On Friday, the St. Louis Cardinals finished one of the most improbable World Series champion runs in Major League Baseball history as they defeated the Texas Rangers 6-2 in Game 7 in front of a record crowd at Busch Stadium. And less than 24 hours after the team’s victory parade, manager Tony LaRussa has announced that he will retire.

“Tony leaves behind a legacy of success that will always be rememered as one of the most successful eras in Cardinals history,” chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. said at the announcement. “I knew this day would come. I just hoped that it wouldn’t.”

(Via the St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

A friend emailed me this morning to ask if I knew what the Cardinals’ press conference was going to be about, and I, like most, assumed it was to announce that the team had picked up Yadier Molina’s option, even though that would be silly to announce when it’s plain as day. This makes a lot more sense, despite the fact that I’m in total “Aw, schucks” mode right now.

LaRussa was the definition of polarizing – Cardinals fans loved him and opposing fans hated him. But Cardinals fans also loved to hate him, and I think he loved making everyone want to rip their hair out in frustration. He retires with the third most wins as a manager in MLB history, and if he had stayed another season he would have undoubtedly passed John McGraw for second. Instead, he’ll settle for his three World Series rings and knowing that he gets the last laugh.

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The St. Louis Cardinals defeated the Texas Rangers 6-2 in Game 7 of the World Series. Third baseman David Freese was named the World Series MVP after a first inning 2-run double ensured that he had the MLB postseason record for the most RBI. Albert Pujols celebrated by swallowing a live chicken whole.

Game 7 of the World Series goes down tonight, and I think I’d be a bad sports blogger if I didn’t tell you to put aside whatever reservations you have about watching boring-old baseball and watch it. Don’t watch an all new episode of ‘Chuck’, don’t watch any of the season’s 14 new shows about how fairy tales are happening in real life, don’t watch Smackdown. Watch baseball. These two teams have played a hell of a series, and no matter what goes down tonight they deserve your attention. Watch it with your son, and use Joe Buck as an example of how you’re good at your job, so no matter what your child wants to do with his life, he can always do your job, only way worse. Fathers and sons, and all of that.

If you aren’t convinced, check out Burnsy’s illustrated recap of the crazy genius of game 6. Personally, I’m rooting for the Rangers. Sure, I live in Texas, but I want them to win so I can drive three hours north and take a bunch of pictures of drunk people carousing for my website. Also, there might be riots in St. Louis if the Cardinals win, but we’d be fine, as Arlington is barely a city to begin with. What’re they going to do, f**k up the Six Flags?

Have a safe, happy and hopefully fire-free weekend, everybody.

$10 says they broke the bed.

My buddy texted me this morning to ask what Game 6 looked like through the eyes of a St. Louis Cardinals fan last night, and it took me about 3 hours to respond. I’ve never seen anything so remarkable, so bipolar, so… baseball, in all my life. One second I’m on a stool, rope wrapped tightly around my neck, just waiting for Matt Holliday to kick the legs out. The next I’m screaming for Jon Jay to haul his unkempt afro to home plate. It was way too stressful for a guy with a long family history of high blood pressure, but it was amazing nonetheless.

There are three types of sports fans – the kind that love baseball (like Brandon and I do), the kind that don’t have a problem with baseball but don’t love it enough to watch a game that they don’t have a horse in, and the kind that think baseball sucks. That third kind usually still owns a New York Yankees hat. I don’t think there’s a way in this world that anyone didn’t think last night’s Game 6 between the Cardinals and the Texas Rangers wasn’t the most incredible game they’ve ever witnessed. And we thought it couldn’t get better than the last game of the regular season.

The Cardinals won 10-9 in the bottom of the 11th on a walk-off blast by David Freese to dead center. This game featured boneheaded errors, 28 hits in total, and more World Series firsts than I can even list right now. So let’s recap the game in pictures, or at least the parts I can remember.

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For the first time since the NBA lockout began on July 1, it actually seems like we’re going to have a season. After canceling the first two weeks of the season and then bluffing that he would cancel an additional two weeks and then all of the games leading up to and including Christmas day, NBA commissioner David Stern conducted a 15-hour meeting yesterday that lasted until 3 a.m.

It was reported that Stern and players union executive director Billy Hunter were seen laughing together at certain points during the negotiating session, and when a reporter asked Stern when he expected a deal, he smiled and yelled, “Tomorrow!” Seeing as it was 3 a.m., I’m not sure if he meant today or tomorrow. Hell, I’m surprised he didn’t shout, “Bring on the whores!”

Now, it seems that Stern, despite all of his arrogant bluffing, believes that there will be an entire season. And why wouldn’t there be?

“We’ll try to schedule as many games as possible if we can make a deal this week,” Stern, the NBA Commissioner, said early Thursday. “Until we have an overall deal we don’t have a deal on anything.”

“There’s no question today was a better day than last Thursday,” said NBA Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver. “We made progress on significant issues. But there are still some very significant issues left.”

(Via the New York Daily News)

The players have reportedly dropped their stalemate demand of 53% of basketball related income to 52.5% and that might be good enough to work a deal, seeing as they’ve still voluntarily surrendered 4.5% of the money they received in the last collective bargaining agreement. But none of that matters right now, because I’m starting to think this whole thing was just an elaborate scheme, at least from Stern.

The man notoriously tries to schedule league announcements and major events so they overshadow other leagues. This is routine from him, and it almost always works. So why on Earth would he suddenly change his tune about the status of the 2011-12 season? Because we’re witnessing an amazing World Series that included the most incredible Game 6 since Joe Carter galloped around the bases like he won the lottery.

I’m not predicting that it will happen, but if you think it’s out of the realm of possibility that Stern issues an announcement at 8:04 p.m. tonight that the NBA season has been saved, then you just don’t know him.

According to this video, everything rapper T-Will Da Deal do “Saint Lou”, including:

• Walking
• Talking
• Owning clothing
• Posting homemade World Series anthems to YouTube
• Calling your homemade World Series YouTube anthems “films”
• Featuring a plush “rally squirrel” on the track who does that annoying “unh! unh! Yeah! We goin’ all the way!” thing people do before rap songs, except in a sped-up chipmunk voice
• Having said squirrel announce that he’s “just trying to get a nut”, because get it
• Giving a shout-out to his “haters”, because irrational hatred is the only reason to not like a squirrel-centric baseball rap song where somebody rhymes “mayor” with “McGwire” by saying neither of them properly

The tags on the video are even better, and include “BET”, “KANYE”, “JAY-Z”, “DEF” and “JAM”, “JIVE”, “RAMS” and both “FRED” and “BIRD”. I’m not sure if he’s trying to get on television, get a record contract, get into the NFL or just meet Fred Bird, but his video production and the fat that he’s rapping to actual music puts him ahead of any efforts we’ve seen from Texas Rangers fans. I’m not sure if he got the “I’m just trying to get a nut” thing from a Wal-mart t-shirt or from another rapper (where he appears to have picked up everything else), but the knowledge that a Cards victory would cause Lance Berkman to “get a nut” makes me really want to root for Texas.

“Dave Seville-style Rally Anthems” are the next logical step in St. Lou’s Rally Squirrel phenomenon, following shaped chocolate and inspirational taxidermy, and I hope the trend lasts long enough for Tony La Russa to try and bring in four different rally squirrels in an inning.

[h/t Outside the Boxscore]