especially appetizing. Good God, Papa… )
Since it was such a hit at many fourth of July parties this weekend, I figure I’d steal the idea from a 99 cent iPhone app and present to you FAT FACE!
First up… Brendan Ryan.
Joey Chestnut has won the Mustard Yellow Belt, swallowing an epic 54 dogs and buns in the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest.
Pujols, Yadi, Holliday, Wainwright and Carpenter have been named NL All-Stars for the 2010 game in Anaheim.
The VP Fair is attracting huge crowds to the Arch grounds and pumping some much needed activity into downtown.
My friends, all is good this July 4th. All is GOOD.
A long time ago, in a barn far away from the Midwest, some pretty ballsy motherlovers decided that the British were a big gaping vagina and proposed we bring a world of pain on their asses.
Mission accomplished.
200 something odd years later, we're still kicking ass. Happy birthday, America. (FYI- the video below has NSFW-language if you are unlucky and are working today...)
I’ve been to many concerts. 
I’ve seen everything from Three Six Mafia under a hastily constructed tent to Fleetwood Mac in a large arena. I’ve watched O.A.R. in a bar with 6 other people before they were big and wedged myself into the Pageant when Girl Talk was at his apex. From Bone Thugs & Harmony to Boyz II Men, Dave Matthews to Widespread Panic, Nelly to North Mississippi All-Stars… my resume is diverse and deep. I spent a significant part of my 20’s seeking out and attending concerts that I thought would be entertaining for one reason or another.
So I don’t say this lightly: Micheal Buble was one of the 10 best concerts I’ve ever been to.
Tuesday night I got Buble’d in Indianapolis. But Hooks, weren’t you watching The Bachelorette on Monday? Is this site now owned by Bravo? Luckily Buble started off his concert with a pretty bold stand-up routine addressing this very issue.
‘Most of the other guys at the office are wondering what happened to your dicks, am I right? Wonder why you’d go see that Buble crap? Tomorrow you can tell them to fuck off, because tonight we’re going to have a party.’ Upon hearing this, he spots a couple of 10 year old girls in the second row and addresses that: ‘Perfect. How old are you girls? 10? So this was NOT was mom was expecting at Buble, huh?’
This was all probably scripted. But it worked. He sold it. And then he ripped into about 100 minutes of music with a full-on 15 piece band that was awesome. No shit- It was awesome.
He worked the crowd, did a spontaneous Michael Jackson medley (after explaining that every reporter asks him about growing up and worshiping Frank Sinatra, when really he loved MJ) before finishing off the concert alone, on stage, with no mic, a completely silent arena packed with 15K people and killed a song.
Cool. As. Fuck.
Women were literally shaking leaving the arena. Every guy was looking at each other wanting to know it was OK to say out loud ‘that was gooood’. Everybody wondering how to explain just what the hell happened there and if anyone would actually believe them.
Listen, I know I’m going to get killed for this. No matter what I say, people, especially guys, aren’t going to believe that Michael Buble puts on a hell of a show. But I’m telling you right now… he DOES.
Don’t trust me about anything else I’ve ever said, but trust me on this. Oh, and that awesome pic above? I took it with iPhone4. I’m awesome too.
Now… The Friday Links:
And if you think you're getting out of this post without a Buble Video? Child please...
In one of the stupidest ideas in the history of the world wide web, Cards Diaspora was contacted by Ozzie Smith's people about us doing an interview with 'The Wizard' during All-Star Game Weekend 2010. 
I guess he's a fan of The Bachelorette?
A little back-story here. I had the good fortune to have a TV show when I was 9 or 10 with a friend of mine that lived up the block. Somehow, this guys grandpa got us field passes before a Cardinals game to interview players. Mostly everyone was nice... including Joe Torre, who knelt, who I then told about the kneeling to the local paper that did a story on us, who then ran that as the embarrassing lede.
In 1990, the Cardinals sucked ass. Except for Ozzie, so he was our 'get'. And after our interview, in a moment that I don't think I'll ever forget, he called us over to the dugout bench and asked us a bunch of questions about how we got involved in all this TV stuff and if we played baseball and other shit you'd talk with 9 year olds. Probably lasted 3 minutes, but felt like we were hanging with Ozzie Smith, the legend, in the Cardinals fucking dugout for-ever... and he was interviewing US!?
I'm sure he'll be more than a little disappointed that Cards Diaspora is where I ended up. I'm not looking forward to admitting that to Mr. Smith.
The point is- I've had the good fortune of talking to Ozzie Smith before. Perhaps you have, perhaps you haven't. But if not... this is your chance.
I'm going to conduct the interview exclusively on the questions you submit to the comment section of this post. If you want to know something about Ozzie, his personal life, his career; put it below. I'll ask him for you.
I'd imagine more than a few of you are going to ask something about his ball sack or something in a similar vein. If you're man or woman enough to attach your name- then I'll ask him and also make sure he knows your name. Game on!
Hopefully this can be a pretty cool thing for us and you. And just to sweeten the pot, I'll pick one questioner at random to win a $25 Amazon Gift card that you can use to buy anything you damn well please.
So fire away in the comment section below and I'll keep you posted when the deadline to enter is...
About the time Randall Winn decided to help a home run over the right field fence was about the time I decided it was time to start the much anticipated 2 hours of this week's Bachelorette. Even though I knew via assholes that want to spoil everything on the 
Internet Bachelorette chat rooms and message boards... or so I've heard.
Thanks to the masochists that can't turn off a STL Cards came no matter how bad their getting whipped, I was able to watch the final play of the game where Arizona forced their 15 remaining fans into submission by throwing the ball into spaces where other Diamondbacks were not.
In retrospect, Monday's game fell perfectly in line with the story arc of the Bachelorette.
Behold!
+ 1st Inning: The Cardinals take advantage of an early throwing error by Dan Haren and put the heat on the D-Backs early. With a 2-0 lead after 1, we're all pretty confident that this is going to be a good game for the Cards.
- 1st 20 minutes: Justin is outed as the cheater! Not only does the guy get called the F out in front of everybody. But his GF throws him under the bus by giving ABC his voice mails busting out every lie he tells Ali. This was preceded by Justin climbing through fountains with a broken foot to avoid a 5'4' 110 pound blond girl. Did I mention he's a pro wrestler? Biggest pussy every? Biggest pussy ever.
+ 2nd-5th inning: We get the pitcher's duel that we expected, as Chris Carpenter and Dan Haren look like 2 of the best pitchers in the NL. Which they are. Guys are swinging freely and Carp/Haren are hitting their spots with consistency.
- 20-60 minutes: When you start out on fire, it's only natural that whatever comes next is a bit of letdown. Ali is still steamed, but has a one on one date with Ty, the Tennessee cowboy who came on strong last week by riding horses good. And stuff. A visit to a Turkish bath leads to heavy petting and me never wanting to ever, ever set foot in a Turkish bath. Followed by a dinner where Ali re-hashes Ty's divorce and lays the groundwork for this to be the reason she dumps him in the final 4.
+ 6th-8th inning: The wheels come off for the Cardinals. Adam LaRoche pokes a Carpenter mistake over the RF fence, while Randy Winn loses his glove trying to catch the ball. This was foreboding. Then, Dan Haren takes a ride on the ya-ya train the following inning to give the D-Backs the lead for the first time. In the 8th, Mark Reynolds hit a lazy pop fly to RF... that hit Randy Winn's glove and went over the fence. 5-2 DBacks and things aren't looking promising for the Birds.
- 60-100 minutes: Time for a solo date! Should we draw straws? Nah. How about flipping a coin? Un-uh. half-naked wresting in the one green grass patch in Turkey? Winner winner, chicken dinner. Good Lord, are they trying to convince me that I'm gay. It's bad enough all the crying and shit. But really? We have to have this sweaty grappling? In the end, Craig, who looks like a kind of cuddly neanderthal wins. Surprisingly, he doesn't have much to say on the date.
+ 9th inning: Dan Haren tries to close out the Cardinals, but through a mix of terrible defense and luck from the home side, the Cardinals pull off a 6-5 come from behind win when Adam Wainwright crossed the plate on a wild throw home. Don't ask. Pujols seemed to be approximately at the pitchers mound when Root Beer slid across the plate... this guy wants to win worst than anyone. Ever.
- 100-120 minutes: Ali dismisses the requisite cocktail party and claims she knows who to dismiss. Much like Haren, though, she has trouble finishing the job and is reduced to tears before letting Craig go and ending the game. To his credit, Craig seems to take the fact that she wanted to get right to the cutting of his ass well... until the limo ride through the Turkish countryside where he broke down in tears. How these guys have any male friends that don't want to jam their jimmy's in other men is beyond me.
Haters gone hate. But I don't think you can deny that not only was last night's Cardinals game an exact parallel of The Bachelorette... now YOU have to watch it to so we can talk about it next week!
I could be wrong in my calculations, but I think the Royals equaled their season total for runs in the past 3 games. Which was expected, because I’d want 
exactly NO ONE from their line-up. KC is where average bats go to die; but the Cardinals bent over and let them insert right in to the tookus. Hopefully if you’re one of the several thousand that made the drive across Missouri, Jay Nixon will enact some sort of a tax break for your wasted time…
American’s don’t give 2 shakes about soccer. Never will. BUT we are in love with ourselves. So when the rest of the world is markedly better than us in something we don’t like it. When that thing they’re better than us at happens to hold the most high-profile event in the world- we loath it. So it doesn’t surprise me that America rallied behind the Yanks this World Cup. We had some exciting matches to build hope and the two biggest games happened to be played on Saturday afternoons where we had nothing better to do than drink and be jingoistic. We desperately were hoping against hope this would be the year that the American’s would ruin other countries morale and take our mantle as, one again, the best at everything. Then the US side shit the bed against Ghana. Again. And we’re all back to not caring. But don’t get it twisted- we never did really care about soccer. We just can’t help rallying behind America…
Everyone has a bad start- but now is not the time for Jamie Garcia to hit the wall…
Movie Snot: She’s Out Of Your League- starring that one fidgety guy and a hot chick. Some mildly funny lines. A pretty shaky premise on how the two got together. (As an iPhone owner, I would do just about anything to get my lost phone back. But enter a committed relationship with someone 5 points lower than me on the hot scale? I’m not dating a -2 for the fucking thing.) No female nudity, but some male ass shots. I thought the original GF that sent the kid into a tailspin was a bit too hot for the roll she needed to play. Fun to play along with, but at the end of the day, this shit doesn’t happen. Plus, I’m pretty sure that since you know what, it’s hard to get a pilot’s license to fly solo in like 3 weeks. C+ (one nude scene could have made this a B-, several could have made it a solid B)
You know TLR has been out of the AL for a long time when he can pencil in Aaron Miles as the DH with a straight face and then defend his action in the post-game presser. Who said you can’t change?
In ESPN’s ‘Old Faces, New Places’ NFL series, it was revealed that LaDanian Tomlinson has a brand new Jets tattoo with the years 2010- (blank) now on his leg. A) Have you ever been more excited about a TV show than this season’s Hard Knocks on HBO? This one has the potential to be spectacular. B) If you were thinking of taking a late round chance on LT, doesn’t this ruin that idea? What are the chances of this ending badly for everyone? 100%? 110%...
Don’t look now, but David Freese and Yadier Molina have fallen off a cliff. Freese is more worrisome than Molina, since he’s in a position that needs to produce and doesn’t have a track record in the majors. His swing looks more scared than a underage prostitute at a Giant’s game. Molina hasn’t had a hit since April it seems like, but I think we’re all still pretty confident that he’ll pull something out of his ass before the end of the season…
It’s not too late. If you haven’t been watching The Bachelorette this season on ABC, start tonight…
no commentsIf you think that I’m not taking this opportunity to publically jerk off my new iPhone, then you haven’t been on this site before. So thanks for coming by, here’s a list of ‘real’ stuff you can read if you’re, you know, locked into a Droid contract or something… 
Back to the business- iPhone4.
First, a public atta boy to Best Buy. When the Apple store melted down on the first day of pre-ordering for the iPhone4, I had read on some real, real dorky message boards that, contrary to public perception, that getting an iPhone from Best Buy was the way to avoid all the hassle of waiting in lines on release day. And since they were using a different system than AT&T, people might be better off going to them to iPhone4.
I was leery, but I rolled the dice. Sure enough they called me on Wednesday and set an appointment for me on Thursday morning. I came in, got the phone, activated it, and never waited in a line. Both agents that helped me were more excited to give me the damn phone then I was to get it. Yes, they did make you give a 50 dollar deposit when you placed the pre-order, but they took that off on the purchase price yesterday… so as far as I can tell, this is the way to go from now on. I had low expectations Best Buy- you did a hell of a job.
On to the phone.
Here are my impressions after 1 day with the thing.
The screen doesn’t look real. This retina display is like moving from SD TV to HD TV, times 3. It almost looks like a sticker is over your phone, but one you can interact with. Does that make sense? Don’t look at one of these unless you want to buy it. You will not like the miserable experience of looking at your phone.
The flash on the camera is huge. Took some pics last night and they turned out nice. It’s not to the point where you wouldn’t want to have a camera with you for important events… but if you like taking pics when you’re out drinking- this will do way, way better than previous iPhone cameras. By the next generation, I’d suspect you can completely chuck the point and shoot.
Dump your Flip stock now. That company is dead. I love Flips, but this thing shoots HD video you can edit on the phone. Absolutely no reason to get a Flip for 120 bucks when this shoots better video, lets you edit and send from the phone, and gives you about a million different other things.
I love the new shape. Others preferred the rounded edges, but I didn’t. This tends to fall along gender lines at the office, with the men liking the industrial design and women liking the old edges. I also like my square Macbook Pro, though.
The noise cancellation is amazing. I haven’t noticed much improvement in my call signal strength, at least in the house, office or commute… but the call quality when I’m on the phone is great. Within seconds of even loud noise, this sucker has cancelled that shit and lets you feel like you’re in a phone booth. One of the more underrated and under talked about features of this new incarnation. (Click 'READ MORE' below for rest>>)
