You get into the tourney, and your mascot gets the photo space -- no matter how creepy it is.

As the NCAA Tournament prepares to kick off, we're in a remarkably exciting position this year here in the Gateway City. Our very own Billikens are getting national hype from all corners as a team with the potential to make a deep tournament run, and just a couple hours to the west, the somewhat confounding but oh-so-talented Missouri Tigers are hoping to avenge last year's March Meltdown. (Patent pending.)

So what is a St. Louis basketball fan to do? Which of these two Show-Me State powerhouses should you be following? More importantly, which one should you be betting on to win your office pool and make Larry from accounting cry? (Suck it, Larry from accounting!)

Have no fear, sports fan. The RFT is here to break it down for you.

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Lynn when he was better rounded.

So, here's the thing: Cardinals pitcher Lance Lynn got skinny during the off-season. Like, really skinny.

Well, okay, not like really skinny compared to skinny people, but really skinny compared to Lynn, who, until this year, routinely showed up to spring ball in one of two coatings: Original Recipe or Extra Tasty Crispy.

For Lynn's health and baseball career, the weight loss is probably a good thing. Still, there's something charming about a really out of shape human being who somehow still succeeds in professional athletics. And outside of an offensive line, there's no better place to witness that particular marvel than in baseball where fat men in polyester can strike fear in both the hearts of opposing pitchers and the owners of Chinese buffets.

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Pictured: Chris Carpenter

In honor of the (possible), end of Chris Carpenter's time in St. Louis -- not to mention a potentially career-ending situation -- we here at the Riverfront Times thought it was high time we took a look back at all the biggest moments from his tenure here.

No, not his tenure as the staff ace for one of the more successful runs of baseball in Cardinals history, though he was certainly that. We're talking about his tenure here in St. Louis as the scariest, angriest, most intimidating sumbitch there ever has been. The man owned the Busch Stadium mound, and had a lease with option to purchase on your ass. He was also an incredible potty-mouth whose profanities were as hard and nasty as his fastball.

Here are just a few of the highlights...

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Stop me if you've heard this one before: Chris Carpenter may not pitch for the Cardinals this year.
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Ken Hitchcock, offensive genius?

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Above: mathematical proof the Cubs will always suck.

In the neverending chase for mediocrity that is the Cardinal middle infield, a new salvo has been fired, and its name is Ronny Cedeno. Unfortunately, that's ex-Cub Ronny Cedeno, and if there's one thing I know in baseball, it's that the fewer ex-Cubs you have on your team, the better your chances are of winning a World Series. I'm pretty sure Archimedes was working on a theorem to describe it when that soldier showed up to trample his circles and stab him to death.
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Sunday night, it looked like the Blues might have hit a bit of a wall. Right about the time the second period opened, the Minnesota Wild just seemed to start pushing the Blues around. Watching the game, I thought to myself, "Wow. I knew it was going to happen at some point, and here it is."

The 'it' in question was fatigue setting in. Which may, of course, sound bizarre, considering we're talking about a hockey team playing in the first week of the season. How in the world could these players be fatigued, after an extra long offseason and less than a fortnight's worth of play?

Of course, it worked out in the end for the Blues Sunday night, as they put together a third period rally to tie the game, then pulled out the victory in overtime, 5-4, going to 5-1 on the season. Still, for that middle period, this was a team that looked badly winded.

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It was a night of important rebounds for the Blues -- two of them, to be exact.

The first is relatively easy to spot, as the team rebounded from their first loss of the season, a tough 3-2 defeat by the Blackhawks in Chicago, by beating the Nashville Predators last night 3-0. Back home at the Scottrade Center, the Blues looked almost frighteningly good, pushing a very Nashville club around the ice, imposing their collective will from beginning to end. (Particularly the beginning, as the Note outshot the Predators 9-3 in the first period.) Nashville did try to rally in the third, but even then the Blues never panicked, never got rattled, and kept the pressure on.

Admittedly, a one game losing streak isn't the most impressive thing to rebound from, but even so, it was mightily encouraging to see the Blues come back strong, after a back to back, after a loss, after continued proof the United Center should just be razed immediately and put on one of the best teams in the Western Conference.

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Get it? 'Cause Motte was 'arby' eligible? I'll be here all week, folks! (Whether you like it or not....)

I told you the Cardinals would manage to avoid going the full arbitration route with at least some of their eligible players, didn't I? Damned right I did.
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The Missouri Tigers have played three games since losing forward Laurence Bowers to a sprained ligament in his knee, and the results have been less than ideal. The hope was Bowers could be back on the floor in time to take on the Florida Gators in Gainesville, but that didn't happen. The question of how much longer Bowers is going to be out, and what the team is going to do to try and fill the void, is an extremely pressing one. More »