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As I pointed out last week, President Barack Obama just loves having sports champions visit him at the White House, so it came as no surprise when the St. Louis Cardinals popped in yesterday to be honored for winning the 2011 World Series. As he does with all of his champion guests, Obama praised the Cardinals for a variety of reasons, but most notably he called them the greatest comeback team in baseball history. Then I giggled and ordered the Cardinals World Series DVD on Amazon.

But the real talk of yesterday’s visit was the people who were missing from this celebration, including the Cardinals’ former manager Tony LaRussa and Albert Pujols, who said that he wouldn’t leave the Cardinals over a difference of a few million dollars a year but then left the Cardinals over a difference of a few million dollars a year. Also missing were Gold Glove catcher Yadier Molina and pitcher Adam Wainwright, who can do whatever they please, as well as error machine Ryan Theriot, who is no longer a Cardinal and can therefore go take a poop on the moon.

After the jump you can watch the highlights of Obama’s brilliant speech about how the Cardinals are the greatest team in the history of sports and how Pujols is the devil and will be locked up for the rest of his life at Guantanamo Bay (at least that’s what I took away from it) or you can watch the whole thing here. Either way, at least check out Barry O-Bomb’s hilarious domestic violence joke, because we should all laugh at women beating their husbands with bats.

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Last week, at the Major League Baseball winter meetings in Dallas, the unthinkable happened – the Florida Marlins actually spent money. But almost as remarkable, Albert Pujols signed a contract with a team not named the St. Louis Cardinals. As we all know all too well by now, Pujols signed a 10-year, $254 million guaranteed contract with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, presumably because it’s a team so Christianly nice it has Angels in it twice.

The real reason that the Angels made the splash was that they had just signed a $3 billion TV deal with Fox Sports, so owner Arte Moreno, despite previously lambasting his fellow owners for long, guaranteed contracts, was playing with house money. Also, it helped nab C.J. Wilson at a bargain, so why not do it? The reason the Cardinals didn’t match the offer is because they didn’t just sign a $3 billion TV deal and it would have meant that ¼ of the team’s payroll would be locked up in a soon-to-be 32-year old for a decade.

But now we’re in that awful aftermath period, like the complete opposite of orgasmic bliss, as the Cardinals are trying to focus on remaining competitive and Pujols and his camp try to save some face with a community that now questions his motives. So of course his wife, Deidre, went on the St. Louis Christian radio station that they help fund, and she offered some insight.

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In case you ever wanted to see Albert Pujols pull out a pistol and shoot somebody in the face, here’s Next Media Animation’s latest encapsulation of current events. If gun violence isn’t your bag, there’s also a moment where Angels owner Arte Moreno cuts a pizza with a chainsaw and tries to eat it with his face.

My favorite part is Taiwan’s super accurate portrayal of Texas — as a resident of central Texas myself, I can verify that we train our baseball teams by putting on Texas flag-themed clothing, dragging them out to the desert and whipping them while an Asian child does sabermetrics on a calculator. Put the kid in a long sleeve Longhorns shirt and you’re 100%.

Second best part: a Taiwanese lady trying to say “Wilson”. I don’t want to sound prejudiced or anything, but holy sh*t.

[via NMA World Edition]

If you’re a fan of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, now’s the time to start flapping your arms.

The Angels signed reliever LaTroy Hawkins on a one-year, $3-million deal on Wednesday night, then looked at each other, shrugged and said “ah f**k it, let’s sign everybody”. They suddenly emerged as the frontrunner in deals for C.J. Wilson and Albert freaking Pujols, and according to the report directly to the right of this paragraph and everyone freaking out across the sports world, it looks like the AL West squad landed the biggest and best free agent of the off-season, and possibly ever.

From the L.A. Times:

One day after appearing to have no interest in Pujols, the Angels are believed to have offered the three-time National League most valuable player a 10-year deal for at least $210 million.

It appeared Pujols would be heading back to St. Louis after the Miami Marlins pulled their 10-year, $220-million offer to the slugger earlier Wednesday. The Cardinals have offered Pujols nine years and more than $200 million.

So Pujols gets the ten years he was looking for, the Angels are instantly playoff contenders again and Mel Clark can pitch tired as much as he wants.

Somebody get the Indians to bring in a bunch of guys from obscurity and jail so we can live out our movie in real life, please.

It looks like the Miami sports community has learned from its mistakes; after assuming that signing all the best players would win them a championship in basketball, Miami has taken a different route with the Marlins and will be signing all the best players to win them a championship in baseball. The play-by-play, from birther John Heyman:

hearing #Marlins boosted offer to pujols to 10 years, matching arod’s in length. they are obvs pushing hard.

everybody should have been convinced after reyes for $106M, but this is no publicity stunt by #marlins. #pujols, #perfect10

#marlins strong pursuit of pujols realistically has winnowed the field for pujols to them and incumbent #cardinals.

Cardinals have been resistant to upgrade pujols bid. With marlins strong push, they have tough decision to make.

Yes, they do, almost as tough a decision as whether or not to write the phrase “winnowed the field” anywhere on your Twitter.

As Heyman notes, this 10-year offer to the secretly-31-and-a-half-year old Pujols comes on the heels of the 6-year, 106 million deal for Jose Reyes, so we need to go ahead and get comfortable with the Miami Marlins being a thing … at least a bloated, gangly thing that smells like a National Leagues Red Sox and looks hilarious finishing behind Aramis Ramirez (or whoever) and the Phillies next season.