Kenny Motherfuckin' Powers:
Also, I downed the beautiful bacon-wrapped hot dog creation at Busch (bring $8.75 with you). Putting the beans, pickle, onion/pepper/tomato, and fried onions on it really takes away from the bacon, but it's still delicious. Maybe wrapping the entire thing in more bacon would help?
It's cool to be a Cardinals fan- but who is cooler in the STL cap?
Do yourself a favor and take the CD Opinion Poll below and tell us who you think rocks the STL Cards cap harder- Axl Rose, frontman for Guns N’ Roses or Lil’ Wayne, Cash Money Millionaire.
And when you’re done with that, you can meander over to InsideSTL.com and read all about how the Cardinals not closing on series has reached ‘The Situation’ type levels very early in 2010.
COFFEE IS FOR CLOSERS. THE CARDINALS? SANKA
Then, after all that, if you still have any webenergy left, I’d suggest pursuing the Friday Links below and really making some fine brain rot.
Less we forget, though:
Now the Friday Links…
Go forth, now, and enjoy this fine 2 day rest period before we crank it all up again Monday.
I've been holding off writing "seriously" about the Cardinals for a few weeks, so why not recycle more ideas (I was way gooder at this bloggin' stuff a couple years ago).
The masses have been begging me to revive the award-winning MS Paint Week in Review. And after hand-crafting these four masterpieces, I once again realized why I quit doing it after one week: I take way too long to put a crappy Paint drawing together.
But hey, enjoy it while it lasts...
On opening day in Cincy, Bert destroyed the entire city, once again with the help of the lasers that come out of his fists. At least that's how I remembered it.
In other arson news, Jason Motte decided to light the mound on fire in two separate appearances, including a walk-off bomb to Jonny fucking Gomes. (Kyle McClellan did too up in Milwaukee, but this column has a pro-Hazelwood bias. Plus McClellan's profile pic doesn't look like this...)
Monday was the home opener in downtown St. Louis. The one, and thank-God-only, Cardinal Cowboy ruined a bunch of tailgater's days by landing in a helicopter. There were no survivors.
And we wrap it up in Hooks' living room on Tuesday night. I said it once, and I'll say it a million more times - when Glee comes on in the Hooks household - Get. The. Fuck. Out. Of. The. Way.
What the hell - you've got nothing else to do today. Here are my other MS Paint works of art. If you'd like a framed portrait, or a Fat Head of any of these, please contact the sales dept.
The Birds nested yesterday and don’t fly again until tonight, so I’ll honor you with some random thoughts that have no coherent theme: 
+ The Rams are a hot mess. But at least they’re interesting again! Say what you want about Mike Martz and his success level with the Rams- but you can’t tell me that it wasn’t an interesting organization to talk about. The worst thing in sports is to be boring, not bad.
Bad you can talk about, argue on, have fun with. Boring you just ignore. And the past 3 years the Rams have been worse than anyone… but they also have been fucking boring. When’s the last time you spent a fall Monday at the office talking about what these losers did the day before? 2006? 2004?
Is it ideal to have such tumult with an ownership group a week and a day before the NFL Draft when you have the overall #1 pick? Probably not. But this whole Stan Kronke ownership pseudo-coup is riveting drama for a franchise that has been morbid bound by boredom for years.
+ Kentucky Basketball is primed for a big, BIG day. Around 3p CST, they’re expected to ink Rivals #1 overall senior Brandon Knight AND Rivals 2011 #1 overall junior Michael Gilchrist within 20 minutes or so.
You didn’t know John Wall or Demarcus Cousins last April either and I told you to watch out. So here’s your official notice: You’re going to be watching Brandon Knight A LOT come November. Act like a big shot now and start dropping his name.
Also, Wall Ball and Cousins are both on Twitter now. To put it nicely, I don’t know if they’re doing my Kentucky public education any favors.
+ When two 29 year old men set down and watch American Idol on a couch together, the next natural step is, obviously, to go ahead and watch Glee’s season premiere after.
So we did.
I expected to hate the show. I expected the other man on the couch to hate it more. But to both our surprises, it was good.
DAMMIT- it was good. In fact, The Syndrome said “I want to watch more of this NOW!” and I sheepishly agreed.
For some of you, this sounds like the worst show ever. And I can’t deny you the fact that it’s incredibly campy and musically awkward and it’s the feyest thing you’ve ever seen.
But it’s also pretty funny. Kind of cool and maybe worth a season pass?
Ugh. I hate myself right now. But maybe you have an explination for my punny opening to this whole damn mess.
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Thoughts and observations from the region-wide holiday known as ‘Opening Day’.
I am genuinely afraid to mention the weather at this point, because I have a deeply rooted fear any good weather stretches in St. Louis are immediately followed by the wrath of Mother Nature. But holy hell, that’s the kind of day you order up off a menu. Many fans got a wicked head start on their farmer’s tan for the summer- sans the people that took their shirts off in Busch Stadium. Class, St. Louis. Class.
If you went to Shannon’s, Al’s or any of the other 10 bars surrounding Busch Stadium after the game and were able to get a beer- you should be receiving a medal from Mayor Slay in the mail this week. By my estimation (also confirmed on Facebook) it looks like each place had one bartender for every 1750 potential patrons. I’m no Mr. Wizzard, but that seems like a formula for ‘missed $$$’ and sure enough we were in a cab to a less crowded bar within 10 minutes of trying to navigate Paddy-O’s.
Pictures!
Big Mac received a huge ovation from the Busch Stadium crowd. The guy was busting the biggest smile you’ve ever seen and you could tell he was genuinely a new guy with a new lease on life riding that truck into the stadium. Tim McKernan believes that the McGwire reception was less than genuine on the part of many in the stadium. I agree with his thesis in principal, but I also believe that everyone was slightly buzzed, in a good mood, and we would have cheered for Carlos Brito if he would have been trotted around the warning track.
On second thought, I guess not. Damn InBev!
Albert Pujols was Albert Pujols and gave everyone that over-spent for their ticket their money’s worth. 25 years from now when AP is gone, I think one of his enduring legacies will be his uncanny ability to make ‘marquee games’ in the baseball season into actual marquee games by doing something memorable. When there is a record to be set, a title to be clinched or a moment on the calendar to mark- Albert Pujols comes through. Another reason he might be cracking the 300 million dollar barrier very, very soon.
Between the booze and the main scoreboard on the fritz, I about had a stroke induced. Perhaps the Busch Stadium people checked the scoreboard before Opening Day, perhaps they didn’t. But 4 years into what I’d assume to be a six figure investment is a little soon for that thing to be fried for 6 innings. If you were trying to check an out of town score, you probably had a bad acid flashback. Actually, that’s a pretty good selling point. Nevermind.
St. Louis is a much better town to live in during baseball season. People come downtown. The vibe is upbeat. The whole city does a 180. In fact, if the Cardinals weren’t here, we’d be no different than Billings or Des Moines. And that’s not a compliment.
Bo S from Denver checks in with this e-mail: "So i'm sure you've noticed, but the cardinals have not been to a world series in an odd-numbered decade since the 30s. the 50s, 70s, and 90s were not kind decades to us. I always had this in mind throughout the 00's and somehow I knew we'd win a series in that decade. But now that we're entering the 10s, I hope we aren't destined by futility. For a team with 17 NL pennants, it does seem kind of odd that we haven't been to a world series in an odd numbered decade in 76 years (1943). I'm not going to go so far as to call this a curse, because all cards fans know how truly miserable a cursed franchise can be. This is just a fluke, if you asked me, but I do think it's relevant to take note of the cycles this organization goes through. Let's hope this decade is the start of breaking that cycle and winning consistently." Couldn't agree more, Bo.
Today is a holiday in St. Louis: Opening Day (home) and it couldn’t come soon enough to wash the bitter taste of another blown bullpen effort by the Cardinals… The Cardinals are 4-0, the bullpen is 0-2. I don’t think they deserve to be considered on the same team… Baseball Digest was kind enough to let me write some silly words about Opening Day in St. Louis, and they’ve published them LINK HERE… The third option would be to do nothing at all. I’m not sure booing or cheering Tiger is appropriate at this point. I think silence would have been more appropriate. But people are sheep and a few suck-asses clap, so more suck-asses clap and sure enough Tiger is getting roaring ovations on every hole. Really? You know he loathes you, the fan, and consumer of Us Weekly more than he hates his situation, right? Brilliant golfer, worthy of your indifference… David Freese better get his shit together real quick. When you build a rotation on the pitchers pitching to contact and to getting ground balls, you simply can’t boot away balls on the infield… A while back, I did a slideshow for Bleacher Report describing the scene by Busch Stadium on Opening Day. You can read it LINK HERE… Cards Diaspora will be down at the stadium late this morning and afternoon for the annual ‘Big Ass Picture Show’ that we’ll slap up here later tonight. So look out for that… The 3-man ESPN booth so far has been quite the disaster. I like Jon Miller and Joe Morgan, for whatever reason, is easy for me to ignore and doesn’t bother me nearly as much as most people. But adding in Orel Hershiser has made the whole thing stilted and awkward. We’ll give them a few more weeks, but the trouble is, you don’t see flashes of a great booth for the MLB marquee game of the week. And that’s a shame… The scary part? Albert’s swing looks off still. He’s been striking out at nearly triple his career pace and is getting fooled by good change ups. In the next couple of weeks as he gets into a groove watch out. I mean, he did have 2 HR’s last night, so unless you watch this guy everyday it’s hard to even believe that last sentence… Chris Carpenter has been rocked since October 7 2009 when he took the L in Los Angeles against the Dodgers in the playoffs. He got the opening day win in Cincinnati, but gave up 2 HR’s. Last night was a disaster. Bad end and start? Start of trouble we’re not aware of yet?... Allergies can suck my balls… Have a big time today kids…
16 mistresses. SIXTEEN! But the dude still can blow up the Masters.
Over the course of my life I’ve known some pretty skeevy men. Hell, I’m still friends with most of them. But having the energy to juggle SIXTEEN women AND a wife AND kids oh, AND be the best professional athlete on the planet by far? That’s just absurd.
I mean would this guy be the most interesting psych case of all time? Is he better at compartmentalizing than anyone, ever? How in the world is he still with his wife? Was he ever close to getting caught? How do your work so damn well when you're so consumed with dirty texting? How tough is it for him to not be getting laid after a 4 under at Agusta? These are just a few of the questions we need anwsers to.
In fact, I’ve got an idea.
Let’s isolate Tiger and Russell from Survivor in a poon-free zone somewhere in Maine, make them like a duel President with authority over everything and just solve America once and for all. I mean we’re wasting the two greatest minds of this generation on golf and Survivor? That doesn’t seem productive AT ALL.
Howard Stern did make a good point yesterday when he said: "Unless you're as good at what you do as Tiger is, DO NOT take any tips from him on how to treat a women. You will not get laid, you will get thrown in jail." He's right. The guy is a freak.
READ ABOUT THE CARDINALS AND JASON MOTTE AT INSIDESTL.com
Speaking celebrity sex, who do you guys think the next guy to get put up on the holy troika of philanderers will be?
My guess? Lin Yu Chun
And IIIIIIIIiiiiiiiiieeeeeeIIIIIIIIiiiii will always love the liiiiiiinnkkkkssss…
THE NICE SECTION: (Yes, we're ripping off Bernie now. Yes, we have a soul.)
+ Old friend Bill Ivie got a new job. To go with his old job. LINK HERE
+ The boys over at Redbird Report wanted us to pass along a link to their podcast that debuts today. If you're into Cards talk, it should be a good time. LINK HERE
+ Regular reader and good person Julie Sax asked if we'd put up her donation page for Girls on the Run. If you're looking for a charity to give a few bucks to in anticipation of a weekend of breaking all the social standards of human decency, do it here. LINK HERE
+ If you're on the East side this Saturday evening or don't mind heading to the East side (Edwardsville, not Sauget, BTW), then may I suggest the Taste of Edwardsville. LINK HERE
Have a solid weekend, everyone. And if you see Jim Edmonds- tell him he owes me money.
I took in a little college baseball action last night at Busch, as Mizzou faced off in a heated battle with Illinois. The Tigers won 7-4 in a non-ping game (which makes college baseball seem pointless).
Actually at one point Mizzou was down 4-1, but my friends and I ended up missing an inning and a half while waiting in line at one of the concession stands, all while the Tigers took the lead 5-4 by scoring both times they came to the plate. Yes, 1.5 innings, and this was a full three-hour game so it's not like the teams were going 3 up/3 down in a Carpenter/Lincecum-esque duel.
Now you might ask why the hell we stood in line for so long. Sure, we could have moved on and tried to find supreme nachos somewhere else, but we were mostly BS'ing in line until about 10 minutes passed by and we finally realized the problem:
CARDS CASH (see the exciting video of Dan McBeeflin and Kip Dynamite for all the details).
Yeah, the new idea that the Cardinals will no doubt make a huge profit off of this season, slowed us down in line tremendously.
Back story: everyone buying a $15 ticket to the game last night received $5 in Cards Cash. It was a pretty obvious attempt to work out the kinks of this new system, which is fine. But assuming people are using this at all, they've got about four days to figure it out.
It mostly had to do with the slow, confused guy taking orders as he turned what should be a simple system of 1) telling me what the price is, 2) scanning ticket, 3) removing $5 from the price and 4) taking the rest of the money from my hand - into a mega clusterfuck. But it's not like the other lines were zipping through either, so my conclusion is to continue using my plastic money at ballgames.
This was probably the worst example ever, as everyone in line had $5 to burn, while only a small minority of 45,000 fans at a normal game will be using Cards Cash. But it could have run a lot smoother; maybe just 25 minutes instead of 30?
Other notes and maintenance crap to look forward to when the stadium opens for realz next week:
-The Arch is still cut into the outfield grass. I believe Danny Mac and Al mentioned this on the air already, but it's been confirmed.
-The All Star Game billboard in left-center is still there, kind of. It looks like they tried scraping it off or something, but about 75% of the ad is still there.
-The "G" in BIG MAC Land is out.
-There are a couple spots in the park missing advertisements, so if you've got maybe 20 bucks and want to make a last minute pitch to the Cardinals, give them a call.
-The spongetech.com advertising era is over.
-Having maybe 2000 people in the stands at Busch (while a game was going on) felt really weird. It had the feel of a mid-June Royals game, but with better players on the field.
-There was a new design to the radar gun readings in the LF and RF upper deck boards. They post the MPH in larger numbers (and certain colors indicate faster pitches! I know, that's so crazy!).
-We didn't see any new concession items, but not all stands were open. Plus there wasn't a huge crowd, so they just stuck to the basics.
-You guys and girls with a better memory than me can call me an idiot if I'm wrong, but I believe there is a new design for the out of town scoreboard, as seen in this twitpic. I want to say they were tinkering with a 1-9 inning scoreboard at the end of last year, but maybe I was having an awesome Busch Stadium scoreboard dream again. Either way, they now show four games at once, with hitter/batter match-up, if players are on base, and an inning-by-inning scoreboard. There were no Win/Loss/Save records at the end of any games though.
-Ballpark Village was completed Wednesday morning and everything is up and running, but I couldn't decide on going to Chili's or Applebee's. No wait, that was a softball field and parking lot I was looking at. My mistake.
Many people have approached me over the years and asked why don’t I ever do concert reviews.
Ok, nobody has actually asked me that- but I’m sure they’re thinking it. So to placate the unwashed masses that want to see The Hooksmonster take on music critiquing, I’ve created my first masterpiece.
On Daughtry. The biggest rockstar in the US under 50. And if you don’t believe in the power of American Idol after last night, then you, sir, are no American and will never be worthy of the idolatry of anyone.
Most of you readers are too lazy to ever post a comment, but if anyone has some constructive criticism or downright flame throwing to get off their chest, please feel free to put them here or there.
And thanks for reading. Seriously. You’re the best.
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