With all this talk of baseball teams making the playoffs, I haven't given fair attention to the St. Louis Cardinals, who are avoiding clinching the NL Central the way Brian Urlacher avoids condoms. Just to recap, a week ago the Astros were in third place, 8.5 games out of first. The Cardinals were looking at a magic number of six. One seven-game winning streak and one seven-game losing streak later, the Astros are 1.5 games back and the Cards still have a magic number of six. Last night was especially painful, as ace Chris Carpenter blew a 5-2 lead in the 7th inning.

Part of me feels really bad for Cardinals fans, but a much larger part of me enjoys the pageantry of this potentially historic meltdown. This is just like the tortoise and the hare, only instead of a lame fable it's a totally fucking awesome real-life drama with human agony televised every night and Tony LaRussa's job on the line. I'm preparing the Matt Millen Award for Extraordinary Incompetence as I write this.

Astros fans: don't get too excited. You still have Brad Lidge.

Today at noon Eastern Bill Simmons will begin another one of his marathon chat sessions on ESPN.com. It's always fun to see what Bill tackles in the live chat, and what gets edited out by his ESPN overlords. You may be unaware of this, but ESPN actually has a reputation for quashing the slightest bit of dissent from any of its voices. It's why Jason Whitlock was killed last night.

Oh, so you're saying Jason Whitlock wasn't killed? Well, how do you know? Have you seen Whitlock today? ESPN probably just kept the story off the air, that's why.

Now if you'll excuse me for a moment, there's someone with heavy-soled boots in my hallway. And now they're pounding on my door. What gives?

The Oakland Athletics clinched the AL West title with a 12-3 victory over the Mariners last night. The American League playoff teams are now set, with the Tigers and Twins still dueling it out for the AL Central title.

I haven't paid attention to the A's since I read Moneyball. Good book. It's pretty cool that the A's can manage to lose in the playoffs every year with their small payroll. Say what you will about Billy Beane's methods, Dude, at least it's an ethos. Unlike, say, the Mariners, who have no farm system to speak of and throw too much money at one or two mediocre free agents every year. The M's probably couldn't have won the NL Central this year — not with shit-for-brains Mike Hargrove at the helm of the sinking ship.

Sometimes I kind of hate my parents for letting me be born in Washington. Not to mention keeping me in the basement all those years.

Terrell Owens was taken to a Dallas-area emergency room last night after attempting suicide. Details are sketchy, but a "female companion" (nice work, T.O.) observed him taking prescription pain pills. He was taken to the ER and had his stomach pumped.

Some people say suicide is a bad thing to make jokes about, but that's only because so few assholes attempt suicide. Besides, this wasn't a real attempt; this was one of those "cry for help" attempts that 17-year-old girls who wear too much eye makeup do. His publicist called 911, for Chrissakes. Of course T.O. is gonna make a cry for help. Drew Bledsoe is his quarterback. If he really wanted to die he would have disrespected Joey Porter.

There still remains the question as to just why T.O. did this. I think it's obvious: it had been a long eight days since his broken finger was the lead story. Get well, T.O.! I can't use up all this hate on Joey Porter alone!

For the first time since 1982, an American has won the World's Strongest Man competition. West Virginia firefighter Phil Pfister, measuring 6'6" and weighing 325 pounds, beat out reigning champion Mariusz Pudzianowski (pictured) with a thrilling come-from-behind victory in which Pfister won the final five events. I can't stress how amazing it is that anyone beat Pudzianowski — I watched this on TV last year, and this guy simply destroyed everybody else; it wasn't even close.

Can you believe that there is a human being alive that is stronger than the dude in that picture? I can't. That's gonna give me nightmares. When you get so muscular that your entire cardiovascular system pops out of your skin, are you still allowed to have sex with human women? Or are you required to have sex with bears? Because I think some poor woman's gonna get hurt if this guy doesn't go for a tougher species.

At 5'10", 155 pounds, I don't particularly like my odds to win next year's competition. And I don't think I could win an episode of Jeopardy!, much less a Nobel Prize. But I've been training for the 2007 World Series of Charm, and let me tell you, that George Clooney fellow doesn't stand a chance.

SI's Lester Munson has a nice little piece today on Brian Urlacher's extracurricular activities, namely his rampant unprotected fornicating and resultant custody battles. Basically, Urlacher had a one-night stand with an alleged former stripper and known golddigger that resulted in a baby, so he got himself a hard-ass lawyer to keep paternity payments low and to try to get custody. The one-night stand, which came after a romantic evening at Chili's, was after he had knocked up his ex-wife Laurie, but before Laurie moved back in with him to have the baby. And, while I'm breaking down the timeline, his highly publicized fling with Paris Hilton three years ago was while he was still married.

And now Laurie has moved back out. I can't imagine why. Maybe because the father of her children has been proven to have unprotected sex with women he doesn't know, and one of those women was Paris Hilton. There isn't enough penicillin in the world to make me comfortable with the notion of unprotected sex with Paris. Or any kind of sex. It's nice when fabulously wealthy blondes have long legs, but the lazy eye just doesn't do it for me. And have you heard her speak? Vince Young could beat her on the Wonderlic. 

It's times like these where it's fun to look around the Internet and find things like the 2005 interview with Maxim in which Brian gave us some handy tips for dating. 

Now that you are divorced, you must be getting all sorts of hot girls like Mariah [Carey] and Jessica [Simpson].
It’s cool. Now I do what I want. You just got to be careful: There's a lot more problems out there now. I have to watch what I do and who I hang out with. It’s no different than when I was married, except that I get to do more things that I want to do now.

Yes, no different than when he was married, by which he means he's free to run around having unprotected sex with any willing woman. Sometimes even his wife!