St. Louis Sports Blog

It's very nearly Halloween, and so I thought I would bring you a Thing of the Week today that has a, shall we say, rather morbid tone to it. 

When I was a kid, I was a big wrestling fan. Pretty much every weekend, my best friend Mike and I would get up on Sunday mornings to watch the WWF, then spend the rest of the day practicing suplexes and a variety of submission holds on my little brother. 

George Brett is a Hall of Fame baseball player, one of the greatest hitters who has ever lived, and the best player to ever put on a Kansas City Royals uni. 

Dave Sinclair died last week. I never bought a car from him. 

You know how you always get those emails from your friends containing really weird stories you never believe, about a famous person someone knows or has slept with or something of the sort? Nine times of ten they're hoaxes, of course; just a fake email chain that gets passed from inbox to inbox, with titles like, "WOW, LOOK AT TIHS!" attached. 

Patrick Swayze passed away just a couple days ago, and I'm actually really, really sad about it. The man delivered perhaps the greatest line in cinematic history, after all. 

Howdy, folks. I know I haven't done one of these in quite a while, but I'm going to rectify that situation starting right now. 

While perusing the interwebs looking for something or other (I think I was searching for an image of some sort), I came across something rather fun. It was an old post on Bleacher Nation (a Cubs blog, for those of you who are unaware), back when the author was doing his previews of all the NL Central clubs for 2009. 

I have to say, Ichiro Suzuki may be my favorite non-Cardinal baseball player. There are plenty of others I love watching, mostly pitchers. Guys like Dan Haren (though that always makes me sad, too), Tim Lincecum, and Roy Halladay are all fantastic to watch; seeing players lie that ply their trade is just amazing. 

"Chicks who dig home runs aren't the ones who appeal to me," he said. "I think there's sexiness in infield hits because they require technique. I'd rather impress the chicks with my technique than with my brute strength. Then, every now and then, just to show I can do that, too, I might flirt a little by hitting one out." 

I mean, seriously. That's just awesome. Is there any other player in baseball who would say something like that? I submit to you there isn't. 

You know what really makes me happy? Unhappy Cub fans. I know, it's probably mean-spirited, but I just can't help it. As a fan of the St. Louis Cardinals since I was old enough to understand the game of baseball, seeing the Chicago Cubs and their followers in abject misery is akin to supping upon the sweetest ambrosia. I try not to take such pleasure in other people unhappiness, but alas, as Popeye would say, I am what I am. 

I think after watching this video we can say that Matt Holliday was beloved in Colorado. Now that the former Rockie-then-Athletic has been traded to the Cardinals, we should all get acquainted with the kind of admiration he received in Denver. I imagine this is how one fan put a positive spin on the Rockies getting swept right out of the World Series by the Red Sox in 2007. Whatever I write about this video won't do it justice, so you should probably just go ahead and watch.

 Sports excitement in late July is limited to baseball, and here in St. Louis, that's not a problem, because we're all obsessed with baseball and the Cardinals and Apple Pie and Standing Ovations for the Other Team's Good Play.

But, since baseball is the only major sport in full-swing now, there's plenty of creative room for other sports content, like this column over at Inside STL: "Top 7 Old School Sports Posters."

The classic "No Bull" poster featuring Jordan, Pippen and Rodman, the Brian Bosworth poster, the Bo Jackson "Black and Blue" poster or any one of several Michael Jordan posters were standard issue for boys and girls' rooms in the '80s and '90s. Take a look at the rest here.

A couple of years ago, there was quite the competition among the major car companies, and it led to a true golden age for us all. It wasn't some sort of race to see who could make the safest car, or the most fuel efficient, or even the most stylish. 

Ever wonder how far the NASA astronauts traveled when they were hoofing it around the moon? How about the amount of ground they covered relative to the size and shape of the average Major League Baseball diamond? No? Didn't think so.

I know it isn't Wednesday afternoon, but I wanted to keep Stan Musial at the top of the list yesterday. Thus, we have here a special Thursday edition of Aaron's Things. 

I don't know anything about the death of Steve McNair, nor do I wish to speculate. A lot of sordid, sad details are coming out about the man's life, and there's entirely too much sanctimony flying around right now. I'm not going to do that. 

I found myself getting more than a little choked up last week over the death of Michael Jackson. Whatever the man may have been- and some of those things are certainly awful- he was the biggest thing in the world when I was growing up. I had a red leather jacket covered in zippers when I was five. I practiced for hours learning to moonwalk. In short, I was like pretty much every other kid who grew up in the '80s. I wanted to be Michael Jackson. 

There are days when it seems the world around us is going to hell in a hand basket, my friends. Days when you look outside and see the environment slowly dying off, the economy collapsing, and basic human decency seemingly nowhere to be found. In fact, if I were a religious sort of man, I might think we were living in the end times, considering just how awful the world seems some days. After all, how else can you explain the Disney Channel's continued popularity? 

Hello everyone, and welcome once again to everybody's favorite hump day feature! 

Ah, it's that time again, that magical time of the week when I force you to watch some random thing I dug up out of the dustbin of history. No, don't try to stop me; it's quite useless to struggle. I'm like a Bond villain that way. You'll get away before you die, sure, but you're damn sure going to have to sit there and listen to me ramble for a while first.

Photo: rockinpa.com

This week's thing comes to us courtesy of one of the great crushes of my adolescent life, Mr. Liz Phair.

I know I promised these every Wednesday, but I was busy with the draft yesterday, and taking the cat to the vet, and I just plain forgot. If it makes you feel any better, I feel just awful. No? Is there anything I can do to make it up to you? 

You know, I'm not someone who generally has a lot of nice things to say. No, no, it's true, I know it. I make fun of things, and people, and people's things, pretty much every day of my life. But that doesn't mean that I don't occasionally find things that I like. And when I do find something I like, I don't mind spreading the word around a little bit. 

Nick Schuyler, the lone survivor of the boating accident that killed Marquis Cooper, Will Bleakley, and Corey Smith, has a new tattoo that honors his fallen friends. It's a nice piece of work, too; simple, elegant, and meaningful. That's the okay part of this story. 

In 1999, two of the best things that have ever existed exploded into the public consciousness, and the world was never the same again. 

Just say no.

Turn on the news any night of the week, and you'll hear about all of the awful things going on in the world. Ethnic cleansing, plane crashes, economic collapse, all of it beamed straight into your home in dynamic TragiVision. 

It's time again for Aaron's Thing of the Week, when I present to you, the loyal Rundown Reader, something completely random that I like. Why? Because I want to, that's why. 

We here at the Rundown like to think of ourselves as your one-stop shop for a better quality of life. Sports are great, but man cannot live by OPS alone. 

The Cards-Cubs rivalry is turning into an arms race of offensive baseball t-shirts. Responding to the "Zambrano mows my lawn" shirts that sparked the ire of sports bloggers across the Internetz awhile back, one Wrigleyville shirt vendor has stepped above the fray and come up with this retort:

You know, I'm really tired of watching the Cardinals suck it up against the Pittsburgh Pirates, and I'll bet that you are too. The Brewers right now are working on a 17-game winning streak against the Pirates, yet somehow Pittsburgh turns into a team of all-stars when they play the Cards.