St. Louis News Blog

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Danton seems to have undergone a makeover since his days in St. Louis.

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Danton during his stint with the Blues in the '03-'04 season.

​Mike Danton sat down this week with Canadian broadcaster sportsnet.ca.

Danton, now 29, tells about his life and mental state in 2004 when he was convicted of in federal court in East St. Louis of hiring a hitman to kill his sports agent David Frost.

But as Danton tells sportsnet.ca, he was really trying to kill his biological father. He also says he found the allegations of a homosexual relationship between him and Frost as "laughable."

Check out the entire interview by clicking on the following links:

Part I: The Target
Part II: The Frost Relationship
Part III: Behind Bars
Part IV: Suicide

Need proof? Here ya go.

Jeff Cooper

​Earlier today Daily RFT shared an announcement about a new professional soccer league that plans to bring a team to St. Louis.

This afternoon, we got in touch with the league's spokesperson, Jeff Cooper, the Illinois attorney who's been trying to bring a Major League Soccer (MLS) franchise to St. Louis for years.

Cooper already owns the professional women's soccer team, St. Louis Athletica, and will also be the principal owner of the men's outdoor team when the new league starts this coming April.

Daily RFT: This is exciting news for soccer fans in St. Louis. How long has this new league been in discussion?

Cooper: About six months, although the other teams in the league [Atlanta Silverbacks, Carolina Railhawks, Miami FC, Minnesota Thunder, Montreal Impact and Vancouver Whitecaps] first formed a team owners association about two years ago. Until now, those teams have played in the United Soccer League - First Division, which was owned by Umbro then Nike and then sold again in August. The owners wanted a league they could control.

How is the quality of play in this league compared to that in the MLS?

Tired of waiting for Major League Soccer (MLS) to grant St. Louis an expansion franchise, Jeff Cooper is joining other soccer team owners to begin -- in the words of Penny Marshall -- a league of their own.
​Cooper, a well-off Illinois attorney with the Simmons Law Firm, has been attempting to get an MLS franchise in the St. Louis area for a number of years though his outreach group St. Louis Soccer United. 

In a statement today, Simmons announced that he and the owners of soccer franchises formerly of the USL-1 conference in Atlanta, Miami, North Carolina, Minnesota, Montreal and Vancouver would form the new league.

"This will be a league that will offer the best of both worlds - outstanding experience and leadership at the ownership level combined with the promise and ability to chart our own course for success as a new league," said Cooper.  "It's this structure that motivated me to bring St. Louis into the new league, and why I believe the new league will have a lot of success at launch next year and well into the future."

www.stlouisrams.com

Rare sighting: Steven Jackson's TD dance

​Yes, this is why we love the NFL! It's so unpredictable. Like yesterday, when you have a classic matchup such as the Rams vs. the Lions.

Here's a team -- St. Louis -- that until yesterday had lost 17 straight games playing against a Detroit franchise that has won just one contest all year and failed to win a single game in all of '08 -- to become the NFL's first franchise to finish a sixteen-game season without a victory.

But enough about that. Congratulations to the Rams! You gotta start somewhere. The team actually looked pretty sharp yesterday, scoring 17 points and winning the game in the fourth-quarter on a Steven Jackson 25-yard touchdown run -- his first trip to the end zone all season.

Final score: St. Louis 17, Lions 10.

Finally, big kudos to you, Daily RFT readers. Three weeks ago we asked you when you thought the Rams would final win a game. The largest percentage of you picked Sunday's game versus Detroit. Check out the entire results of our poll here.

Last week here at Daily RFT we took a look at a recent interview St. Louis Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols gave to a Dominican radio station and, more precisely, explained that Pujols' comments were inaccurately spun by the U.S. press, nationally and locally.

Wikimedia Commons | shgmom56

El Hombre, misunderstood All-Star

There are few easier ways to make an ass of yourself in public than by being a college football fan. The face-painting, the (usually off-key) singing, the shouting, the chanting, the marshmallow-throwing, the growling, the grunting, the hooting, the horns-hooking. The only redeeming factor is that when you do all these things, you are usually surrounded by a stadium full of like-minded idiots.

flickr.com/photos/finitefocus

University of Missouri fans. In case you couldn't tell.

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Now Hershey's has decided to isolate the idiots and get them to post videos on its website to compete for the dubious honor of College Football's Biggest Fan. Every week, we, the public, can vote in the Hershey's Big Fan contest. Then there will be a big face-off and the grand prize winner will get four tickets to the 2010 college football game of their choice, plus a tailgate sponsored by Hershey's. (Quick, which beer goes best with chocolate and comes in a keg?)

In the lead this week appears to be Jumpin' Jerry, a tailgater from the University of Louisville whose special fan-talent is shouting "Yeah!" a lot and spelling out C-A-R-D-S with his arms. (His spelling ain't got nothing on the O-H-I-O arm-waving folks at Ohio State. There's a reason St. Louis Cardinals fans don't spell at Busch Stadium, which Jerry makes abundantly clear: You can't tell what the hell he's supposed to be spelling.)

Clearly, this fool must be stopped.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/26129297@N02/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Bikers on the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge

​How's that for progressive! This week the League of American Bicyclists named their Bicycle Friendly Communities for 2009.

St. Louis was one of 15 cities new to the rankings and was singled out in the league's press release for improvements the city has made to encourage pedal-powered transportation. 

St. Louis, Mo., for example, is one of the 70 largest cities surveyed in the ACS and a new BFC. The community nearly doubled their number of bicycle commuters from 2000 to 2008. The city has completed several noteworthy projects within the past year, including 53 new miles of on-street additions to the bikeway system, a $10 million investment, and an expansion of bicycling education offerings for children and adults. "St. Louis like cities across the country, is making smart investments in building a welcoming community for biking that will inevitably lead to more, healthier and sustainable transportation options and increased recreational opportunities." stated Bill Nesper, League Director of the Bicycle Friendly America program.

Read more about what the judges liked about St. Louis and check out a map of all bike friendly communities on the league's website.
 

St. Louis sports radio host Randy Karraker announced yesterday on his show The Fastlane (ESPN 101.1 FM) that he's putting together a group to purchase the St. Louis Rams.

How does Karraker plan to buy a team recently valued at an astronomical $900 million? He's soliciting donations. Whatever you have -- be it "25 cents or $600 million."

We'll let Randy explain...



BTW: Karraker says that if his effort fails to win the Rams, he'll give all the donations made for the purchase of the team to the Special Olympics of Missouri.

That seems like a pretty fitting charity to us, especially given how "special" Karraker's idea is.

Steve Phillips

​Yes, pollsters, feel free to defecate on St. Louis all you want. But here's one ranking where we certainly score high marks: cities where passing sports figures can get involved in bizarro relationships with detestable wenches.

Consider baseball player Ronnie Belliard. The current Los Angeles Dodger was with St. Louis for three (maybe four) months back in '06 -- enough time for him to get caught up with a psycho who later tried to extort the ballplayer on false claims that he impregnated her.

Now its ESPN baseball analyst (and former Mets general manager) Steve Phillips. Phillips was in St. Louis this summer when he first began an affair with a 22-year-old ESPN production assistant named Brooke Hundley.

We'll let Hundley tell you the details of their St. Louis tryst via an excerpt of the "Fatal Attraction" letter she recently left Phillips' wife. We'll call it, "Strike One."

Self portrait via cnsnews.com

Mark Muller

​Remember Mark Muller? He's the owner of Max Motors outside Kansas City who made headlines this summer for giving away an assault rifle with the purchase of any truck from his dealership.

Muller is now back in the news. This time he's publicly airing his gripe with the National Football League over that he calls its "inappropriate" handling of Rush Limbaugh's attempt to purchase the St. Louis Rams.

"...to have the commissioner of the NFL get on TV and say we find [Limbaugh] inappropriate, well, by God, then I'm an inappropriate fan," states Muller, who says he's canceling his season tickets to the Kansas City Chiefs.

Muller tells Cybercast News Service that he was first turned onto the NFL because of Limbaugh.

Back off! I'm just here for the trophy.

​As everyone has heard by now, times are tough on the auto lot.

Wikimedia Commons

​Near the end of 2006, a tempest boiled over in the local sports teapot when Albert Pujols, in an interview with reporters in his native Dominican Republic, opined that maybe he, and not Ryan Howard, was entitled to that season's Most Valuable Player award, by virtue of the fact that Pujols' St. Louis Cardinals reached the postseason that year and Howard's Philadelphia Phillies didn't.

Rush and the Rams weren't meant to be. And now Rush says he saw it coming from the very beginning.
 
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Limbaugh took the opportunity in the opening moments of the show this morning to blame Dave Checketts for the last several days' brouhaha, saying Checketts assured him that NFL officials were kosher with him becoming an owner of the St. Louis Rams. 

Limbaugh said he and Checketts met on the links earlier this year. In May, Checketts proceeded to visit Limbaugh's Palm Beach home to pitch the conservative talk-show host on taking a minority stake in the ownership group.

Years from now we'll remember this as nothing more than a really strange dream.

​Score one for that "vast liberal conspiracy" and the "state-run media media scum." 

"Rush was to be a limited partner -- as such, he would have had no say in the direction of the club or in any decisions regarding personnel or operations. This was a role he enthusiastically embraced. However, it has become clear that his involvement in our group has become a complication and a distraction to our intentions, endangering our bid to keep the team in St. Louis. As such, we have decided to move forward without him."

Don't count Keith Olbermann among those poo-pooing the cigar-chomping talk show host's bid to buy the Rams.

On his show last week, Olbermann declared that his arch nemesis shouldn't be excluded from owning a sports franchise solely because he is a douche. Such a criteria would disqualify all but three current NFL owners.

He also says that Limbaugh buying the hapless Rams would be akin to "throwing his money down a rathole."

www.rushlimbaugh.com

​Yesterday on his radio program Rush Limbaugh took a few minutes to address the wave of criticism surrounding his potential purchase (with others) of the St. Louis Rams. 

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The Rams are in play, and everybody's got an opinion.

​NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell expressed reservations yesterday at the prospects of Rush Limbaugh owning the St. Louis Rams. 

An audit of last year's Tour of Missouri reveals some eye-popping numbers on how the state spends money for its popular bicycle race. 

Just look at how greasy his Blues hat is...



Who else could, in 30 seconds, toss off references to Brett Hull, Adam Oates, Brendan Shanahan, Craig Janney, Paul and Gino Cavallini, and T.J. Oshie and still devastate your face with handsomeness? (OK, maybe Harold Snepsts could).

Sharpton: Does this face look like I'm joking?

​If you thought the theatrics surrounding Rush Limbaugh's attempt to purchase the St. Louis Rams reached a crescendo last week, think again. The wingnuts are coming out of the woodwork. 

Mike Danton

​Last time we wrote about Mike Danton, the former Blues player was in federal prison and his agent -- David Frost -- had just launched a website in which Danton was supposed to be a regular contributor.

That was back in January, and the website -- Hockey God Online -- never amounted to much. Danton (from what we could tell) never contributed to the site, which would make sense seeing how he was in prison for hiring a hit man to kill Frost!

But then Danton's case (read more about it here) never made a hell'uva lot of sense. As the judge stated when he sentenced Danton in 2004: "In over 18 years on the bench I have never been faced with a case as bizarre as this one."

Danton's saga provided a new twist last month when he appeared before a parole board after serving five years of his 7-and-a-half year sentence.

Limbaugh: Said to favor a "conservative" game. Likes plays to develop on the right -- far right.

​A few days after Rush Limbaugh publicly announced his intention of buying the St. Louis Rams (and just 48 hours after Limbaugh again made another borderline derogratory/racist comment about black athletes), a pair of African-American football players say they would refuse to play for a team owned by the conservative radio host. 

Mathias Kiwanuka loves his former defensive coordinator, but the Giants' defensive end says he will never play for Spagnuolo's Rams if Rush Limbaugh purchases the team. Kiwanuka and the New York Jets' Bart Scott made it clear Thursday that they would never play for the Rams or any team owned by the controversial conservative radio host.

"I am not going to draw a conclusion from a person off of one comment," said Kiwanuka. "But when it is time after time after time and there's a consistent pattern of disrespect and just a complete misunderstanding of an entire culture that I am a part of, I can't respect him as a man."

flickr.com/photos/brj_bringin_the_shit_up_in_here_bitches

The Lady Byng Memorial Trophy would look swell on Unreal's desk, n'est-ce pas?

​Unreal thinks we are just as worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize as President Obama. We have just as frequently expressed our support for world peace, though it's true, we've never really done it on the record in places like the New York Times.

But now we really have to object. This Obama love has gone entirely too far. As blogger Con Chapman on Salon.com's Open Salon "reports":

NEW YORK.  The National Hockey League today awarded the Lady Byng Memorial Trophy to Barack Obama, saying that while the President had never actually played hockey, the first nine months of his administration had changed the tone and tenor of the game for the better.

​Post-Dispatch sports columnist Bryan Burwell lays out a convincing argument today why the Rams and the NFL should steer clear of Rush Limbaugh -- who stated Monday that he wants to buy the St. Louis football team. 

"Look, let me put it to you this way: The NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it."

"I mean, let's face it, we didn't have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: Slavery built the South. I'm not saying we should bring it back. I'm just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark."

"The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies." 

Lance occasionally enjoys a cocktail.

​Details are emerging on that endorsement deal we mentioned yesterday between cyclist Lance Armstrong and Michelob Ultra.

Armstrong was in St. Louis yesterday to publicly unveil the endorsement at the AB brewery on Pestalozzi Street.

According to an article today on BusinessWeek's website, Armstrong inked a three-year deal with AB InBev that will have the seven-time Tour de France champ appearing in two Michelob Ultra commercials as well as lending his name and image for billboard and print ads and possibly packaging. 

One of the commercials, titled "Little Bumps", will show Armstrong pedaling up a steep peak. The message of the ad: "Some people see mountains, others see little bumps."

At least that's what we've deduced from reading the seven-time Tour de France champ's Twitter feed...

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Rams 2009: Same team, same crappiness.

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​Move over Jerry Jones. Sorry, Al Davis. We bid you farewell, Bill Bidwill. The NFL soon could have a new most-hated owner.