(HT: @2xAught7)

Let me briefly comment on the article posted yesterday afternoon by HMW.

Yes, that is me in Alive Magazine. Yes, The Hunk is a real pizza and it’s good. If you live in or near Edwardsville IL or Maplewood MO, you should order one and thank me later. Yes, putting me in that article was pretty much a goof by some buddies of mine over at the publisher. Yes, I was surprised as anyone to see that actually make it to print.

This whole deal has brought back a blast from the past, how I started to know those guys at Alive. I was a shlub trying to get some intersting video content and asked if I could film it. This is a piece we did: LINK HERE

Good stuff on that post. Made me laugh. And that’s almost impossible. I’m an impenetrable wall of solitude.

READ THE CARDINALS OFF-SEASON ROAD MAP on InsideSTL HERE

Baseball is a weird sport. It makes smart people do some stupid things.

Brian Wilson never has made a 6 out save in his entire career. That didn’t stop the SF Giants from letting him try this post-season. Same thing with the scheduling. As a team, you might have one day off a month. Maybe. But the Yankees are going to be over a week without a game by the time they strap it on tonight.

Why?

Nerves. TV revenue. All the usual culprits. But every year we have these same discussions about what the hell is wrong with baseball and it seems like every year the people running the sport from the clubhouse to the commissioner are just not listening. Instead we get days without a game and when we get to these games we get irrational decisions and baffling play. They probably are synonymous.

READ HOW THE STL RAMS FRONT OFFICE IS TO BLAME on SB Nation STL

Nonetheless, you need some predictions. I had ATL and PHI in the NLCS and NYY and TB in the ALCS, so I’m running 50% for the two people that gave a shit.

AL: The Rangers are a nice story. The Rangers have also never played a championship game in the Bronx in October where the Yankee fans rise to the occasion. The fact that they muffed 2 home games to clinch a series in Arlington? That just tells me the Rangers don’t have the experience or the cajones to pull off what wouldn’t be that big of an upset on paper.

Yanks in 5

NL: The Phillies are pretty much looking like the juggernaut we thought they’d be back in March. Halladay and Hammels are on fire… but the Giants do have at least reasonable approximations of those beasts with Lincecum and Cain. But the Giants fall short when you look at that line-up. Just how in the hell did they get to the NLCS with those bats? I thought Aubry Huff was dead until I saw him last week playing against the Braves. The Phils have too much with Howard, Utley and Werth to be stopped. The Giants make this more interesting than people think.

Phillies in 6

Now the Friday Links…

• The platypus can poison you in 80 different ways. LINK HERE
• This anchor was fired for this. Seriously. LINK HERE
• CL listing for a band needed. One of the best ones ever in that vertical. LINK HERE
• Worst company name of all time? LINK HERE
• Buying things dressed as a bank robber. LINK HERE
• The phone moan is pretty brilliant. LINK HERE (NSFW-words)

Be sure to check out anything you missed by scrolling below. I think the Mad Librarian, The Business and Trumbsy are still on board with the site. Hopefully they didn’t find anything we wrote too offensive.

Do you like people knowing that you were at Whatever Wine Fest or a Party in Some Park?

Afraid to go to Northwest Plaza?

Can't afford a St. Louis Magazine subscription?

Hey, Alive Magazine is the magazine for you!

In their "Good Eats" issue, lots of high-profile St. Louisans shared their favorite foods to eat around town, including our very own athooks. One can only imagine the selection process it took to be a part of this, but I think an Alive Magazine appearance puts us neck and neck with Redbird Nation (last update: Feb. '05) in regards to Cardinal blogger importance. Look out TradeJasonMarquis.com, you motherfuckers are next!

So the question posed to Hooks is simple: What is your all-time favorite St. Louis dish?  Let's see what the boss had to say:

Hunk Pizza, eh? We're supposed to believe that's a real thing? I'm about to go check Urban Dictionary and search for this 'hunk pizza,' and...

Ohhh, that's what I thought it meant; had to make sure.

I don't think he wants me breaking a big story like this, but it's time that we tell you guys that we're releasing a Cards Diaspora porn that we made a while back, and calling it "Hunk Pizza." And now that the porn industry is shut down for a while, where else are you going to go for fresh porn?

Exactly.

Okay, maybe that paragraph is a little untrue. But for a brief second, I contemplated making an MS Paint of Hooks' porn debut (debut, right? right??) in "Hunk Pizza"...

Yeah, pretty scary. Of course I came to my senses and was like, "No, I will not MS Paint the cover art for 'Hunk Pizza,' featuring a naked Aaron Hooks!"

"No, I will not!"

"No."

"No."

"No."

"No."

"No."

"No."

"No."

"No."

"Okay, maybe I will..."

(Click "Read More" unless you just ate, or if your work frowns on cartoon naked man-ass)

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.