Joey Chestnut has won the Mustard Yellow Belt, swallowing an epic 54 dogs and buns in the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest.

Pujols, Yadi, Holliday, Wainwright and Carpenter have been named NL All-Stars for the 2010 game in Anaheim.

The VP Fair is attracting huge crowds to the Arch grounds and pumping some much needed activity into downtown.

My friends, all is good this July 4th. All is GOOD.

A long time ago, in a barn far away from the Midwest, some pretty ballsy motherlovers decided that the British were a big gaping vagina and proposed we bring a world of pain on their asses.

Mission accomplished.

200 something odd years later, we're still kicking ass. Happy birthday, America. (FYI- the video below has NSFW-language if you are unlucky and are working today...)

I’ve been to many concerts.

I’ve seen everything from Three Six Mafia under a hastily constructed tent to Fleetwood Mac in a large arena. I’ve watched O.A.R. in a bar with 6 other people before they were big and wedged myself into the Pageant when Girl Talk was at his apex. From Bone Thugs & Harmony to Boyz II Men, Dave Matthews to Widespread Panic, Nelly to North Mississippi All-Stars… my resume is diverse and deep. I spent a significant part of my 20’s seeking out and attending concerts that I thought would be entertaining for one reason or another.

So I don’t say this lightly: Micheal Buble was one of the 10 best concerts I’ve ever been to.

• Read how TLR’s immigration comments divided the locker room LINK HERE
• Read a 2 month retrospective on the STL Rams 2010 draft class LINK HERE

Tuesday night I got Buble’d in Indianapolis. But Hooks, weren’t you watching The Bachelorette on Monday? Is this site now owned by Bravo? Luckily Buble started off his concert with a pretty bold stand-up routine addressing this very issue.

‘Most of the other guys at the office are wondering what happened to your dicks, am I right? Wonder why you’d go see that Buble crap? Tomorrow you can tell them to fuck off, because tonight we’re going to have a party.’ Upon hearing this, he spots a couple of 10 year old girls in the second row and addresses that: ‘Perfect. How old are you girls? 10? So this was NOT was mom was expecting at Buble, huh?’

This was all probably scripted. But it worked. He sold it. And then he ripped into about 100 minutes of music with a full-on 15 piece band that was awesome. No shit- It was awesome.

He worked the crowd, did a spontaneous Michael Jackson medley (after explaining that every reporter asks him about growing up and worshiping Frank Sinatra, when really he loved MJ) before finishing off the concert alone, on stage, with no mic, a completely silent arena packed with 15K people and killed a song.

Cool. As. Fuck.

Women were literally shaking leaving the arena. Every guy was looking at each other wanting to know it was OK to say out loud ‘that was gooood’. Everybody wondering how to explain just what the hell happened there and if anyone would actually believe them.

Listen, I know I’m going to get killed for this. No matter what I say, people, especially guys, aren’t going to believe that Michael Buble puts on a hell of a show. But I’m telling you right now… he DOES.

Don’t trust me about anything else I’ve ever said, but trust me on this. Oh, and that awesome pic above? I took it with iPhone4. I’m awesome too.

Now… The Friday Links:

• Kid breaks world record by putting on 215 pairs of underpants at once. LINK HERE
• 10 best pics of Chris Brown crying at the World Cup. LINK HERE
• In honor of the 4th weekend- 18 special moments when a rocket is launched. LINK HERE
• People wonder why I don't eat fish? This is why. LINK HERE
• The new Old Spice commerical might be better than the last one. LINK HERE
• Waste some time at Dear Blank, Please Blank. LINK HERE
• Somebody had an interesting night, didn't they? LINK HERE (HT: JRH)
• An offfical in Iceland won't work with others until they've seen all 5 seasons of The Wire. LINK HERE

And if you think you're getting out of this post without a Buble Video? Child please...

In one of the stupidest ideas in the history of the world wide web, Cards Diaspora was contacted by Ozzie Smith's people about us doing an interview with 'The Wizard' during All-Star Game Weekend 2010.

I guess he's a fan of The Bachelorette?

A little back-story here. I had the good fortune to have a TV show when I was 9 or 10 with a friend of mine that lived up the block. Somehow, this guys grandpa got us field passes before a Cardinals game to interview players. Mostly everyone was nice... including Joe Torre, who knelt, who I then told about the kneeling to the local paper that did a story on us, who then ran that as the embarrassing lede.

In 1990, the Cardinals sucked ass. Except for Ozzie, so he was our 'get'. And after our interview, in a moment that I don't think I'll ever forget, he called us over to the dugout bench and asked us a bunch of questions about how we got involved in all this TV stuff and if we played baseball and other shit you'd talk with 9 year olds. Probably lasted 3 minutes, but felt like we were hanging with Ozzie Smith, the legend, in the Cardinals fucking dugout for-ever... and he was interviewing US!?

I'm sure he'll be more than a little disappointed that Cards Diaspora is where I ended up. I'm not looking forward to admitting that to Mr. Smith.

The point is- I've had the good fortune of talking to Ozzie Smith before. Perhaps you have, perhaps you haven't. But if not... this is your chance.

I'm going to conduct the interview exclusively on the questions you submit to the comment section of this post. If you want to know something about Ozzie, his personal life, his career; put it below. I'll ask him for you.

I'd imagine more than a few of you are going to ask something about his ball sack or something in a similar vein. If you're man or woman enough to attach your name- then I'll ask him and also make sure he knows your name. Game on!

Hopefully this can be a pretty cool thing for us and you. And just to sweeten the pot, I'll pick one questioner at random to win a $25 Amazon Gift card that you can use to buy anything you damn well please.

So fire away in the comment section below and I'll keep you posted when the deadline to enter is...

About the time Randall Winn decided to help a home run over the right field fence was about the time I decided it was time to start the much anticipated 2 hours of this week's Bachelorette. Even though I knew via assholes that want to spoil everything on the Internet Bachelorette chat rooms and message boards... or so I've heard.

Thanks to the masochists that can't turn off a STL Cards came no matter how bad their getting whipped,  I was able to watch the final play of the game where Arizona forced their 15 remaining fans into submission by throwing the ball into spaces where other Diamondbacks were not.

In retrospect, Monday's game fell perfectly in line with the story arc of the Bachelorette.

Behold!

+ 1st Inning: The Cardinals take advantage of an early throwing error by Dan Haren and put the heat on the D-Backs early. With a 2-0 lead after 1, we're all pretty confident that this is going to be a good game for the Cards.

- 1st 20 minutes: Justin is outed as the cheater! Not only does the guy get called the F out in front of everybody. But his GF throws him under the bus by giving ABC his voice mails busting out every lie he tells Ali. This was preceded by Justin climbing through fountains with a broken foot to avoid a 5'4' 110 pound blond girl. Did I mention he's a pro wrestler? Biggest pussy every? Biggest pussy ever.

+ 2nd-5th inning: We get the pitcher's duel that we expected, as Chris Carpenter and Dan Haren look like 2 of the best pitchers in the NL. Which they are. Guys are swinging freely and Carp/Haren are hitting their spots with consistency.

- 20-60 minutes: When you start out on fire, it's only natural that whatever comes next is a bit of letdown. Ali is still steamed, but has a one on one date with Ty, the Tennessee cowboy who came on strong last week by riding horses good. And stuff. A visit to a Turkish bath leads to heavy petting and me never wanting to ever, ever set foot in a Turkish bath. Followed by a dinner where Ali re-hashes Ty's divorce and lays the groundwork for this to be the reason she dumps him in the final 4.

+ 6th-8th inning: The wheels come off for the Cardinals. Adam LaRoche pokes a Carpenter mistake over the RF fence, while Randy Winn loses his glove trying to catch the ball. This was foreboding. Then, Dan Haren takes a ride on the ya-ya train the following inning to give the D-Backs the lead for the first time.  In the 8th, Mark Reynolds hit a lazy pop fly to RF... that hit Randy Winn's glove and went over the fence. 5-2 DBacks and things aren't looking promising for the Birds.

- 60-100 minutes: Time for a solo date! Should we draw straws? Nah. How about flipping a coin? Un-uh. half-naked wresting in the one green grass patch in Turkey? Winner winner, chicken dinner. Good Lord, are they trying to convince me that I'm gay. It's bad enough all the crying and shit. But really? We have to have this sweaty grappling? In the end, Craig, who looks like a kind of cuddly neanderthal wins. Surprisingly, he doesn't have much to say on the date.

+ 9th inning: Dan Haren tries to close out the Cardinals, but through a mix of terrible defense and luck from the home side, the Cardinals pull off a 6-5 come from behind win when Adam Wainwright crossed the plate on a wild throw home. Don't ask. Pujols seemed to be approximately at the pitchers mound when Root Beer slid across the plate... this guy wants to win worst than anyone. Ever.

- 100-120 minutes: Ali dismisses the requisite cocktail party and claims she knows who to dismiss. Much like Haren, though, she has trouble finishing the job and is reduced to tears before letting Craig go and ending the game.  To his credit, Craig seems to take the fact that she wanted to get right to the cutting of his ass well... until the limo ride through the Turkish countryside where he broke down in tears. How these guys have any male friends that don't want to jam their jimmy's in other men is beyond me.

Haters gone hate. But I don't think you can deny that not only was last night's Cardinals game an exact parallel of The Bachelorette... now YOU have to watch it to so we can talk about it next week!

I could be wrong in my calculations, but I think the Royals equaled their season total for runs in the past 3 games. Which was expected, because I’d want exactly NO ONE from their line-up. KC is where average bats go to die; but the Cardinals bent over and let them insert right in to the tookus. Hopefully if you’re one of the several thousand that made the drive across Missouri, Jay Nixon will enact some sort of a tax break for your wasted time…

American’s don’t give 2 shakes about soccer. Never will. BUT we are in love with ourselves. So when the rest of the world is markedly better than us in something we don’t like it. When that thing they’re better than us at happens to hold the most high-profile event in the world- we loath it. So it doesn’t surprise me that America rallied behind the Yanks this World Cup. We had some exciting matches to build hope and the two biggest games happened to be played on Saturday afternoons where we had nothing better to do than drink and be jingoistic. We desperately were hoping against hope this would be the year that the American’s would ruin other countries morale and take our mantle as, one again, the best at everything. Then the US side shit the bed against Ghana. Again. And we’re all back to not caring. But don’t get it twisted- we never did really care about soccer. We just can’t help rallying behind America…

Everyone has a bad start- but now is not the time for Jamie Garcia to hit the wall…

Movie Snot: She’s Out Of Your League- starring that one fidgety guy and a hot chick. Some mildly funny lines. A pretty shaky premise on how the two got together. (As an iPhone owner, I would do just about anything to get my lost phone back. But enter a committed relationship with someone 5 points lower than me on the hot scale? I’m not dating a -2 for the fucking thing.) No female nudity, but some male ass shots. I thought the original GF that sent the kid into a tailspin was a bit too hot for the roll she needed to play. Fun to play along with, but at the end of the day, this shit doesn’t happen. Plus, I’m pretty sure that since you know what, it’s hard to get a pilot’s license to fly solo in like 3 weeks. C+ (one nude scene could have made this a B-, several could have made it a solid B)

You know TLR has been out of the AL for a long time when he can pencil in Aaron Miles as the DH with a straight face and then defend his action in the post-game presser. Who said you can’t change?

In ESPN’s ‘Old Faces, New Places’ NFL series, it was revealed that LaDanian Tomlinson has a brand new Jets tattoo with the years 2010- (blank) now on his leg. A) Have you ever been more excited about a TV show than this season’s Hard Knocks on HBO? This one has the potential to be spectacular. B) If you were thinking of taking a late round chance on LT, doesn’t this ruin that idea? What are the chances of this ending badly for everyone? 100%? 110%...

Don’t look now, but David Freese and Yadier Molina have fallen off a cliff. Freese is more worrisome than Molina, since he’s in a position that needs to produce and doesn’t have a track record in the majors. His swing looks more scared than a underage prostitute at a Giant’s game. Molina hasn’t had a hit since April it seems like, but I think we’re all still pretty confident that he’ll pull something out of his ass before the end of the season…

It’s not too late. If you haven’t been watching The Bachelorette this season on ABC, start tonight…

If you think that I’m not taking this opportunity to publically jerk off my new iPhone, then you haven’t been on this site before. So thanks for coming by, here’s a list of ‘real’ stuff you can read if you’re, you know, locked into a Droid contract or something…

• The Friday Links are at the bottom of this post.
• A SB Nation feature on Steven Jackson is LINK HERE
• A ISTL post on the Cards limp offense is LINK HERE

Back to the business- iPhone4.

First, a public atta boy to Best Buy.  When the Apple store melted down on the first day of pre-ordering for the iPhone4, I had read on some real, real dorky message boards that, contrary to public perception, that getting an iPhone from Best Buy was the way to avoid all the hassle of waiting in lines on release day. And since they were using a different system than AT&T, people might be better off going to them to iPhone4.

I was leery, but I rolled the dice. Sure enough they called me on Wednesday and set an appointment for me on Thursday morning. I came in, got the phone, activated it, and never waited in a line.  Both agents that helped me were more excited to give me the damn phone then I was to get it. Yes, they did make you give a 50 dollar deposit when you placed the pre-order, but they took that off on the purchase price yesterday… so as far as I can tell, this is the way to go from now on. I had low expectations Best Buy- you did a hell of a job.

On to the phone.

Here are my impressions after 1 day with the thing.

The screen doesn’t look real. This retina display is like moving from SD TV to HD TV, times 3. It almost looks like a sticker is over your phone, but one you can interact with. Does that make sense? Don’t look at one of these unless you want to buy it. You will not like the miserable experience of looking at your phone.

The flash on the camera is huge. Took some pics last night and they turned out nice. It’s not to the point where you wouldn’t want to have a camera with you for important events… but if you like taking pics when you’re out drinking- this will do way, way better than previous iPhone cameras. By the next generation, I’d suspect you can completely chuck the point and shoot.

Dump your Flip stock now. That company is dead. I love Flips, but this thing shoots HD video you can edit on the phone. Absolutely no reason to get a Flip for 120 bucks when this shoots better video, lets you edit and send from the phone, and gives you about a million different other things.

I love the new shape. Others preferred the rounded edges, but I didn’t. This tends to fall along gender lines at the office, with the men liking the industrial design and women liking the old edges. I also like my square Macbook Pro, though.

The noise cancellation is amazing. I haven’t noticed much improvement in my call signal strength, at least in the house, office or commute… but the call quality when I’m on the phone is great. Within seconds of even loud noise, this sucker has cancelled that shit and lets you feel like you’re in a phone booth. One of the more underrated and under talked about features of this new incarnation. (Click 'READ MORE' below for rest>>) 

Over the weekend, a couple friends and I made the road trip to lovely Omaha, Nebraska for the first few days of the 2010 College World Series. For one reason or another, I had never made the trip out there to take in some college ball and BBQ, and I quickly realized what I've been missing out on.

I wouldn't mind going on about the atmosphere around Rosenblatt Stadium (it's being torn down for a new park), or the heart and soul that the players possess, or wax poetically about what the CWS is all about, but there are people who can do that better than me - especially because I'll be using about ten variations of "awesome" and "sweet" from here on out.

Instead, I'll give you a little photographic tour of what we saw, including a couple videos to start.

Here is Cardinals' recent draftee Seth Blair giving up a single to Clemson in the 2nd inning:

Then Blair walks a guy on four straight pitches:

As you can tell, great timing by me, right? To my credit, Blair didn't give me much to work with, as he stumbled his way to 4 1/3 innings, 7 hits, 5 earned runs, 5 walks, 4 K's, and even a balk, in a 6-3 loss.

Blair shouldn't have gone much higher than the 46th overall pick, but he's the ace of the top-ranked team in the NCAA, so that's got to count for something, kind of. I don't think we're looking at anything more than the next Boggs/Hawksworth-type of guy, but it was a bit disappointing to see him come out so flat. Also, the jerk who wanted a basket of onion rings at 10:30 AM didn't come through. (Sorry)

Other fun stuff -click the Read More button!

Tennis and Soccer.

Two sports I could normally give a rats ass about, both had me riveted. June 17th 1994, was made into a documentary recently on ESPN and many people Tweeted that June 23rd 2010 might be it's sequel.

First, tennis.

This is the part of the post where I have to mention that I don't enjoy watching tennis on TV. At all. I was OK at the sport and played through high school and loved it. But watching tennis isn't anything I've gone out of my way to do. I mean if a major final is on or Maria Sharapova is doing her sexy little grunts, I might watch for a bit. But I don't think I've ever watched a whole match from start to finish.

Until yesterday. Sort of.

John Isner and Nicolas Mahut aren't stars. They're middling players that Roger Federer bends over the net until he meets Raphael Nadal in the finals of X tournament. But since these guys were delayed on Tuesday for darkness in the fifth set, I happened onto it after watching some World Cup soccer on ESPN3. Since they were more that 6-6 in the last set, I was curious. Mildly, I suppose.

That was around 11:45 or so. Then I went to lunch for an hour, came back and it was 39-39 in the fifth set. They called the match for darkness when it was 59-59 and following exactly 10 hours of action. By any statistical measure, this is the longest tennis match in history... AND IT's NOT DONE.

Fifty Nine games a piece. In a set. Someone is going to have to get to 61 at least to win a SET.

Some of the better stats:

1) 7 hours 6 minutes is the time of the 5th set so far. 2) Isner leads Mahut in aces 98 to 95. Both eclipsed the single match record for aces. 3) There have been 881 points with 612 alone in the 5th set. 4) There have only been 81 unforced errors combined... so this isn't shit tennis, these guys are playing well. 5) ESPN is claiming that this would be the physical equivalent of a 50 inning baseball game or a 15 overtime basketball game.

This match could literally end in a couple of minutes. It could of ended with any of the 4 match points going the other way than they did. But it's somehow become this unbelievable anomaly that can't really be put into perspective... because we're in uncharted territory here.

Listen. I get it. Watching two over-privileged white guys swing racquets that would pay your mortgage for 3 months may not be your bag. So think of it like this... when this match resumes on Thursday, it's part III of a freak show. How long will they go? Could one person get to 100? I mean it's all absurd to think about... but so is 59-59.

Now soccer.

Again. Unless it's the World Cup or a big national tournament, I've got almost zero interest in soccer. But again, I was sitting in front of my computer absolutely riveted by their game with Algeria.

By this point you've read all you've wanted to read about the damn match... so just watch the fucking goal again and get goose bumps all over. Again.

GOAL HERE

I mean these fuckers took it to stoppage time in a game they HAD to win to actually win and send the US side to the KO Round. This stuff doesn't happen. This isn't like hockey where you can expect a fair amount of last minute goals to tie or win a game... this is the World Cup. Goals are HARD to come by. And goals in stoppage time are almost impossible.

Hell, we even had a Holliday RBI to win a game Carpenter twirled a gem in and as the editor of this site, it wasn't front page news.

That's June 23rd 2010. One of the most random best days of sports in years.

If you’re a good American, then you haven’t given one second of thought to Canadian baseball this summer. At least I think they call it baseball in Canada. You’re right; they probably call it something Canadian like hand ball or ball toss or some other very bland, yet friendly moniker.

Here’s what you need to know to get you ready for STL Cards vs Toronto Blue Jays:

Joe Carter doesn’t play for these guys anymore?! What! Outrageous. But I guess looking back, that was 1993 when he hit a dramatic walk-off HR to win the World Series. Shit, that’s like 17 years ago. My bad. I mean it’s not like these guys are still managed by Cito Gaston, ha ha ha. Wait, what?

The Blue Jays are like a team hybrid of Jack Cust, Nick Stavinoah and Matt Stairs all rolled into one. They either hit the ball out of the ballpark (1 in MLB) or they don’t hit it at all (26 in MLB hits, 27 in MLB Batting Average).

Something named Jose Bautista leads the team in HR’s (18) RBI’s (46) and bats a whopping .227.

Sky Dome, the Blue Jays home field has a hotel attached to the stadium where people leave the blinds open and hump for everyone to see. At least the cool people leave the blinds open. Toronto doesn’t discourage this, as it takes away from what people paid to watch on the field.

According to Discovery.com, if a Blue Jay and a Cardinal were to fight in the wild, the Cardinal would kick the piss out of a Blue Jay.

The Jays are 38-32, the Cardinals 38-31. The Jays play in what may turn out to be the most brutal division (5 games back already) EVER and the Cardinals reside in the Comedy Central (currently first place). Not much of a point here, other than to thank Uncle Bud for putting Shittsburgh, Cincinnati and Houston in our division back in the 1990’s.

June 2005 was the last time the Cardinals and the Jays played. Toronto took 2 out of 3.  The Blue Jays are 13-5 at home since May 1. None of these stats will have any bearing on this series whatsoever.

If you have a heart- you’ll enjoy this: LINK HERE