Last week we had some Iraqi elbow jobs (dropped over Baghdad), a very misguided young lady learning the hard way how prostitutes are really treated and and roller skating. 

But tonight?

Part 1 of a 2 night Bachelor spectacular. That's right. 4 hours in two nights. Oh, and PETULANCE! PETULANCE ABOUNDS!

(Ed. Note: Tonight, I attended a small get together for this show. Why does this matter? It doesn't really, I guess. But I did learn some things...

1 - Women are brutal to other women. 

2 - Where I come from (Venice IL) snitches get stitches. But it appears to be a divisive dating tactic. 

3 - Women hate other women.)

7:01 - Pack your bags ladies.... you're going to... MONTANA!

(CLICK HERE for full effect)

7:16 - That square is literally every single person in Montana. When told that this would come on TV later in the fall and winter, well, they shot and ate that producer. They weren't all that familiar with hipsters and reacted.

7:25 - Goat Milk? Goat Milk. 

7:37 - Valid point. Spend time vigorously jerking a goats udder and then drinking the results deserves something, right? Because that image above is getting co-opted by Cinemax late-night in 3...2...

7:41 - Wait, how'd she get a blue team shirt? Is she wearing someone elses clothes? Is this an amazing coincidence? 

7:51 - "Two women, one rose. One stays and one goes." Chris Harrison is a dick.

7:55 - Just got an e-mail from a west coast viewer:  "I have a story idea that basically follows the Bachelor but at some point, a horrible, bubonic plague type illness (or rabid case of crabs or a zombie invasion or the power grid shuts down) sets in on the cast and crew over a 3 week span and everyone except the bachelor and one girl survive. I need to tease it out a little more but you get the idea."

8:01 - The old 'dead boyfriend' card? Played. Not much you can do there Jackie. That's The Bachelor immunity idol. 

8:35 - "I'm not a drama person at all." Right. 

8:44 - You know who would have been good to fill all that time during the Super Bowl yesterday? Chris Harrison. That's who. When the director behind the camera needs someone to stretch a shot, no one is better. No one.

8:55 - Welp. It was a good run. Let the lawsuits begin!

CUT: Jackie, Robyn

TOMORROW NIGHT: Hypothermia. More Hypothermia. Breathing tubes. Possible mass deaths. 

You can only imagine the gambit of emotions that John Harbaugh was feeling after Super Bowl XLVII. His Ravens had just won the most watched TV event in the metered market era. But he'd just beaten his little brother and knew his friend was in a rough spot. 

He finally watched his maligned QB deliver a spectacular post-season, one that may be considered the best by a QB in history. But he'd also heard Joe Flacco say that he's worth $20 million dollars a year. Seeing as he's a free-agent, that could hamper the building of a dynasty.

He'd also seen his defensive captain cap off his career with a Super Bowl win that nobody saw coming. The same man who was connected to PEDs earlier in the week by Sports Illustrated.

Jim Harbaugh is a smart guy. But he went on ESPN and did a very dumb thing.

Without prompting, he volunteered his opinion on "the Ray Lewis thing" (the thing being Ray Lewis' return from a torn triceps) telling host Chris Berman that Lewis is a man driven by faith and that's what allowed him to return in roughly 1/3 the time any other pro athlete would return from a similar injury. 

Oy.

It's one of those moments that's totally innocuous now. And it's one of those moments that could come back and become the defining sound bite of a coach that is so in the bag for his guy that he can't see that something fishy is going on here and there are people trying to uncover the truth.

Ray Lewis sells papers and generates clicks on websites. So the hunt for new information about his run ins with deer antler spray isn't stopping now that he's retired. John Harbaugh shoved all in on Ray Lewis after the game. We'll see if that was a smart way to celebrate your first Super Bowl win.

Other Items?

1) Do they have electricians on site during pro football games? What was that person's thoughts when the lights went out? Don't you wish they would of had a camera on that man or woman? 

2) The commercials. It's an annual ritual to bitch about how they aren't good anymore. And that's the wrong argument. Even back in the 80s and 90s, a majority of commercials were still not that good (just like a majority of TV in general isn't to your liking). The ones you remembered, however, were bolder. Now? When you spend 12M on a spot (like Samsung or Dodge Ram) you have about 200 people with their hands on it. And it's going to be watered down.

That's why the Go Daddy spots are so effective.

You might hate them. You might like them. But at least you have a reaction to them. You remember what the new Budweiser is? Or what SodaStream wanted you to do today? 

Neither do I.

3) The cameras that CBS used to film the halftime show were awesome. To set up that lightning, stage and film 15 minutes so cleanly has got to be insanely hard. The whole thing looked amazing.

4) That one hurts for 49er fans. Goal to go with a 1st down to win a Super Bowl and you don't use your best weapon? Plus using a TO on offense? Man. 

5) Football season is over. Sucks. But at least that means we're real close to Spring Training. 

Yes, this news is over a week old. And yes, we're just now getting to it. 

The Cardinals have signed veteran IF Ronny Cedeno to a 1 year deal for 1.15M (plus another 850K in performance bonus incentives) as an insurance policy against the arm of Rafael Furcal. 

Kozmania iced for another year, right?

At first blush, looks like a pretty solid signing. Sure, .247 BA, .290 OBP and .647 OPS aren't going to drop the panties.

But we didn't sign Mr. Cedeno to hit the ball. No sir, we signed him because if pressed into action, he's totally awesome as a leatherman and the dropoff between Furcal and Cedeno will barely be noticeable.

Way better option than Kozma, right? No more infield fly controversy here.

Wait, what? 

Ok, I will go over to Baseball-Reference and look it up. 

UH OH.

Time to get baseball nerd. That -2 number above? Well those represent the number of runs number of runs above or below average the player was worth based on the number of plays made. Not good. 

-10? The number of runs above or below average the player was worth based on the number of plays made.

Furcal is at 33/51 for comparison.

So historically Cedeno isn't a good hitter. He's a pretty average fielder. And he's a former Cub. And Met.

The big takeaway from this signing is two-fold:

1) If Furcal goes down, this insurance plan is probably not State Farm or Allstate. It's more Safe Auto. 

2) If Furcal goes down and you're a huge Pete Kozma fan, your boy might just make this a complete flush of 1.15M dollars by the Cardinals.

Now, the Friday Links...

Do you need motivation? LINK HERE

Why, why Manti? LINK HERE

Square Root. LINK HERE

Bachflip. LINK HERE

Ostrcich in a elephant headlock. LINK HERE

Sunbathing robots. LINK HERE

That's it. That's the week. Enjoy your first FEB weekend people. 

4 years after the project as supposed to be over, it's finally getting started. 

Ballpark Village is finally going to happen. For real. No, seriously. Not a joke.

The Cardinals announced on Wednesday that financing for the downtown development has closed and that preliminarily site prep had begun. A formal groundbreaking will be held February 8th with a target completion date of Phase 1 by Opening Day 2014.

Full Story: LINK HERE

St. Louis has deserved this for a long, long time. While Shannon's and Paddy O's are fun, the Cardinals have long been the underachieving financial driver of downtown. Untold millions of people have walked past that empty field since the new Busch Stadium opened in 2006 and left the city without spending a dime. 

Further, a half-hearted attempt at a softball field (has it ever been used?) was more proof that the Cardinals weren't serious about doing anything but making money without spending money to give back to St. Louis.

Well, here's to bygones being bygones. 

It looks like this time Ballpark Village is actually going to be something that's more than a civic joke. We'll be sure to cover its progress as it comes along.

Last week, the world record for vertical kissing was set. Kacie B gave Jean Luc-Picard faceplam burn. And beach volleyball was stripped of it's Olympic Sport status.

But tonight? 

                                 

The 2013 United Cardinal Bloggers Annual is now available for purchase @ Amazon: LINK HERE 

One of these years, we're going to get something published, but alas, the last thing that got cut before it went to (e) print was Bachlorette posts. Fingers crossed for 2014.

The foreward by Will Leitch (who happens to have an oral history in AdWeek today LINK HERE)

The 2012 St. Louis Cardinals was a team that was hard to figure. Playing without their Hall-of-Fame manager and longtime first baseman, expectations for the squad were mixed. However, Mike Matheny led his charges into October and then, via a playoff road never before traveled, within one game of repeating as National League Champions.

Throughout the year, the team was covered by the intrepid band of Internet writers known as the United Cardinal Bloggers and, with that season in the books and a new one about to begin, the UCB has put together a look at what happened during the season from their unique points of view.

With a foreword by Will Leitch, founder of Deadspin and now a columnist at Sports On Earth and New York Magazine, the 2013 United Cardinal Blogger Annual recaps not only the regular season but every round of the playoffs as well as providing features on such players such as Chris Carpenter, Yadier Molina and Adam Wainwright.

Along with the player profiles, there are other examinations of the season including the work of the bullpen and Matheny’s bunting habits as well as a summary of the minor league season for each level of the Cardinals’ farm system. The annual also includes a tribute to St. Louis icon Stan Musial.

Contributors include Drew Silva, known for his work at NBC Sports’ Hardball Talk blog; Matt Philip from Fungoes, a part of ESPN’s Sweetspot blog network; Bill Ivie from I70 Baseball, which covers both of Missouri’s professional baseball teams; and a host of other Redbird writers.

So go out and get your copy. Now. 

If you want to read all about Mike Matheny's financial issues, Derrick Goold of the Post-Dispatch has all the details: LINK HERE

What would have been a bigger story, (see the above screen grab of Yahoo's homepage) was pushed to the back burner from the passing of Stan Musial a few hours after this went up.

Let's hope that this whole real estate speculation era for Matheny is now coming to a close. It seems like he wants to put it behind him and the sooner that happens, the better. Becuase let's be honest... seeing headlines like that are good for zero Cardinal fans. 

Friend of the program and 101 ESPN producer Chris Files made this yesterday from the memorial service of Stan Musial. 

I though it was good, so I'm posting it here. 

It's been a few days, but the stories of Stan Musial are still coming in. 

One of the gems unearthed this week was included in the story below from NPR, in which Harray Caray calls Musial's last hit. 

The whole piece is worth a listen, but the money clip starts @ 1:53 in. 

Last week, we were promised a TORNADO OF NEGATIVITY, only to be caught up some some gusty curtness and breezes of boorishness.