Category: Sports

A “feud” exists between former St. Louis Cardinals shortstop Ozzie Smith and Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa stemming from the latter’s platooning of the hall-of-famer and St. Louis icon with Royce Clayton in 1996. Starting last week, the “feud” has flared again as Smith let the world know he was happy with the decision, and LaRussa said he was.

Here’s baseball writer Dan O’Neill in a column entitled 10 years later, it’s time for Ozzie to get over it:

To be fair, Smith was responding to questions, not preaching from a pulpit. The interview had a lot of positive information about his work with the Hall of Fame. He said all the right things as he indicated the past was behind and he had moved on.

But then he didn’t move on. He had to pick at the scab one more time with comments about management. A guy who has been paid $2 million by the Cardinals for “personal services” over the past 10 years can’t find it in himself to embrace that same organization as long as La Russa is around. That is almost as petty as it is absurd.

A nice sentiment, to be sure, but the current “feud” is nothing more than a soap operaesque crashing chord provided by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Let’s look over what the Post-Dispatch has provided:

• Rare Bird Sighting: Ozzie Smith, the profile of Ozzie that started the story.
• Tony La Russa on Ozzie Smith: ‘He’s not welcome’, the rebuttal that fueled the fire.
• Ozzie-Tony rift: Sad, but understandable, a column by Jeff Gordon.
• Ozzie-Tony spat hurts Cards’ image, a column by Bryan Burwell.
• The aforementioned column by O’Neill.
• Letters to Gordo: The Ozzie-Tony Feud, a round-up of letters to columnist Jeff Gordon.
• Letter in Sound off, the “letters to the editor” portion of the sports page.
• Another appearance in Sound Off.
• A third appearance in Sound Off
• An online forum backing Ozzie Smith.
• An online forum backing Tony LaRussa.
• Rick Hummel’s Take, today, a week after the original Ozzie Smith profile that set it off.

The Post-Dispatch certainly can flex its floodus zonei muscles effectively for the most inconsequential topics. Although, honestly, I’d prefer the paper do it on a silly topic that will sell papers to the impassioned Cardinals fans than for something designed to make our lives better by enabling more governmental rule.

(Full disclosure: The author booed when Royce Clayton appeared onscreen in the film The Rookie.)

Congratulations to the Milwaukee Admirals (of the American Hockey League) for sweeping the Grand Rapid Griffins and advancing to the Calder Cup playoffs.

Great shot, kids. Don’t get cocky.

Dear Marquette University:

Don’t bother sending me letters encouraging me to send $25 when you pay the basketball coach $1,650,000 a year.

Although your fundraising pitches are printed upon recyclable paper, I insist upon shredding anything with my name upon it. Also, the lost printing and postage has probably cost you enough to buy one minute of Tom Crean’s time next year.

Thank you, that is all.

You know, Scott Hamilton on color commentary sounds a little like Darren Pang.

Name could be big change:

At the least, it seems likely the word “Devil” will be dropped, as it already is in some official team references. Then a decision has to be made whether to continue associating Rays with the sea creatures or to connect with the sun. Or there could be a new name, such as the Tampa Bay Tarpons.

You know, that’s one redskin you don’t want suing you in the court of law. Because he sues for your soul.

Readers’ List: Best acting performances by athletes.

Brett Favre wins it for his performance in There’s Something About Mary.

Doubtlessly, radio call-in shows in Wisconsin are now figuring this into their calculations about whether he will return next year.

Pairs long program: Baldwin and Inoue make skating history:

Change sometimes happens at a glacial pace, as in an ice age. At other times, it occurs in an instant, such as the meteor that hit the earth and eradicated the dinosaurs.

Both types of changes occurred Friday at Savvis Center in the pairs competition of the U.S. Figure Skating Championships. John Baldwin, 32, is the oldest competitor in the field and has skated almost exclusively in obscurity for 21 years at nationals. But in one fell swoop, he captured a national title and berth on the Olympic team, pairing with Rena Inoue on the first throw triple axel completed in competition.

No doubt, this is a date which will define a generation.

The Los Angeles Kings beat the St. Louis Blues last night, 6-3, so here’s that logo again:

Once again, Brandon has smack to talk.

But unlike Machelle, I face up to as many Blues defeats as I can actually keep straight and adhere to the rules of the Hockey Whoopass Jamboree and post logos in a timely fashion because if the Blues aren’t ashamed of themselves, neither am I.

By the rules described by the Hockey Whoopass Jamboree, I must once again post the Red Wings logo to placate Michelle and David, who selected that team whereas I selected the St. Louis Blues and that team, like all other NHL teams and a couple of high school girls field hockey teams, j.v. at that, continue to beat the Blues like a bongo at a San Franscisco coffee shop circa 1967:

Jeff Goldstein defends Brett Favre’s play choices.

Sort of.

The Los Angeles Dammit There’s Demitras beat the St. Louis Blues last night, ergo here’s the logo:

Kudos to Brandon for selecting someone other than the worst team in the NHL, which I did out of duty and obligation.

Long Winter Update: Yes, friends, that does mean that my three winter teams (Green Bay Packers, Milwaukee Admirals, St. Louis Blues) are a combined 5-17, but the Milwaukee Admirals are on a 2 game winning streak, and the Green Bay Packers are about to begin their winning streak which will lead them to Super Bowl XL, so perhaps it won’t be a long winter after all!

Vintage Base Ball Association.

Vintage Base Ball is base ball (yes, it was two words originally) played by the rules and customs of any earlier period. Ballists wear old-style uniforms, either the early long trouser and shield shirt, or a later style lace shirt and knickers, and recreate the game based on rules and research of the various periods of the mid-to-late nineteenth century. The activity of vintage base ball can be seen at open-air museums, re-enactments and city parks and is played on both open grass fields and modern baseball diamonds. Some groups consider vintage base ball to be a new sport, but at its core, vintage base ball is a reflection of how baseball existed at an earlier time.

Most vintage base ball clubs in the VBBA play the game of base ball as it was played in the late 1850s, 1860s and 1880s. Many clubs in the Midwest have adopted the rules recorded in the first Beadle’s Dime Base Ball Player, published in 1860, which recounted the third meeting of the National Association of Base Ball Players.

Watch for upstart leagues, base ball and other sports, to form and to draw attention and attendance as the “big leagues” price themselves out of the market and out of the imagination of the public.

Cards’ A Student program will be scaled back in ’06:

Middle schoolers will no longer be able to participate in a decades-old program that provides free Cardinals tickets to students whose grades are equivalent to an A-minus average or better. The reason cited: fewer seats in the new Busch Stadium.

The program will be limited to high schoolers. And each student will be eligible for two free tickets to a game instead of four.

I participated in this program in the middle 1980s, and the free tickets to bad games helped a Milwaukee boy overcome his automatic distaste for the Redbirds.

So let’s recap the Cardinals’ recent moves to reach out to fans:

• Forced government funding for a new stadium, which triggered some resentment from taxpayers, particularly those outside the St. Louis area in Missouri.
• Changed radio stations to lower wattage KTRS, diminishing the ability of many fans to pick the game up for free on the radio. The Cardinals, of course, are happy to let fans pay to listen on the Internet.
• Scaled back a program that allows many lower income families whose children do well in school can attend ball games and that hooks fans young.

Together, these moves will diminish the fan base over the coming generation. But ball teams don’t think in terms of generations and tradition. Instead, they think of short term corporate profits and the maximum value they can receive when they sell the franchise to the next short-sighted corporation.

With the departure over the last seasons (and particularly this last year) of its offensive players, many sports fans wondered where the Blues would get goals this year.

Tonight they answered the question.

In games against Chicago.

Well, that’s not much of an answer since it only restates the obvious.

The St. Louis Make Dos continue their tear through the NHL, going up by two goals twice on the San Jose Sharks before succumbing to a 6-7 loss in regulation. By the rules of the Hockey Whoopass Jamboree, I am required to post the logo of the victor here, as Rocket Ted himself believes in the inevitable domination of his beloved:

Trash talking is encouraged, huh? Best I can say is that our goalie was better than their goalie; if Nabakov had seen as many shots as that guy currently occupying Freddie Braithwaite’s number for the St. Louis Blues, statistically speaking the Blues would have won by a score of 12-7.

At least for me:

9. The 0-4 Green Bay Packers will win the NFC North.

OK, the division might be the worst in the history of the league, but I envision the Packers going 8-4 or 9-3 the rest of the season. The Packers are not as bad as their winless record.

Had the Packers huddled and taken their time before their final fourth-down play against the Carolina Panthers, Brett Favre and the Packers would’ve finished off their rally and upset the Panthers on Monday night.

The Packers will win their next three — vs. Saints, at Vikings, at Bengals — and finish the season on a five-game winning streak — at Bears, vs. Lions, at Ravens, vs. Bears and vs. Seahawks. In between those strings of victories, they’ll grab a win on “MNF” against the Vikings.

Will the Packers still fire Mike Sherman after he leads them to a division crown? Probably.

Me, I will be happy if they just beat the Bears and will fall into ecstatic shock if they beat the Vikings. Anything else is gravy.

According to the bylaws of the Hockey Whoopass Jamboree, I have to put up the logo of the Detroit Red Wings because Quality Weenie has that team in the Jamboree, and the St. Louis Who?s lost this evening, 3-4, at The Arena Whose Corporate Sponsor Bailed, So It Has No Name Like Its Hockey Team Has No Ownership And Little Talent.

I really wanted to pick the Milwaukee Admirals of the AHL again, but none of the other hockey jamboree participants picked AHL teams, and I wanted to fit in. This is the price I pay.

According to the bylaws of the Hockey Whoopass Jamboree, I have to put up the logo of the Detroit Red Wings because Quality Weenie has that team in the Jamboree, and the St. Louis Who?s lost this evening, 1-5, at Joe Louis Arena.

There you go. Tune in tomorrow for the next installment.

Ladies and gentlemen, I realized today with some sadness that I don’t have any right to publish posts like this one, nor to dub upstanding pillars (and soon to be a flying buttress) of the community “Keith Tkachubbs” because I have never laced up the skates, put on the pads and helmet, and taken a stick out to “do battle” on a sheet of ice.

As such, I have no authority to proffer my opinions nor to suggest nor speculate on how a team should perform.

I am a chickenhock, and I apologize.