Tony La Russa's Wife: Huge Metalhead?

Machine Head: Yeah, metal, I guess.

What exactly does this mean? Is this supposed to be some ultimate validation that it's okay to like metal music because billionaire baseball wives like it too? Or that the Cardinals' many victories are due to La Russa prepping her husband for battle, forcing him to listen to Amon Amarth while wearing bullet belts around the house? I don't really think its either.

While the evidence is clear that La Russa does indeed fancy the band Machine Head, an interview from Belleville's Lipstik blog paints a picture of slightly less than the "real deal."

A hard-core heavy metal music fan, she travels frequently to attend shows across the country to see her favorites - KISS, Metallica, Black Eyed Peas, Guns 'n Roses, Iron Maiden, and other groups, including California Symphonies, Journey, Yanni, and more.

Let's analyze this:

-KISS - Not metal. Not even a band really.
-Metallica - Any real metal head will preface this band's name with the word "early" and then an immediate "Lars sucks."
-Black Eyed Peas - This group is friends with Oprah or something. Not metal.
-Guns N' Roses - If she can tell you the name of a single song on Chinese Democracy then she is disqualified as a fan of music, period. Also: not metal.
-Iron Maiden - Okay, well yeah. Fuck yeah, Iron Maiden.
-California Symphonies - Are they the little guys that sing Marvin Gaye songs and dress like sun-dried fruit? Then I don't care. Very not metal.
-Journey - Okay, you're just fucking with me now, right?
-Yanni - I don't even know what we're talking about anymore at this point.

She clearly likes a couple "harder" bands, but no more than your average mom at any supermarket. The fact that she even likes Machine Head seems like something that could have happened on accident -- maybe she just discovered them one day while searching for the excellent Deep Purple album of the same name, or God forbid, that rancid turd of a Bush song.

Good for her for being open-minded enough to enjoy some heavier bands, but a super-raging-metal-head-hard-core-heavy-music-fan? It's not like she tattooed the goddamn Obituary logo on her back and fought a cop while shitty drunk on Jagermeister -- she just likes a couple mainstream heavy metal and hard rock bands. It's not that unusual.

Now I have to give Flynn the credit he deserves: The man played in Vio-lence back in the day and was even one of the founding members of the band Forbidden. But rather than thinking this gives the band some sort of cool factor, I actually find this new development more useful in arguing that Machine Head is pretty generic and not a very good metal band.

"Dude you actually like Machine Head? What are you, Tony La Russa's wife?"

Case closed.