When it comes to sports collectables, autographs and general memorabilia, you could say that I’m a big-time conservative. I fear the inevitability of change, in that I always expect my favorite players to be traded, so why would I invest my money and time into supporting them? Additionally, there’s the scandal factor, as in I wouldn’t want to spend a few hundred dollars for, say, a David Freese autographed glove if it turns out that he’s running an orphanage only as a front for an organ farm. (And if he is doing that, I want in, damn it.)

Yet here I am, this gigantic sucker for both sports and quirky artwork, admiring artist Dave Choate’s fun and to-the-point-titled work, “Sports Paintings”. The bulk of Choate’s work revolves around a certain Evil Empire team that he’s a fan of, but mostly his self-taught art stems from a love of sports and art. Much like my Kate Upton finger paintings, or as the judge called them, “Exhibit A”.

My work has been described as whimsical. At the risk of sounding like a moron, my goal is to come away with something cool. I’ve found that my best paintings are the ones where I have the most happy accidents, so I really try to tap into my subconscious or right brain and not analyze every stroke. It reminds me of the Yogi Berra quote, “How the hell are you gonna hit and think at the same time?” I stay loose, try not to think, go with the flow and have faith that I’ll eventually discover something that I couldn’t have created on my own, at least consciously.

I’m a Connecticut native and am a fan of the New York Yankees and Oakland Raiders teams of the 70′s and 80′s.

Choate’s art is a little pricey, but I think it’s pretty fantastic. In fact, if I were still selling meth, I’d probably buy all of his paintings. Wait, did I say selling meth? I meant making porn. I don’t want you guys to think poorly of me.

After the jump, check out the With Leather Art Gallery’s “Sports Paintings” exhibit, and feel free to purchase any of the Mike Tyson paintings for me.

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Since winning the 2011 World Series, the St. Louis Cardinals have had a special motto during their road trips – #HappyFlight. Because most of the guys on the roster came up with each other in the minors, they have one of those brotherly bond things happening that I’m sure is only slightly less annoying to non-Cardinals fans than hearing about how their fans, of which I am one, are the classiest and most intelligent in baseball. *tilts top hat, spits tobacco juice*

But as for those happy flights, the Cardinals just try to have fun and keep everyone happy, which is why they showed up to AT&T Park yesterday wearing the goofiest outfits they could find. Led by David Freese, who wore some sort of Dr. Seuss-mescaline-inspired red tuxedo, and Lance Berkman in a bright pink ruffled tux, the reigning world champs shot a torpedo of hilarity into the bond between fashion and sports. And then they hit the field and committed 3 errors to hand the game to the San Francisco Giants.

Perhaps before they play the Los Angeles Dodgers today, they can wear cargo nets between their legs.

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If you’re over the age of zero, you probably realize that April Fools Day is a stupid idea that is somehow a million times worse in execution. For every halfway-funny prank that an Internet company or entity thinks up (and for the record, AdBlocker had the only good joke during April Fools Day this year, when they changed all Internet ads to pictures of cats), there’s an infinite number of idiots running around going NYAH HAH HEE HEE GET IT when their “prank” consists of, I don’t know, telling you they messed up your lunch order while openly snickering and then telling you NAH JUST MESSIN at the end of the same sentence.

However bad most usual-bad April Fools “jokes” are, they’re way, way, way worse when someone related to sports tries to do them.

MLB.com, with a hat tip to HardballTalk, reports on how Lance Berkman’s just the knee-slappinest, baby-prankinest jokester yokel what ever thought up a yuk-yuk.

Lance Berkman and several Cardinals teammates helped pull off a terrific April Fools’ joke on Adam Wainwright during Sunday’s game.

The pranksters had the public address announcer give away a car to a fan, who, playing along with the gag, ran onto the field to collect his gift. Berkman drove the vehicle — Wainwright’s white Chevy Silverado — onto the field and past an unsuspecting Wainwright, who did a double-take at the license plate while sitting in the dugout.

The winning fan, who was David Freese’s cousin, jumped into the back of the truck and Berkman drove out of the stadium.

Ugh. Just … no. That “prank” is so old, it’s got whiskers on it. I’m guessing that even the writer of this is playing up Wainwright “doing a double-take.” He probably rolled his eyes to himself and feigned a, “Oh, yeah guys. You sure got me. Hah,” while they all doubled over in laughter and handed him his keys back. Let’s retire April Fools Day, or at least make it illegal for athletes to “participate.” It would be for the best.

YOU'RE ALL LIKE HITLER, YEAH WOOO

Last night’s 45th Annual Country Music Association Awards featured a lot of the usual suspects — Taylor Swift crying about winning an award she expected to win, a touching tribute to Texas Ranger La Boeuf and Darius Rucker turning “and the Blowfish” into a full-blown country music career — but the best parts were when sports guys showed up, because I haven’t gone lifestyle yet and can’t write about The Zac Brown Band on my sports blog.

Erin Andrews usually shows up at these things and is worth a slideshow by herself, but thankfully 2011′s sports content was bolstered by an appearance by Hank Williams Jr., hot off his summer of evoking Godwin’s Law, apologizing-for-things-but-not-really and rerecording songs to make them be about how much he hates ESPN. He appeared and made a few jokes about himself that never turned him into the bad guy, and the Reba-filled audience responded like you’d imagine.

Oh, and David Freese was there, but nobody knew who he was. I thought he was Prince Fielder for like, five minutes.

Anyway, please click through to enjoy Erin Andrews, Hank Jr.’s parody of a parody of a parody and additional Erin Andrews.

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On Wednesday, World Series MVP David Freese visited the Macy’s store in Richmond Heights, MO and he signed baseballs for 275 fans after they agreed to purchase at least $50 worth of merchandise from the store. Sure, you could argue that it’s silly for fans to have to agree to spend $50 just to get a ball signed, but it’s David F*cking Freese, people. In Missouri, he could only be bigger if someone wrote a religious book about him or if he opened his own brewery.

The autograph session also came after he sat between Justin Bieber and Jay Leno on “The Tonight Show” on Monday night and told his incredible story about how he’d given up on baseball, turned down a scholarship to play at Mizzou, and only got back into the game because he needed to get his life back in order. The only way the interview could have been better is if he told Bieber to smell his finger.

And just when I was worried about how badly my hetero man crush on Freese would come across, The Onion beat me to the punch with the article, “David Freese Swarmed In St. Louis By Hordes Of Swooning, Average-Looking Women.”

“It’s flattering to see so many plain women flocking to me, especially considering most of them look like they’ve probably popped out a couple kids and had to hire a babysitter in order to come out,” Freese said as one woman, who wasn’t exactly homely but certainly would never be described as attractive, planted a kiss right on his cheek. “My girlfriend was a little worried about all the attention I was getting at first, but then, you know, just get a load of all these fives. She’s got nothing to worry about.”

Sure, it’s funny, but the real comedy is that it’s true. Freese is 28 years old and just helped the Cardinals complete one of the biggest come-from-behind championship runs in professional sports history, not to mention Game 6, which should have someone building him a statue right about now so it could be draped with the stretched panties of every woman from Springfield to Quincy. All I’m saying is that if ABC wanted to make Freese the next “Bachelor,” I would probably watch.

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$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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