Category: Sports

The Rams are so low in the football standings that, if they lose another game, they’ll fall completely out of the football standings and be in first place in the NHL Eastern Conference.

Green Bay Packers tied for first place in the NFC North!

Perhaps David Beckham is building interest in Soccer in America the old-fashioned way: He’s making it look dangerous:

So much for David Beckham’s debut season in America. It’s all but over now that the 32-year-old English midfielder is out six weeks with a sprained right knee, to go along with his famously injured left ankle.

Wow, he plays like one game and comes out of it with an injury? Here, I thought soccer was a sissy sport, just a bunch of Europeans in shorts slapping at each other and maybe making dour and superior faces at the other team. Apparently not. Beckham hurt his knee in tackle:

The 32-year-old midfielder sprained his medial collateral ligament in a tackle during the Galaxy’s loss to Mexican team Pachuca on Wednesday night. He was expected to be out about six weeks while he rehabilitates behind the scenes.

Maybe I’m mixing my European hooligan sports up. Is soccer the one where they have the one where they give a football-like ball to one guy, and then everyone jumps on him and starts gouging him and whatnot? In that case, I am with Bernie Miklasz: Damn the fiscal responsibility, build a whole new complex in the middle of nowhere, funded with tax dollars, for a soccer team that will fold in a couple months. Because all the soccer teams in St. Louis that have failed in the last decade or so (the Steamers, the Storm, the Ambush, the Steamers again) made one critical mistake: they played their games in population centers, where both fans who wanted to go could easily come to see a game. A publicly-funded soccer stadium deep in Illinois, at the very edges of the St. Louis “Metropolitan” area (which covers pretty much from Indianapolis to Columbia, Missouri, according to boards that want to extend their unelected taxing power over the same). Hell, Bernie, if you build it, they will come. Both St. Louis soccer fans. Me, I’ll watch the eye-gouging highlights on the television’s promotions for its highlights program when they interrupt a hockey game.

Wait, this just in: Apparently, tackling in soccer is just stealing the ball from another European in shorts who’s making dour and superior faces. Jeez, Beckham. Stealing a ball in soccer? How dangerous is that, unless you’re using a handgun to do it? Given that you’re British, I don’t think you know what those two words–hand and gun–mean together.

Rub some dirt on it, Becks.

Hey, congratulations to Tony Gwynn on making the Hall of Fame.

I see my rookie baseball card is now worth like $10. Let my retirement commence!

Well, at least I only traded a couple commons circa 1986 for it.

Ballpark Village moves closer to scoring state cash:

The Missouri Department of Economic Development recommended Tuesday that the state pitch in about $26.8 million for the development of Ballpark Village, fortifying hopes that the project adjacent to Busch Stadium can be finished by the time St. Louis hosts the Major League All-Star game in 2009.

Always glad to help the millionaires out with my tax dollars.

Keep up the good work, fellows, and perhaps soon you’ll have Mayor Slay washing your car for you.

There were rumors a couple years ago that the Cardinals were going to sign Rickey Henderson to a small contract at the very end of his Major League Baseball career. I wish they had because unlike some of the loudmouths in sports, I get the sense that Rickey Henderson doesn’t take himself as seriously as he makes out.

But here are the 25 greatest Rickey Henderson stories.

As some of you St. Louis hockey fans might know, the St. Louis Blues "traded" for exclusive rights to negotiate with Keith Tkachuk:

The Blues made a trade with the Atlanta Thrashers that gives them exclusive negotiating rights with Tkachuk, an unrestricted free agent, until the free-agency period begins Sunday. If the two sides do not come to an agreement, Tkachuk will hit the open market.

Tkachuk might have many reasons for wanting to return to St. Louis, including the fact that his family lives here and they’re in their formative years. Maybe he’d even take a pay cut.

This morning, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch runs a story fed to it by sources that the Blues have made a contract offer:

The Blues have offered veteran center Keith Tkachuk a two-year contract worth $3.5 million per season, a source has told the Post-Dispatch.

Sports columnists Jeff Gordon and Bernie Miklasz step up to the plate with columns praising Tkachuk.

Friends, I’d hardly say this is a slam dunk. Releasing the story and turning up the huzzahs as a negotiating tactic indicate Tkachuk isn’t jumping at the deal.

For the first time in history, a hockey team named after a Disney children’s movie has won the Stanley Cup.

Hoping for a comparable result, Art Davis has changed his team’s name to the Oakland Little Mermaids.

New Packers signing Paul Thompson:

Paul Thompson (6-4, 215) is relatively green in terms of quarterbacking but has already established his reputation as a leader. He started four games at receiver and caught 11 passes in 2005 but was reinserted at quarterback in 2006.

He started all 14 games as the Sooners went on to win the Big 12 championship. Thompson completed 204 of 336 attempts (60.7%) for 2,667 yards and 22 touchdowns last year. He was sacked 17 times and intercepted 11 for a quarterback rating of 142.45.

“He can move around, he can make plays with his feet, but we thought he played the position of quarterback well enough to take a look,” said Ted Thompson. “I know some teams were looking at maybe an alternate-position type guy but we wanted to see him as a quarterback.”

I am about ready to call this the Year of Thompson at MfBJN.