Cardinals Diaspora - A St. Louis Cardinals blog
You've heard it a million times: 'Baseball isn't America's pastime anymore'.
It's a completely arbitrary sports talk radio topic and it's probably true. The NFL has surpassed about everything as the standard bearer for entertainment in America. But that doesn't mean that baseball isn't as influential as ever.
During some recent time in the airport, I checked out Entertainment Weekly. I promise you that I had hours to kill and wouldn't normally read an interview with Andy Cohen, host of the popular Bravo TV series 'Watch What Happens Live'... but I was going cover to cover. And for those that don't know about WWHL, it's described by Wikipedia as the "first openly gay latenight TV show".
The show is moving to a nightly time slot after being a weekly show since it's inception. And the host listed his dream panel: Michelle Obama, Madonna and... DAVID FREESE?
David's been making the rounds like a maniac this off-season, most recently showing up for the Mizzou Vs Texas basketball game on Saturday. He's been everywhere, from talk shows like Leno to, literally, furniture store promotions.
Good for Freese. Dude is taking advantage of the situation. I'd do the same.
Baseball may not be as popular as it used to be. But let one David Freese prove that it's not anywhere near irrelevant. And here's to Andy. I too would like to see #23 hold court with the First Lady and the Material Girl.
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Animals need to be saved, people.
Tony LaRussa saves animals. This has been well documented the past 16 years, highlighted by the 'Smooch Your Pooch' shirt he wore during the 2006 World Series celebration, eschewing traditional championship garb.
For the past 6 years, Mr. LaRussa has used the off-season to put on a star-studded event for ARF, the Animal Rescue Foundation in which he's heavily involved. Big names. Big show. Big Bucks.
Animals saved.
This years event has just announced their line-up... it's almost as exciting as the March Madness bracket reveal. Let's see who's coming to St. Louis to light up the newly opened Peabody Opera House!
Ok... Now let's announce the 'Stars' To The Rescue.Wait, that's it? That's the list? Ton Johnston? Luke Bryan? Timothy B. Schmit? Annnnnnnd? Oh, you're serious. I'm being honest when I say that Matt Sebek might actually have more juice than any of those three guys.
I get it. He's retired now. And is transitioning into historical icon as opposed to a make or break power broker. But Ton Fucking Johnston? He's retired, not dead.
Don't get me wrong, this isn't a shot at LaRussa. I think he does a hell of a job with ARF and is working on a serious cause here. But I am calling for some 'Stars' to actually show up to this event so the people buying tickets don't have to tell their friends and family they're going to the big Ton Johnston show.
Oooof.
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Sometimes I have to travel for work.
Because I live in St. Louis and it's called 'The Gateway to the West' by people who like calling cities by nicknames, most of the travel I do is out west. After a nice dinner with some co-workers I called my mom when I was walking home. I noticed it was a little after 7 and was hoping that the Blues game against Montreal would be on NBC Sports when I got back to the hotel.
"You see the Blues won 3-0" she asks.
Dammit. It's already 10:30 on the east coast. The game has been over for an hour. And this is the life of a West Coast sports fan. By the time you're done with work, had a little supper and got yourself ready to watch a game, 3/4 of them are over.
Mom made a good point too. She said the NY media wouldn't pay a bit of attention to Pujols after opening day. It's too late to stay up to see what he's doing. Hmmm... now that I think about it, I can't tell you much about anything that happened with the Angels last year. I know they were a pretty good team and didn't totally roll over and let Texas take the AL West. I know they had a couple good pitchers. Beyond that?
Hmm...
I mean I like a couple of shows, but for the most part, I watch sports. Really I don't care what it is either, if it's a competition, then I'm in. But after the hundreds of hours I committed to sports in 2011, I don't know if more than a couple SportsCenter morning highlights were the extent of my Angels experience last year.
Pujols will command a bit more attention. And it's not like if he goes on some sort of superhuman tear it won't get national run. But outside of the spectacular, west coast teams just don't get the coverage (and by coverage, I mean ESPN, SI, etc) that any other team would. Hell, I'm writing this and primetime is still on, you're in bed.
This isn't meant to be some deep post, rather an interesting point by my mom. Less people will give a shit about Albert Pujols in 2012 because less people are going to see Albert Pujols in 2012. He's headed to a major media market, but will probably get less press than ever before.
Just another one of those things that we'll never know if Pujols considered before he left.
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It's Week 2 of The Bachelor: Winemaker.
Last week the fastidiously floppy haired fermenter hosted 25 women at a cocktail party and shed 7 of them to get the gaggle down to 18. This week's Live Blog is coming to you from an undisclosed Sacramento CA hotel room. That tidbit has no bearing whatsoever with this post, but whatever.
Let's Date...
7:01 - The Winemaker is having a home game. He takes the ladies to Sonoma CA (AKA Wine Country) for a week of... hmm... romantic vineyard walk and talks? Grape feelings? I thought the only people that went to Sonoma were married or gay? Or both. People kept telling me that this was going to be a boring season, that The Winemaker wasn't ready to step up the drama. I think he's game. He's ready to mix it up. Prove me right, big boy. Prove me RIGHT!
7:02- Is this real life? Didn't see who dropped that, but Internet memes? Big plus. Big.
7:06 - "City Hall, right there." Oh, Christ.
7:17 - The date with Kacie B. continues. And it's going, well, its... painfully, fucking, normal. I'm not here to watch a damn Match.com infomercial. This is the girl from Clarksville TN, though. Ever been there? If you have then you're well aware that she's willing to do just about anything to get out of that raging dumpster fire of a city.
7:18 - Hey ladies... Dong shot! He was 2, but still, dong shot!
7:28 - If the kids want "sexy" you give them sexy. You don't give them The Sprinkler, dammit. Kids these days are much more advanced than we were in Jr. High. They probably had more sex than you did last week. So find a pole, use it and get into the audition. The Sprinkler? I'm offended.
7:32 - A "gingerbread hooker". Well played, kids. Well played.
7:39 - I'm calling bullshit on the kids writing a coherent play in which all the constructs of The Bachelor are effortlessly woven into the fabric of a hastily organized community theater play. And if i'm wrong, then get to living, because we're doomed as a society in about 20 years when these kids are running things.
7:47 - 34 is now a cougar? We're really walking that line back, eh?
7:50 - "How'd that taste coming out of your mouth?" TIMES 2! Ladies, you've learned a valuable lesson tonight, when you're a model, you're better than everyone else. And when you're better than everyone else, you get everything you want. That's it. That's the lesson.
7:57 - Serious question for the ladies out there: does The Winemaker look like a good kisser? I feel like he's doing it wrong, but I want to verify this.
8:11 - The Model busts out the old standby for the really hot girls... "no guys ask me out". For a while, I believed this. So I asked out every smoke show I saw for like 3 weeks. Turns out no guy does not include this guy.
8:19 - Oh Winemaker. He's practically finishing The Model's sentences to get the answers he wants. I dated an actor and it was... JUST SO EMPTY, RIGHT? I'm looking... TO SETTLE DOWN. HUH?? It's like this women bought the entry level hot girl handbook and is reading it from cue cards behind The Winemaker's head. But it still fucking works. It still... fucking... works.
8:24 - I'll admit, I usually don't see the commercials, but is this K-Y Intense thing for real? It says it's "scientifically proven to make a women's big moment, even bigger". Orgasm drops. Sold by the tube. Tested by science. Tell me again how this isn't the best selling product of all time.
8:31- Ashley is totally getting pwnd by The Cougar. Don't bitch to the girls, young won. Got to go mix it up. Oh, and the 'Stage 5 Clinger' zing? So 2006.
8:38 - The Blogger! took 88 minutes, but she's finally here to... throw her jacket on a burning candle. And admit she has a penis? Is she talking about a penis? Penis' don't make you act like this. They don't.
8:42 - Ashley says The Cougar would be something "fun to motorboat". This is fun. How much material is she going to lift from 'Wedding Crashers'? Maybe Owen Wilson is her brother? I hope she sticks around to see just how deep her fandom goes.
8:51- It's time for the axe man...
Who's Bounced? -- The BLOGGER! (Side: either the producers did the worst hatchet job ever on a cast member or this woman is delusional. One or the other, but to be so upset after getting dumped speaks strongly to the former.) Some other girl.
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Most "off-seasons" we've had require some scrounging around the Interwebs in January and February. Its part and parcel of operating a site with a giant redbird on
the mast head. One tried and true method of currying content is to just scan Google News posts. See if anything looks out of place. Mine for that nugget thateveryone else overlooked."Lou Brock Happy To Help At Night Of Memories"
That was the headline. And Lou was being a good guy when he showed up at a charity even in Evansville Indiana over the weekend. Little did he know that the enterprising reporter named Gordon Engelhardt was going to show up for the local paper and coax out of Brock the most revealing on the record evidence from a 'friend' that Pujols is a big time money grabber:
He said Albert Pujols expected to stay with the Cardinals until the end when the extra money offered by the Los Angeles Angels was simply too much to turn down.
"I'm pretty close to Albert and he had no idea he was going to another ballclub," Brock said. "The Cardinals had the last right of refusal and he thought he would be coming back. But the numbers were so far apart."
However, Pujols kept insisting it wasn't about the money. Perhaps the language barrier got in the way, Brock joked.
"Maybe it was interpreting from English to Spanish," he said. "In the days of Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Willie Mays and Hank Aaron, it was about who was the best playerat each position, not who was the highest-paid player at each position."
Brock pretty much lays it out there: Pujols left because of the money.
Hooks - we already knew this, you asshat!
Ok, we already knew that. But The Pujols' little media tour a few weeks back when they decided to tell us all it wasn't about the money? That pissed me off. And not because he's making more money than pretty much everyone in professional sports. Hell, pretty much anyone period. He's earned that right as an American. It pisses me off because I know what's coming down the pipe.
MLB schedule makers will have the Angels in STL for the 2013 season. This is a stone cold immortal lock. And since a season plus some will have passed, Pujols is going to show up and start sucking up from the time his plane lands. And Cardinal fans are going to give him a standing ovation, because they're nice people that wouldn't boo you if they caught you in bed with their wife.
And that moment, literally 2 years from now, is enough to make me wince.
Read those quotes from Lou Brock up there again. Albert Pujols took the money and ran. Remember that. The outpouring of support you showed him for 11 years really meant dick to the guy. Remember that too.
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I wanted to prove a point about Dave Duncan, so I typed '1999 St. Louis Cardinals' into the very excellent site Baseball-Reference.com.
Remember the 1999 Cardinals? Yeah, I don't either. Looks like they went 75-86 and finished 4th in the division. Looking back, this was probably one of the worst seasons the Cardinals had in the Tony LaRussa era.
1999 was totally unforgettable. That is, unless you're Kent Bottenfield. Because this is the year you went 18-7 and became an All-Star.
Mr. Bottenfield was promptly traded to the, ahem, Los Angeles Angels of Anehiem for some guy named Jim Edmonds and won a total of 18 games the rest of his professional career. 1999 will always be special to at least him.
If there weren't 30 years worth of Kent Bottenfield's out there in the universe then the sudden leave of absence that Cardinals pitching coach Dave Duncan announced tonight by the team wouldn't be that big of a deal. Trouble is that there are a ton of them. Guys who had no business being All-Stars, let alone good at professional baseball were so because of Mr. Duncan's tutelage.
Late in the 2011 season, Mr. Duncan took a leave of absence from the Cardinals to be with his wife who had surgery to remove a brain tumor. It's well founded speculation that things haven't been going as well in her recovery as everyone had hoped if, as it stands now, Duncan will be reassigned to another position with the Cardinals if or when he returns.
His family is in all of our thoughts. Cancer is a real dick. We hope she beats its ass.
But unlike LaRussa's exit, that was glorious, but not unwelcome to some, the loss of his top lieutenant has drawn a consensus... it sucks for the Cardinals.
They don't make guys like Dave Duncan anymore. A tough son of bitch who says he doesn't care about attention or money and really doesn't. He grinds out every pitch, never throws a player under the bus and always has a revival act that makes us fans expect the extraordinary. 6 months ago, Octavio Dotel was traded as a salary dump. Last month the Tigers gave him a contract they'll regret by the end of 2012. Was that luck?
It was Duncan.
And if this is it. If this is the way that Duncan goes out, then its going to be a rough next couple decades. Because most of the time, Kent Bottenfield is Kent Bottenfield.
With Dave Duncan in the dugout, he was an All-Star.
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Forgive me, I've been a bit ill this week. I thought that you said Carpenter banged up his foot saving a man from an anaconda attack in the Amazon.
Wait, what?
Of course he did.
I honestly can't believe that this site didn't post anything about this story until now. For this, I am truly sorry. It's one thing to not get you the adjusted VORP percentages for the AAA Redbirds, but when it comes to gigantic man eating snakes attacking superstar pitchers, well, we've just got to get better. This will not be taken lightly around the CD HQ.
We're going to need you to come in on Saturday, ok?
Back to the Snakes on a Ace, though. I looks like Carp, Phillies pitcher Roy Halladay and former Blue Jay BJ Ryan decided the best place to catch some relaxing off-season fishing was, of course, the Amazon. As in the fucking Amazon, Amazon. So when a giant anaconda proceeded to attack a fellow rod n reeler, the boys of summer pounced into action and wrestled the slithering serpent back to the musty swampland it came forth from.
That snake must not have seen Game 5.
It appears that sans some minor scrapes and bruises, the troika of pitchers came away from the attack unscathed while spreading the gospel of MLB deep into the jungle.
Good on you, Carp. Really makes Skip Shumaker's incredible 60% off New Year's Sale find at American Eagle look tame by comparison.
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The following story is true.
It can be verified by other people, including an employee of the Cardinals. And it probably would have been one of the all-time classics, if not, for you know, what happened.
Game 6.
I wasn't going to go. I had 2 standing room tickets to the game, but I also had a ticket to Game 7. If the Cardinals lost, well, I didn't want to see that. And if they won? I was in the door for Game 7. If not for my friend Bo literally flying in that morning from Denver to go to the game, I wasn't interested. In fact, I asked him If we should sell the tickets and make a little cash. He made it clear we were going to the game.
For all the games I've been to, including a previous World Series game, I'd never had standing room tickets. I figured we'd get in like 30 minutes before the game and be set. Turns out there are people that go in 2 hours before the game and lay down like they're in a coffin to protect spots for themselves and friends. Long story short, Bo and I were in the upper deck, RF, with an obstructed view when I started texting my other friend, who works for the Cardinals.
She tells us there are some spots to stand by the Bow Tie Bar in LF. We go and are thankful.
Cut to the top of the 5th. Bo and Cardinals friend decided to go to the bathroom. David Freese has just dropped the easiest fly ball of all time. And I'm apoplectic. I'm also kind of tipsy and convinced that my 'Freese is the new Buckner' line is pure comedy gold. I say it to a few people milling around and not much reaction. I say it again, louder, to no one in particular. I come with a third time to a lady walking by who seems to be as upset about the drop as I am.
"He'll make up for it."
Lady, no. You DON'T come back from errors like that. It's a sign. Everything that Freese has done to this point is moot. He'll be the guy that dropped that fly ball FOREVER.
"He's an awesome guy and he'll make up for it. I know it."
I don't give a sheeeeeeeet about how nice he is, who cares about how nice he is? Did you just see that drop? That's the most awful play in the history of this franchise.
"That's my brother."
Bo and Cardinals employee are walking back at this point. Want to know who I'm talking to. You know, just David Freese's sister. Yes, we asked for a driver's licence (name changed since marriage). Yes, now that you mention it, she does look like David. Yes, she did have seats, but was too nervous and needed to walk around. Yes, we're absolutely sure it was Pam, David Freese's sister.
Today, I say, Pam was more right than I ever could have imagined. David did more than make up for that drop and erase any thought of being called Buckner Jr.
I've told this story a handful of times, and trust me, it sounds pretty unbelievable to me that the one person wanting to argue about David Freese being the new Bill Buckner at Game 6 of the World Series was actually David Freese's sister.
But it's true. And it'll be one of the things I remember most about Game 6. I've never been so wrong.
And this is coming from a guy who tried to not go to the game in the first place.
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It's on.
The Bachelor premieres tonight. And after a successful year of Bachelorette Live Blogs, we're going to dig up this dead horse and beat it one more time. If you don't watch the Bachelor, please skip this post altogether. You will find nothing of value. But if you feel that this is the pinnacle of televised entertainment, like we do... then you're in luck.
We'll try to post these on Monday nights and at the latest Tuesday mornings until the finale.
Your Primer:
Who: Ben (The Winemaker)
Why: Last man dumped on the Bachelorette 2011.
How: In humiliating fashion. A full proposal and then a rejection.
The Winemaker now gets his shot at redemption. 25 women from all over the country have come to fight over his floppy hair. And over the next several weeks we'll see a man fall in love, propose and then have a messy breakup breathlessly covered by Us Weekly.
F the Masters, this really is a tradition unlike any other.
Let's get after it...
7:00 - Ashley, in what is one of the more deplorable moments in a show predicated on deplorable moments, lets The Winemaker fully prepose before his dumping. I've said it before... if you are a human being, you don't let that dude get down on one knee. That being said... let's watch it again!
7:03 - He makes wine. And tickles the ivory. And kayaks. And has thousand yard stares off docks. Friends, The Winemaker is ready. Game time.
7:10 - "Babe, Welcome to Dumpsville. Population YOU!" That was the text that Lindzi received notifying her that her previous relationship was over. She also is an avid horse rider, who is "ready to get back in the saddle" and "is tired of horsing around". Between the horse puns and the phonetic name spelling I think we have to assume that her previous lover was Seabiscuit.
7:12 - "Beef nuts are cow balls": Amber T
7:14 - Courtney says she is worth at least "2 Karats". Friends, we have our heel for the season. She's a model who's "not afraid of the competition" and "ready for other girls to be jealous". She's straight off the Michelle Money production line.
7:15 - Jenna. She's a blogger? It's called The Overanalyst? Sweet Jesus, Ben. Run. RUN FAST. You don't want anything to do with the blog-o-sphere. Trust us.
7:18 - Meet Shawn, a cut throat business analyst by day. A doting mother by night. While you're at it, meet Nicki a dental professional and recent divorcee. In the parlance of The Bacehelor this season, these will be, shall we say, the sour grapes?
7:32 - Amber. Holy shit. This girls last name is Bacon. And she just rattled off 5 back to back puns so fast, The Winemaker had to wonder just what they hell hit him. I'm wondering just what the hell hit him. That was terrifyingly awesome. I think.
7:36 - The Blogger, everyone. The Blogger. This is what happens in our minds. Only worse.
7:39 - Miss Pacific Palisades? Ohhhhhhh my. Our first three knuckle cringer of the the night. She even had the sash and everything.
7:42 - I've lived in KY. And I'm sorry for whatever that was in the hat.
7:44 - Ok, they've been teasing the fact that an older lady would be a contestant. I wanted to really believe that they were going to do this. Like for real, real. Put her in the mix, see if she could last maybe a rose ceremony or two. Turns out she was just there to introduce her granddaughter. So bogus, ABC. So very bogus. QUIT BEING AGEIST!
7:50 - The walk by? Typical Winemaker. He gets big boy'd on his own show. Followed by an arm slug. Tip to women: if you want to seduce a guy, the arm slug never works. Ever. Unless you're naked. Then it'll probably work.
7:53 - She brought her horse.
8:08 - I'll shoot you straight, The Winemaker is going to have a tough time with this show. He just got the first impression rose on the first episode and he looked like he'd just seen the Ghost of Failed Proposals Past. He seems like a really nice guy. I can understand why women like him. But at the same time, he's going to get emotionally steamrolled. Expect bad decisions at every turn this year. Tangent over.
8:13 - The slugger now wants to kick the soccer ball around. Oy.
8:15 - The Epidemiologist is also a rapper. I had a friend of mine in college that loved to rap when he got drunk. He'd rap in your face and you'd just kind of nod for a while, but then you'd kind of wish it was all over with after like 4 bars. He'd go for literally, as long as you'd let him. Totally a miserable thing to do another person; rap in their face unprompted. Anyway, the point of the story is we all need to leave the rapping to Project Pat.
8:19 - Whoa. "You're in my life forever"? Monica is coming on real strong... to another woman. Monica seems to be the kind of women who says something like that and when she says it, she means it. Now, forever might be until she murders you after 3 weeks, but that's just semantics.
8:27 - "Share a tampon sometime"? From now on, I'm a freelance writer. Not a blogger. Never was a blogger. Never will be a blogger. Don't even know what that word means.
8:35 - Seabiscuit has an really intense stare. No joke. It's creeping me out.
8:43 - The Rose Ceremony commences. Surprises? Slugger got a rose. The Winemaker was probably scared of her. Miss Pacific Palisades kept the sash on all night, but still got a rose. Monica, the newly minted Lesbian got a rose...
8:47 - THE BLOGGER GOT A ROSE? The internet is doomed!
8:48 - Bacon was fried. Cow Balls were chopped. London called. And 7 other girls that got not much more than a whiff of airtime were dumped.
This season?
Drama. Fermented.
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So that's 2011.
When this site started in 2006, the Cardinals won the World Series. 5 years later, the Cardinals won the World series again. Every hack column you've read about the year in review probably started "They'll never be another year like 2011..." While that might be the most awful way to start a post ever, in our case, it's absolutely the truth.
There quite possibly, and hopefully, will be a year like 2006 when the Cardinals are a pretty good team, sneak into the playoffs and go on a magical run. Combine that with the loss of the best player any of us have ever seen? We aren't going to see that again. (And if you saw Stan Musial live in person and are reading this blog, please e-mail me. I'd love to talk to you.)
Oh, and Tony LaRussa, who was managing the Cardinals before I got a driver's license? He decided to retire.
Impossible championship + Unimaginable desertion. = 2011, a good year to have a Cardinals-ish site.
The 2011 Cardinals were, by a mile, the most maddening team I've rooted for in my adult life. When you expected a big game, they'd flop. Write them off and a spectacular comeback was sure to come. When we zigged, they zagged. They owned their petulance and never, not once, were predictable. Ultimately they ended up giving the city a spectacular October run that engrossed everyone.
Then the drama began.
Tony LaRussa promptly retired. After season after season of grinding, the ultimate STL lightning rod rode off to California a champion. The Cardinals hired a coach that has never been a coach. And the best player in baseball left for more money, while coming back to piss everyone off by claiming it wasn't about the money.
(Side: what odds would you have gave me, before this fall, that Tony LaRussa would be able to come back to St. Louis and let the adulation of the city wash over him without prejudice and Albert Pujols would be a piranha? 1000 to 1? A million to 1?)
I don't think I've mentioned it, but I do believe that the 2012 Cardinals have the chance to become the most loved Cardinals team since the 1982 team. Why? Because with Albert Pujols in the 3 hole, there were expectations. Like it or not, he told us to go piss off. And when you get dumped, you want to take some time off and then find the HOTTEST girl or guy and show that son of a bitch up.
The Cardinals wins in 2012 might not see themselves as the spurned lovers, but the fans will. And they'll project that love on the team that is playing in St. Louis.
No, we're never going to have another 2011. But for the first time in a long time, I'm pretty fired up to see just what the hell is going to happen the next season before the end of the year is done. 2012 is going to provide much fodder. We may even get 25 people to read this site at some point!
Plus The Bachelor starts next week.
Thanks for making Cards Diaspora one of the most popular Cardinals sites on the internet. We really do appreciate everyone that comes to the site, no matter how often. We promise to keep putting out crap as long as you'll look at it.
Happy New Year.
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