Gather 'round kids. This will be that moment when you realize your buddies athooks and HMW (middle and right, respectively) aren't the geniuses you think we are (fucking Hooks always gives me the bunny ears; I was gonna score that night).
It's really reminiscent of the day - maybe you were about 11 or 12 years old - and you realized that your dad wasn't the best at everything, or the strongest guy in the world (unless your dad is Magnus ver Magnusson; for both). And when it came to picking where this off-season's free agents would land - we looked like a couple of idiot assclowns who write for Fungoes or something.
(Oh. Just went to Fungoes to see what they're all about. Okay, we're still the idiot assclowns, not them)
With a small handful of meaningless FA's still to go, Hooks has me kidnapped in the trunk, and on the way to Beatdown City:
athooks: 3 (M. Scutaro, D. Davis, A. Pettitte)
HMW: 1 (D. Davis)
Yup, you read that right. After predicting the top 25 free agents plus 5 wild card/take whoever you want picks - I nailed fucking Doug Davis. If I hadn't looked it up, I wouldn't have known who Doug Davis signed with (Brewers...watch out for them?).
We both have a few to go still:
Jermaine Dye (Hooks: Cardinals; HMW: Rangers)
John Smoltz (Hooks/HMW: Cardinals)
Carlos Delgado (Hooks wild card: Orioles)
Hank Blalock (HMW wild card: Cardinals)
Thus we need the team who won the huge one-man bidding war over Matt Holliday, and went on a spending spree with Brad Penny and Rich Hill, to get busy on three of the four guys listed above. And Carlos Delgado is out for four months due to oldness; so yeah, I'm calling it.
I know all of you hold us in the highest regard, and despite the fact that a monkey throwing darts (or better yet, poop) at index cards with team names could probably do better than us - hopefully we'll get a free pass for sucking so bad
And technically, I don't see anyone else recapping their Free Agent predictions, so maybe we are the best.
Oh, just heard Hooks say there's some skank in trouble at The Pepper Lounge. To the Batmobile!
A week has passed since the first pitcher reported to Cardinals Spring Training in Jupiter Florida. In 7 days time, every player has reported to camp, every player has spoken thousands of words into hundreds of mics without saying a single thing.
And as we wait patiently for another week to pass and an actual game to dissect, I wonder- is there perhaps too much coverage of the St. Louis Cardinals?
It wasn't long ago when only a few reporters and/or media types took the month long sojurn to south Florida to send back intermittent reports on players that we may or may not have heard of. The local news might have a couple nights of reports on the team closer to the end of camp and Joe Strauss might have had a daily update blurb in the Post-Dispatch...
But now?
It's a fucking media orgy.
I thought I'd be thrilled at the notion of exhaustive coverage of the Cardinals in February. But I'm starting to think I'm not. Only so much I can hear about an 18 year olds bullpen session before I realize that I'm not getting paid to pay attention- it's just meaningless fodder. Wake me up when the games start and I can draw my own conclusions.
I don't mean to sound rude. Because sometimes interviews can be insightful. But 9.9 times out of 10, they're just talking points re-configured for whoever's call letters are on the mic flag. Guys like Ozzie Guillen aren't any more bombastic than players in the 70's or 80's- it's just more scrutinized now. He didn't grow up learning how to deflect any tough question.
In fact- most of the Internets popularity in the 2000's was created to fill the void that interviews used to serve. Nobody can get a ounce of usable to quote to hold a discussion- so blogs were kind of spawned to fill this void. To provide opinion where the athletes and teams they cover won't.
But still, the vestiges of time abound. Tomorrow, we'll get all the big names in front of all the usual suspects again.
And again the answers will be trite, meaningless and certainly forgettable. Because nothing has happened. No games have been played. No decisions have been made.
In fact, we've got a week before we can even lay eyes on a real, live game.
I don’t know how this one has been hiding out on the YouTubes for this long and no one has picked up on it- but it has.
Considering the boys over at Global Sports Fraternity took the time to animate a worn out joke BUT... actually make it kind of amusing again; well we had to post it. Stick with it until the end.
Take your standardized health care and shove it Canada. Those blessed with eyesight good enough to see a hockey puck in low-def TV witnessed one hell of a game between Team USA and Team Canada in the Olympics on Sunday. The whole game was brilliant. Brilliant goals, brilliant saves- just a good damn time if you're a sports fan. Perhaps watching the Blues for 5 months had erased my memory of what a good hockey game should be, though. So you might be well off trying to find more opinions on this. It might have been the worst Olympic game ever played, come to think of it...
Interviews on sports talk radio are stupid. All they do is grind shows to a halt. 1 out of every 1000 interviews may give you some usable piece of information or be such a great get that'd you'd be stupid to pass. But sending every sports talk personality to Jupiter or the Super Bowl creates this awful vortex of radio where it's interview after boring fucking interview. Bleh. Let's stick to bashing players behind their back so they can claim to never hear it, but rally their team around a mantra of disrespect...
Tiger Woods. Mark McGwire. Two guys. Two guys that need some advice. So here it is: Whatever you say, however you say it- somebody's going to have a problem with it. It's 2010 and every dickweed with a blog has a potential national voice (see CardsDiaspora.com). And somebody's going to make outrageous comments to get page views. You don't owe anyone an apology. You don't owe anyone anything. Say your piece and quit kowtowing to everyone and anyone. You banged many, many women. You inject horse steroids into your ass. Whatever. Sack it up and tell us you think we're all idiots and assholes for even caring in the first place. Cause you'd be right...
Albert Pujols and Matt Holliday make team 'better' according to Tony LaRussa. I will agree with that assessment...
Google Buzz: Here's the deal- I honestly believe that people love adding friends and followers on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc al. It's the best part of many people's day when we can get a new friend or follower. So Google Buzz is doing damn well right now because the average internet user can add 5 friends easy everyday. Meanwhile, you've been on Facebook since college and friend requests trickle in like a before shot on a Flomax ad. Everybody's having a friend adding orgy on Buzz these first few weeks. Soon enough you'll run out of people to add. Realize that like 20% of your friends and family are actually smart enough to use GMail. And you'll stick to Facebook or Twitter...
Ryan Franklin, if you need to have a shotgun or cross bow in your locker, then perhaps your dedication to your craft is not as important as your unpaid hobbies. I'd suggest leaving the weaponry at home and work on being a closer for a World Series contender and save the bitching for things other than an ass covering by MLB...
Weekly Port-O-Potty update: Below is the one in our front yard from Mardi Gras. Let's check in every Monday and see if it's still there:
Yes. It's still there...
Just a heads up that this weekend, my friends over at Baseball Digest are hosting a 24 hour radiothon to raise money for Operation Homefront. Click this link for all the details. 100% of the money goes directly to charity and they are going to have players and former players help out this year. If you get a chance, tune in- or even better, give a little if you can...
In "One step closer 'til April 5th" news, the MVP strolled into Cardinal camp this morning, ready to crush some Dave McKay BP - and wearing these bad boys on his feet. Some other rich guy arrived too, but failed to wear Bo Jackson shoes, so he gets no love.
It’s been a hectic week around CD HQ- and with the pending 10a CST live confession of Tiger Woods to Father Media, I don’t know if we can concentrate on much else.
Also, be sure to check out the rest of the week that was below… including HMW’s (probably) award-winning caliber take down of the new 19.99 Cardinal Nation.
Now some Friday Links..
A thesis like break down of dirty song lyrics. LINK HERE
Babies with Laser Eyes is now a real site. LINK HERE
Did you know that 99% of everything on TV is green screened? LINK HERE
Great video- what appears to be dirty, is actually funny. LINK HERE (NSFW-ish) (HT: PS)
What sex education was like for girls in the 60's? Really? LINK HERE(HT: RH)
Cool outdoor sculpture. It's for real, not a cartoon. LINK HERE
That’s it for this week. Time to turn and burn and see if we’ll survive Coach Mac’s big 3-0! (And yes, he’ll be back with his annual NCAA Tourney breakdown in March.)
A quick note about this first paragraph: everything below it is way too important to bother looking up facts (or this paragraph isn't that important, same thing).
About a week or so ago, I think it was Alvin Reid of maybe the Globe-Democrat, or the Belleville Whatever Thing (oh, and Donnybrook!) wrote an article about the newish* $19.95 Cardinals Nation club (*I think it's been offered for a while). A day or two later, some guy from some website expanded a bit on that topic over at insidestl.com.
The fine readers of InsideSTL had a polite rebuttal to said article, explaining their disagreement on how much of a deterrent Cardinals Nation would be to their every day lifestyle, if they happened to participate.
But now, going forward - no matter what they say - there will be no dispute as to which club kicks ass, and which "Nation" needs to go to Suck Rehab and fight their suck demons of sucktitude.
As a quick reminder, here are the perks you get for your $19.95 to join Cardinals Nation:
Membership Card from the Cardinals
2 tickets to a regular season 2010 Cardinals game (via e-mail voucher to be redeemed online; terms and conditions may apply)
Complimentary Next-generation Gameday and audio experience
10% Off Entire Purchase coupon for the St. Louis Cardinals Team Store (terms and conditions may apply)
10% Off Entire Purchase coupon for the stlcardinals.com Online Shop (terms and conditions may apply)
Buy-One-Get-One-Free Busch Stadium Tour coupon (terms and conditions may apply)
Exclusive ticket discount offers and pre-sales throughout the 2010 season
Monthly Drawing for game tickets, autographed items and more
Special Access to Cardinals Nation members-only pages
Exclusive Club Message Board
Exclusive Cardinals desktop wallpapers
Snooze button...
But what about our club?
The Cardinal Badass Torture Chamber Machete Carnage Destruction Squad
A black Under Armour shirt with the club logo and name on it
Brass Knucks
One month of being accompanied by a Ninja or Bob Gibson (your choice)
10% off Homestyle Buffet visit, provided you drive Jack Clark to and fro
Access to the new "profanity section" at Busch - where player heckling, colorful language, racial slurs, and wife-boning threats are highly encouraged.
Group outings to go drop a deuce on Cubs fans' Welcome Mats, featuring guest hosts (and participants) athooks and HMW.
Chris Duncan humping bobblepelvis
The Chris Duncan porn, "Dunc in Your Trunk"
The "Rick Ankiel Nailed These Girls in '09" yearbook
Cards Diaspora INsider Access (okay, that's pretty much a link to our Twitter accounts)
Exclusive access to weekly chats with Ricky Horton, accompanied by Jesus
Monthly drawings for Blogger Training, Penthouse Lap Dances, free tasers and more
For just $19.92 (how you like that undercut, Cardinals Nation?), join the Cardinal Badass Torture Chamber Machete Carnage Destruction Squad and this can all be yours!
Today officially marks the opening of Spring Training for the 2010 St. Louis Cardinals baseball team. And since we have absolutely nothing else to talk about other than that- let’s go to the Tubes.
First a clip of the 1983 Cardinals on their first day back to practice after winning the World Series in 1982. Whitey looks like he partook in every celebratory meal he could in the off-season:
Remember the ‘Fan Show’ on KPLR? Could possibly have been the best show in the history of the TV, but of course it got yanked off the air. Here’s their Spring Training coverage circa 2007:
A panoramic view of Roger Dean Stadium, the Spring Training home of the St. Louis Cardinals:
More posted in the comments as we find them. Feel free to add your own...
Today is very last day until (hopefully) November where there won’t be at least some sort of something to talk about as it pertains of to St. Louis Cardinals baseball…
Something about those fawning reports on guys having a catch from crusty white men in awful Hawaiian shirts gets me excited for guys wearing tights and swatting a ball with a stick. Or something.
Se la vie winter, you miserable fuck, Spring is officially coming tomorrow. And it couldn’t be soon enough.
In other news…
Those not privy to my Gmail (and Google has done everything they can this past week to make that a non-issue) haven’t been keeping up with the e-mail chain that details how much the InsideSTL.com commenter’s hate my guts.
Let’s go to the screen cap:
I’ve redacted my place of work from the creepy guy with the most recent hateful barb… but the Waterboy was wondering how he knew where I worked AND that I had a Mardi Gras party? Is a Facebook event advertising? Is this guy a friend of mine? Is there anything douchier than calling someone a douche bag?
So many questions. If you want to check for more comments later today, here’s the link.
Bottom line, though: I suck at everything and deserve to be flogged.
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Take your standardized health care and shove it Canada. Those blessed with eyesight good enough to see a hockey puck in low-def TV witnessed one hell of a game between Team USA and Team Canada in the Olympics on Sunday. The whole game was brilliant. Brilliant goals, brilliant saves- just a good damn time if you're a sports fan. Perhaps watching the Blues for 5 months had erased my memory of what a good hockey game should be, though. So you might be well off trying to find more opinions on this. It might have been the worst Olympic game ever played, come to think of it...
It’s been a hectic week around CD HQ- and with the pending 10a CST live confession of Tiger Woods to Father Media, I don’t know if we can concentrate on much else.
A quick note about this first paragraph: everything below it is way too important to bother looking up facts (or this paragraph isn't that important, same thing). 
Bloguin is the revolutionary blog network specifically focused on helping bloggers get the most out of their websites. We're currently working on building a large network of online communities and hope to expand our blogging coverage to include a wide range of topics. 
The Bloguin Network allows advertisers to promote their products and services to our ever-growing number of visitors. We offer both site-specific ad placements as well as the ability to run a network-wide campaign. If you're interested in working with Bloguin to meet your advertising needs, please contact us.
The Bloguin Network is always looking to expand. We're specifically looking for blogs in the sports, entertainment, and video games field, but are open to adding any type of quality site. If you're a blogger and interested in joining our network, please fill out our application form.
The Bloguin Login gives you full access to everything our network has to offer. Your name and password will work for each and every one of our sites. Signing up is simple, and will allow you to post in all our forums, create member blogs, and access other cool features! What are you waiting for? Create an Account! 
