It was reported that one of the first questions asked of Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak during last Saturday’s press conference to announce the Mark DeRosa trade was essentially, “Okay, so we got DeRosa. What’s next?”
Which to those of us at Grubb Hub, begs the obvious question: Why can’t the St. Louis media grill Tony La Russa the way they do Mozeliak? Is it because Mozeliak has a generally nice disposition, and is at least tolerant of legitimate criticism?
This, of course, is in stark contrast to Ton E. La Russa: Super Genius, who grows as huffy as if he’d just had his third-favorite dog kicked the few times he’s actually questioned about his latest head-scratching move or lineup configuration.
Case in point: That same day, the Cardinals were leading the Minnesota Twins by the score of 5-3 in the bottom of the third inning - thanks once again to the super-human talents of Albert Pujols, who had homered his first two trips to the plate.
Relief pitcher Josh Kinney, who was batting in the eighth spot (*sigh*), came to the plate with the bases loaded and two outs.
Let’s toss aside the obvious point for the moment that if the pitcher wasn’t batting eighth (*sigh*), once again you would’ve had an actual hitter at the plate for this crucial at bat.
The staff of Grubb Hub enjoyed its yearly company baseball outing at Busch Stadium 3-D last Wednesday night from one of the many posh luxury boxes available at the new stadium. And by staff I mean myself, and by posh luxury box I mean free right field bleacher tickets.
Anyhow, we noticed a peculiar set of stratagems employed by St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa during the bottom half of the sixth inning of Wednesday’s 4-3 triumph over the Detroit Tigers which we found quite perplexing to say the least.
Yadier Molina singled to lead off the inning on a sharp ground ball that pitcher Edwin Jackson deflected to third baseman Brandon Inge. As the Tigers are oft to do while in the Gateway City, Inge promptly chucked the ball into the stands, allowing Molina to advance to second.
So with Molina in scoring position and nobody out, third baseman Joe Thurston stepped to the plate. Now, mind you third base is typically a run-producing position. Ah, but Joe Thurston (.234, 1 HR, 18 RBI) is not your average third baseman. In fact, he is very much below average.
Like the shooting star that shines so bright and soars so high, but fades away into the abyss just as quickly as it appeared, so too was the mustache of St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Rick Ankiel.
Recently, Ankiel sat down with the American Mustache Institute and for the first time opened up about his short-lived ’stache. Where did it come from? What was its mission? And why did it have to leave us so soon?
We at Grubb Hub never thought it could hurt more to be a fan of the Denver Broncos than it did after getting drubbed 55-10 by Joe Montana and the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl XXIV, their third embarrassing loss of historic proportions in four years.
We never thought our passion could feel more purposeless than the day John Elway announced he had played his last game. As for myself, I had never known what it was like to root for a Broncos team without the best quarterback to ever play the game. Quite frankly, he was the primary reason I became a Broncos fan in the first place.
All those years spent rooting for John to get just one more shot at a Super Bowl, so that he could once and for all prove to the world that indeed, he could win The Big One. And after he finally did – twice – The Duke of Denver mounted his white snorting horse and road out of town, leaving Bronco fans everywhere to wonder, “Well, what now?”
The main difference between those two events and the recent fiasco resulting in the trade of Jay Cutler to the Chicago Bears? Both of those you could see coming from a mile away. Both of those made some modicum of sense. This makes none.
His name is Ryan Ludwick. He also goes by the nickname “Studwick”. He’s an All-Star and a Silver Slugger Award winner. He hit .299 with 37 home runs and 113 RBI’s in 2008.
He plays outfield (occasionally) for the St. Louis Cardinals.
Think you’re smarter than Cardinals all-knowing, all-powerful, future hall of fame, super genius manager Tony La Russa? Well, you’re not. You’d play Ryan Ludwick every day, wouldn’t you?
Wouldn’t you, 89 year-old grandmother filling out a scorecard in the upper deck? Wouldn’t you, ever-so-delicious nachos supreme vendor? Wouldn’t you, five year-old whose father is taking him to his first-ever baseball game?
Wouldn’t you, foreign exchange student from Liechtenstein who has never heard of baseball before in his life?
Yes, Death Wish 3 – the third chapter in the famous franchise starring Charles Bronson – contains all the essential elements of a fine feature film: Angry mustached old dudes, bazookas to the face, giggling purse-snatchers, multi-cultural gangs, reverse mohawks, love for arithmetic, and people falling out of buildings. What more could a person ask for?
Did someone say mustaches? Well, that’s all that’s required for the American Mustache Institute to review a 24 year-old movie.
Even if you don’t have time to read the review because of your damn go-go lifestyle with your fancy McDonald’s lattes and your high-speed dial-up internet and your bluetooth headpiece that makes everyone want to punch you in the face, at least take the time to view this Death Wish 3 montage of people falling out of buildings. It’s the least you can do, I spent way too much time on it for nobody to watch it.
No, sad to say we’re still waiting for the days when that form of discrimination has been eradicated. As long as women still pine for tall, dark and handsome, as long as and the red of head are portrayed as freckle-faced four eyes in the mass media, it will unfortunately have a place in our society. My father used to always tell me, “There’s no way this country would elect a red headed president.” Kind of like what this guy said.
Well, as of this evening, the country has proven my old man right. And we definitely are the better for it.
Speaking of discrimination, the American Mustache Institute is an organization dedicated to fighting for the rights of the repressed and downtrodden mustached American.
If you’d like to read more uplifting words of inspiration, check out the latest post from the AMI blog. And if you can make any sense of what it says, I think you will be better for it too.
Did you know that Michigan State University, one of the most esteemed and respected public universities in the world, has a mascot that is a member of a specific ethnic group?
I was watching last Saturday’s disappointing 63-57 loss by the Fighting Illini to then tenth-ranked Michigan State when I noticed something rather alarming.
I just kept thinking to myself, this can’t possibly be. I had to rewind my Tivo just to make sure my eyes weren’t deceiving me. In this day and age, you just don’t think this kind of thing is possible. I mean, did we not inaugurate Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States today? Kind of makes you take for granted that we have progressed past this kind of bigotry as a society. But no, when ESPN came back from commercial after a timeout, there he was. I could hardly believe my eyes.
His name, is Sparty the Spartan. He looks like this:
Sparty the Spartan (File Photo)
With his Popeye-like arms, horribly oversized head, and generally dopey look on his face – clearly he is a caricature of the well-known civilization from ancient Greece.
This season, the University of Illinois basketball team will likely take the phrase so often uttered by their wooly neighbors just three hours to the north, “Wait ‘Til Next Year”, to a whole new level.
That’s because many Illini fans may have been saying it before this season even began. In case you hadn’t heard, 2009 is when Bruce Weber’s first crop of prize recruits since becoming the head coach of the Illini five years ago, start strolling into Chambana.
Four players, guards D.J. Richardson, Brandon Paul, and Joseph Bertrand, along with forward Tyler Griffey are all ranked in the top 100 nationally and currently give the Ilini the 8th-ranked recruiting class in the nation according to Rivals.com.
Throw in five-star verbal committments from small forward Jereme Richmond and shooting guard Crandall Head for 2010 and all of a sudden the Illini, who started to take on the look of a mid-major program Weber supposedly left behind, might again start to resemble the national power we were hoping “Bail” Self was going to build before bolting for the only place where the Earth’s crust is flatter and more boring to look at than Central Illinois – that being Kansas.
Of course, this is all assuming that Kelvin Sampson doesn’t somehow worm his way back into college basketball and give all these guys’ fathers cushy jobs.
Admittedly, not much has happened on the Hub lately. In fact, nothing has happened for nearly two months.
Speaking of nothing happening, did any of you catch the final 2008 presidential debate last Wednesday night? It’s too bad one of the major crises facing our country isn’t insomnia. At least then we could be reasonably confident that these guys would be able to solve one problem.
Unfortunately, there are far more important things facing our country. And as with so many important issues of our day, if we would only look to the mustache, we will find the answer. In this respect, I humbly submit for your perusal a list of suggestions for spicing up the presedential debates the next time around, brought to you by your follicled friends at the American Mustache Institute.
Posted by Grubb 
Posted by Grubb 
Posted by Grubb 
