The Cardinals scare me.....

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County Line
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Post by County Line »

Anything cocky I said as a Cub fan about St. Louis earlier in the season I must respectfully retract. The Cards are unreal. If Chicago doesn't make it into the wild card spot, I gotta say go NL Central. But let's wait and see...

tele
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Post by tele »

You either love them or hate them....I have been a fan since the awful 70's teams of Elliott Maddux and Horace Clark. I remember during the Dallas Cowboy heydays people either loved or hated "America's team", how many people rooted against the Lakers?.
Let's face it, if your team had the money but did not spend and the owner put it in his pocket instead that would not make the fans happy. People always root for the underdog and to quote Wilt Chamberlain "Nobody's roots for goliath". If the Yanks don't win I would love to see the Cards win, that is a great baseball town with real baseball fans. The season they are having reminds me of the 98 season everything just clicks and you are shocked when they lose.
Human nature makes people want to see someone on top fall and the underdog win, that is what made the Marlins win last year extra special to them...they beat the Yankees!!

Success can breed resentment...anyone ever notice that once a band gets big or commercially successful there is a group of people that stop listening because it is not such an exclusive club. The Dead in the 80's got so huge, not the same vibe at shows it turned hardcores off....as much as you can turn hardcore deadheads off. I have heard mild rumblings about Wilco because of all the press they get now. How would people feel if Jay got huge commerical success on the level of Sting? It would have to change your life and therefore change the things you write about......and then Jay does a Jaguar commercial!!!

flip
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Joined: Mon Jul 14, 2003 1:25 pm

Post by flip »

Bentonbourbon, Lawrence Fan, tillotson505, Barnum, Sticky, JJ, and yes, even you wrb1910, thanks for the candid replies. You guys are awesome.

As far as Jay is concerned, do you really think he cares that little about baseball? I mean after all, he did address a Boston crowd after Aaron Boone’s ALCS-winning homerun with that “Sorry ‘bout the baseball thing” (Props to Saratoga Jay for that one).

Good luck fellas…it should be fun.

Lawrence Fan
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Post by Lawrence Fan »

Sticky wrote: JJ- You're right. If the Cardinals had it, they'd spend it (or at least a big chunk of it).
Cards are a top 10 team in payroll, 75+ mil or so? But with the Yankees it's rediculous.

As for what JJ said about any team would spend like that if they could, I agree completely. I'm not faulting the Yankees for spending like they do, I just don't see much art or skill in doing so, and as I said earlier I find that most unimpressive. I think the situation with the Yanks was summed up perfectly with the Randy Johnson situation. The D's clearly stated they wanted prospects, and the Yanks simply didn't have them.

I've gotta say, though, that the Yanks have balls. With that payroll and that talent it puts a huge amount of pressure on the team to perform.

As for the post season, one step at a time. Getting out of the NL to the WS will be hard enough as Stickey alludes to. Lots of quality pitching on the Braves, Dodgers and Cubs (yes, the Cubs are still in it believe it or not!). I read stat recently where the Cards have the best team BA against lefties, so I guess beware of RH dominant staffs! Anyway, the defeatist in me keeps me wary. The Cards season to date has been almost too good to be true, but the numbers don't lie. From where they sit it's along way down, and that fall would hurt bad.

Lastly, I would burn/destroy my original Rockville CD release of No Depression for one frikkin Stanley Cup for the Blues. Just one before I die. Oh, I'd at least back up the Cd before doing so. :)

-gk-

Sticky
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Post by Sticky »

flip- I was a big fan of those Yankee teams of the 70's. The Cardinals would always finish second or third or fourth. Loved Thurman Munson. Thank goodness for WhiteyBall in the 80's. As for your prediction, the Yankees don't match up that well with the Cards. If the Bird's pitchers keep the ball in the stadium, we'll win pretty easy (a big IF, I know). Boston and Atlanta's pitching scares me more, Oakland too. One thing we can all count on: the Cubs won't be there.

JJ- You're right. If the Cardinals had it, they'd spend it (or at least a big chunk of it).

JJ
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Salary Cap

Post by JJ »

Don't you think that any other team that could afford to spend the kind of money that the Yankees throw around would do exactly the same thing? Isn't it up to MLB to put a salary cap in place?

Don't get me wrong, as a Mariners fan I hate the Yankees as much as anybody.......

flip
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Post by flip »

You know, you're right! It went out right about the time that the Cubs got spanked by the Giants 4-1 in the '89 NLCS.

Now go get your shinebox.

wrb1910
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Post by wrb1910 »

Boo-Yah

I believe Boo-Yah went out about 10 or 15 years ago!!!!

GO CUBS..........

Sticky
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Post by Sticky »

St. Louis fans are pretty educated, so nobody's predicting a World Series just yet, but yes, they are GOOD. I also think the fans here are good enough that they WANT to face the Yankees. Yankees = Most Championships. Cardinals = 2nd most Championships. We'd rather play the best and take our chances.

The defense is outstanding and probably saves about a run a game. The offense is almost automatic. Watching last night, I looked up and Pujols was up, I just said "click" and boom, it's off the wall for a 2 run double. He is the best player at this stage of his career that I've ever seen. The pitching is 2nd in the NL behind Atlanta. Right now, if the birds are down 10, you don't turn it off, you just wait for the comeback.

I'm going tonight with 2 friends from High School. Neither of them were fans back in the 80's, now they're big time fans. Jay was never much of a fan, but I'm sure he's aware that they're doing well. It's good for the city. It's a special summer here in St. Louis. It's been about 80 degrees all of August. It's usually 95/95. At this point I'm tempted to think that hell froze over.

flip
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Post by flip »

Wow. Very interesting to feel the hate for the Yanks. And I absolutely do see the reasons. But as for why I continue to be a fan, here’s my quandary:

I grew up in Connecticut, practically an equidistant 2 hours from Yankee Stadium one direction, and 2 hours to Fenway Park the other. By default, the first MLB game I ever went to was at Yankee Stadium when I was 8 years old. This was back in the days of Munson, Jackson, Guidry, Dent, Randolph, Gossage, Martin, etc. For a young, impressionable, baseball fan, they were quite a team to watch. I don’t know how uneven the payrolls were back then, but I don’t think it would’ve mattered to me. I was hooked, and they became my favorite team. The 80’s version of the Yanks were a deplorable lot, save for one Don Mattingly. (If you want to hate Mattingly simply because he was a Yank, that’s fine, but you have to admit he was one of baseball’s treasures, and it still kills me that he retired one year before they won the series) So there I sat through losing season after losing season. I don’t know how their payroll compared in those days, but I’d be surprised if it was that much greater than other teams. ’96 comes along, and they win the Series unexpectedly. That team was a bunch of guys who were either washed up or up-and-coming who had yet to prove themselves, and managed by a guy who was a career loser (but you Cards fans wouldn’t know who he was, right?). Are you with me? It was still a somewhat noble thing to be a Yankee fan even in ’96. Or at least not as un-noble. ’97 comes and they lose to Cleveland in the ALCS. That’s where things changed in my book. The Boss’s checkbook opened up like a Vegas whorehouse on a Friday night at that point. ’98 was an amazing thing to watch, but I started to question how cool it really was that they were so good that year. From that point until now, the spending has been as shameless as can be. But what about the fact that the Red Sox have had the second highest payroll for sometime now, but yet they haven’t won a Series since what – 1918 or something? What am I supposed to do? Stop being a fan? That always seemed like a strange proposition to me. Is there a fan conversion process/application available, with a mandatory dormancy period in between? Ultimately, I root for the yanks because I always have. But I will admit I feel dirtier and dirtier with every passing year. Kinda like I just walked out of a Vegas whorehouse.

Oh yeah, one more thing…….Yanks over the Cards in 7. Boo yah…….

Barnum
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Post by Barnum »

I live in KC (Kansas Shitty), by the way of St. Louis, originally from Milwaukee.

I'm a Cardinals fan ever since I played shortstop in Little League and started to dig the Wizard of Oz.

Honestly, I think that we're watching something pretty cool here in the Cardinals - esp. Pujols.

I watched last night when they were playing the Reds - he absolutely owned the at bat. I mean, you could see the wet stain on the pitchers pants. And he's young - almost too young to be that good.

Besides - how can anyone root for the evil empire of the Yankees? They've ruined professional sports by upping the salary ante every season...look at the Royals (wow, they suck) and see what they can't do because it's small market.

Go Cards. Feels kind of nice - Cards in 1st, College FB on the way, NFL on the way...if we could get hockey up to snuff there may be more for me to do than write this post.

tillotson505
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Post by tillotson505 »

God I hate, hate, HATE the Yankees. May the team rot in post-season hell.

Lawrence Fan
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Re: The Cardinals scare me.....

Post by Lawrence Fan »

flip wrote:Because I'm a Yankee fan. Jesus Christ they're good this year. 22 combined Gold Gloves? Jim Edmonds is maybe one of the top 5 center fielders of all time. There's something very classic about this year's version. It should be a fun fall, especially if we get Yankees vs. Cards.

Life long Cards fan here. :)

Well, you had to open your mouth and bring on the jinx! At least in St. Louis we don't have any goats or Bambinos in our closet. Anyway, Cards are looking good, but gotta stay healthy.

Now, I'm not a Yankee hater or anything, but I am amazed that anybody can be impressed with that organization over the last 10 years or so. What's so impresive about winning like they do when you're dropping 190 million on payroll? If anything, I find their inability to win the WS the last 2 years more impressive than any of the ungodly talent they have. It tickled me to death when the D's wouldn't deal RJ to the Yanks because the Yanks have crap to offer in the way of prospects. I would love to see the Yanks try to win on the merits of shrewd personel decisions rather than on scooping up the next disgruntled megastar and putting a cool 100 mil in his pocket. And the revenue sharing "equity" is a joke. So what that they pay the most into it, they can afford it! A hard cap is the only way to level the playing field, but I just don't see it happening.

Okay, maybe a little bad taste in my mouth over the current Yanks lol. But yeah, could be an impressive matchup.

As for Jay, I don't think he gives a rats ass about baseball. Growing up in the shadow of STL doesn't necessarily make him a hometown homer. I'd say he's more of the quintessential Midwesterner than a St. Louisan, or Bellevillian if you will.

-gk-

bentonbourbon
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Post by bentonbourbon »

I agree with everything aside from the Jim Edmonds Top Five of all time thing..
That's remember who has played out there
Willie Mays, Ty Cobb, Mickey Mantle, Tris Speaker, Joe DiMaggio, Kirby Puckett, Duke Snider...
Maybe one of the best of the modern day center fielders .. I'll give you that one.. Him and Griffey Jr.

flip
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Joined: Mon Jul 14, 2003 1:25 pm

The Cardinals scare me.....

Post by flip »

Because I'm a Yankee fan. Jesus Christ they're good this year. 22 combined Gold Gloves? Jim Edmonds is maybe one of the top 5 center fielders of all time. There's something very classic about this year's version. It should be a fun fall, especially if we get Yankees vs. Cards.

Now before any of you uber-serious board mongers slam me for posting something that isn't directly related to Jay, go f yourself, er, I mean, calm down. St. Louis is directly related to Jay, there's only one forum on this BB, and I was hoping to hear from some of the fine folks of St. Louis (and I truly believe that) as to how jacked they are about the team.

And Jay, if you're reading this, what do you think? (please God, let that board member known as "Jay Farrar " chime in with something funny here!)

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