St. Louis Cardinals

By Will Leitch Vladmir Putin is elected as president of Russia. Boomer Esiason is fired from "Monday Night Football." The NASDAQ collapses, signifying the end of the dot-com boom. Budweiser's "Whassup?" commercials debut. Sports Illustrated profiles University of Minnesota wrestler Brock Lesnar. Ca...

By Barry Petchesky •Jaguars 24, Chiefs 21. Tell me again how much money did KC give Matt Cassel? But when Chris Chambers and Lance Long are your top targets, there's not a heck of a lot you can do. Mike Sims-Walker had 147 yards receiving, and the Jaguars are somehow a .500 team.

By Drew Magary Texans at Bills: NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE CAGEY DICK JAURON! One Throwgasm Ahhhhhh… Dear LA Dodgers fans, Tom Cable Jim Zorn Eric Mangini Jim Mora Jeff Fisher* Dick Jauron* Jack Del Rio* Todd Haley John Fox Norv Turner Raheem Morris Lovie Smith*

By Drew Magary Kevin R: No, thanks. John: Brian: Anonymous: Egads. Mark McGwire joins Cardinals as hitting coach & will be back in uniform... a uniform 3 sizes smaller than when he played Tom: Steven: Dave: Chad S: Jeff: Dan: Ryan: B: Oli: Blew my mind. Brian: He's right! Bob: Craggs: Jonathan R.: Jeff:

By Dashiell Bennett McGwire's return to Cardinals as hitting coach makes sense [Post-Dispatch] Stunner: McGwire back in baseball? [SF Chronicle] Cardinals schedule midday news conference [AP] Keep the head down and inject 2 cc of nandrolone: Mark McGwire to be hitting coach at St. Louis [Steroid Nation]

By DAULERIO About 6 years ago, I started to become a serious baseball fan. Like anyone, I love comeback stories, and so when Jose Lima came back from the dead to make 14 starts for the KC Royals, starting with a 7 game winning streak, I embraced his story. He's certainly had a colorful past, what with a 20 win...

By Tommy Craggs This is a weekly feature in which I (and maybe you, too, readers) detail the various reasons for hating your ballpark. This week: The Kansas City Royals' Kauffman Stadium. Oh yeah, and the Royals lost. (Ryan A.) Royals Baseball: Catch the Fever!! (Chris L.)

By Will Leitch NLDS Los Angeles Dodgers over St. Louis Cardinals in five. LCS New York Yankees over Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in six. Los Angeles Dodgers over Philadelphia Phillies in six. World Series New York Yankees over Los Angeles Dodgers in seven.

By Will Leitch That is to say: Bah! The mad rugby scrum that is the baseball postseason has no time or patience for protestations of what is RIGHT and what is POSSIBLE. Certainly — here comes the Cardinals reference! — there are other teams than the 2006 version of the Cardinals that I would have desired to w...

By Will Leitch For those refined gentlepeople who prefer the cerebral grace of baseball to the plebian savagery of football, October is the greatest of months. Will Leitch looks at each of the eight playoff combatants. Now up: The Colorado Rockies.

By Will Leitch After the Cardinals won the World Series, the scene around Busch Stadium was what it would look like after a zombie apocalypse if all the zombies were actually puppies who exhaled nitrous. It was unabashed chaos, the landscape littered with googly-eyed Midwesterners, running into wall...

By Tommy Craggs The best thing about having the Cardinals around in October is the inevitable moment when La Russa, lineup-card philosopher and Buzz Bissinger's kewpie doll, gets bounced on his ass by a team that realizes the game is baseball, not chess. The Smartest Man in Baseball Is an Idiot [Esquire]

By DAULERIO Buzz: This is the same Posnanski who has crapped out to Sports Illustrated and acted several weeks ago like he had discovered Dave Duncan when I wrote about him in Three Nights four years ago in much better depth and prose. That Joe Posnanski? He probably still believes in Moneyball? By the w...

By Dashiell Bennett Duncan added that he saw Arroyo go to the his cap on nearly every pitch, and this AP photo (click to enlarge) seems to suggest that there was something under there that maybe shouldn't be. (Update: Arroyo's response—Yeah, I grab my (crotch) and do 8,000 other twitches. What you want me to do ab...

By Deadspin Research 2009: Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez, New York Yankees. [New York Daily News] 2009: Adam Wainwright, St. Louis Cardinals [Reuters, via Yahoo! News] 2007: Alex Rodriguez, New York Yankees [Flyers Fieldhouse] 1969: New York Mayor John Lindsay, New York Mets [New York Observer]

By Tommy Craggs Pete Rose hated taking walks. Everyone knew that. He would sometimes swing the bat at bad pitches on purpose to avoid taking a walk. This cut to the heart of Pete Rose the ballplayer. Harry Rose did not raise his son to walk. The Roses did not accept charity. Pete would by God take first base, conquer...

By Tommy Craggs Mr. McLaughlin drove up his word count with a riff comparing Albert Pujols to Babe Ruth (based on how many extra-base-hits each player had in his first 500 at-bats), as well as expressing the opinion that Chris Duncan, a former Cardinal, was cut too quickly by the Boston Red Sox.

By Craig Fehrman On Saturday, Aug. 1, the weather's just right, and Mark Gambardella's New Haven All-Stars are playing in the PONY Baseball North Zone Tournament. It's a double-elimination affair, with the winner going to the Mustang (10 and under) World Series. And, in the bottom of the fourth inning of th...

By Tommy Craggs This is a weekly feature in which I (and maybe you, too, readers) detail the various reasons for hating your ballpark. This week: The St. Louis Cardinals' Busch Stadium. Why Busch Stadium sucks: September 8th, 1998 at 8:18 p.m." (Charlie J.)

By Dashiell Bennett Back in the days of the old National League East, it was the St. Louis Cardinals that declared themselves mortal enemies of the New York Mets. But even time and realignment can't stop Jack Clark from holding a grudge. Yeah, they only won one World Series! Shows you what cheating gets you!

By Dashiell Bennett Thanks to Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, etc., fans outside St. Louis must wonder, 'Do we celebrate Albert Pujols or suspect him?' . . . In his only other at-bat with the bases loaded, the St. Louis Cardinals slugger delivered only a two-run single. . . .

By Will Leitch The Cardinals are counting on cheap young players, and right now, those cheap young players are not hitting. Pujols is going to look to La Russa on this one; if La Russa can be convinced that the Cardinals can surround Pujols with quality hitters, he'll stay, because you only get to manage an...

By Matt Sussman 7:45 — The chirpin' Cardinals, trying to bring the lead back to 14, instead let a WMU defender fling Cory Sykes down to the ground for a big loss. 7:34 — And good thing they kept the ball, because Davis chucks it to Louis Johnson for about a 40-yard touchdown reception. Bentley: Johnson "runs un...

By Rick Chandler • 3. St. Louis Cardinals. Record: 78-66. GB: 8 (3 1/2 in wild-card race). Why they're doomed: Five games remaining with the Cubs, whom the Cardinals have not beaten in a season series since 2004. Ray of hope: Albert Pujols is unconscious, having hit homers in past three consecutive games. West

By Rick Chandler • Everything Must Go!. Word is that the Padres are about to have a fire sale. Catchers half price! Jake Peavy is already on the DL, and now Chris Young is most likely headed there after getting hit in the face by Albert Pujols' line drive in the third (he's OK). Pujols also knocked Josh Bard out of t...

By Rick Chandler • Who's The Man? The Cardinals celebrated Stan Musial Day by naming the street out in front after him, then knocking the Rays out of first in the AL East with a 5-4 win. Boston ascended to the top spot with an 11-7 win over the Brewers. Skip Schumaker doubled in a run in the ninth to win it for St. Loui...

By rickchand • Orare Pro Me Ad Dominum Deum Nostrum. Amen. Cardinals win! Oh sorry, not those Cardinals. (Bishops?) Anyway, while the Pope was watching the Mets beat the Nationals 5-2 in D.C. (you couldn't drag him away from the chili nachos on the concourse level), Adam Wainwright proved that he, too was in...

By Leitch 1. I Just Flew In From Boise, and Boy Are My Legs Tired. Four days might not be near enough time for the Broncos to rest up for their first round game. They needed three overtimes and 107 points to put away the pesky New Mexico State Aggies and take the WAC's auto-bid. The good news is that it was only 1...

By rickchand • A Grand Time. Kurt Suzuki and Dan Johnson each had a grahnd slam — the second time the Athletics have had two in a game in the past 106 years — as Oakland beat Seattle 9-3. • Westworld. Jeff Salazar's homer led Arizona over San Francisco 5-3, as the Diamondbacks moved 3 1/2 games ahead of the idle P...

The Rick Ankiel thing, for Cardinals fans, has always been about hope. There was hope in 2000, when we thought we had discovered a 19-year-old Steve Carlton. There was hope in 2001 when we believed a young man could conquer his demons. There was hope in 2003 when we anguished as another young st...

Anybody who says the first title just makes you hungrier is full of it. I will root for the Cardinals this year, but yeah: It feels different now that they've finally won one. When he took over as Cardinals manager a decade ago, Tony LaRussa asked for the number 10 on his uniform, because a World...

By Leitch It's the St. Louis Cardinals at the San Diego Padres. Your starters are Weaver for the Cards and David Wells for the Padres. It's a Yankees fan's dream matchup. —-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-- Top of the Ninth. Cardinals 2, Padres 0. Adam Wainwright pitching to The Bard.

By Leitch It's the St. Louis Cardinals at the San Diego Padres. Cardinals 5, Padres 1 Cardinals 5, Padres 0 Cardinals 4, Padres 0 Cardinals 4, Padres 0 Cardinals 3, Padres 0 Padres 0, Cardinals 0 Padres 0, Cardinals 0 Padres 0, Cardinals 0 Padres 0, Cardinals 0 Padres 0, Cardinals 0 Padres 0, Cardinals 0

By Leitch We watched all three Cardinals-Royals games over the weekend, on the Royals television affiliate — which had a charming, low rent, public access, Wayne's World feel — and we can say with as much certainty as we can muster that the Royals are the worst team we've seen in a long, long time. It's...