Sorry, but Ron Swanson would be a Cardinals fan.

As a St. Louis Cardinals fan, I’m generally regarded as one of the more intelligent, classy and mustachioed fans in baseball, so when it comes to celebrities and their team allegiances, I’m a bit of a savant. However, color me depressed this morning as I discovered the above photo of Parks and Rec star Nick Offerman and The Office’s Craig Robinson (who Tweeted the above photo) representing their favorite baseball teams, the Chicago Cubs and White Sox, respectively.

I mean, I always knew that the Cardinals had the two greatest celebrity fans in me and Jon Hamm, but now I’m a little bummed that the Cubs have such a heavy hitter to help fend off the stereotype of North Side fandom perpetuated by superfan Jeremy Piven. But hey, maybe this is just a gimmick. After all the picture is from the set of a New Era commercial.

Offerman, who Robinson said has a Twitter account launching soon, grew up in the Chicago suburb of Minooka—like all Cubs fans, right?—and attended University of Illinois. He was involved in the Chicago theater scene at Steppenwolf, Goodman and Wisdom Bridge. (Via Red Eye Chicago)

On one hand, it’s pretty awesome that Offerman is finally getting on Twitter, but on the other hand… NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! NOT THE CUBS, NICK!!! ANYONE BUT THE CUBS!!! So help me Jeebus if I find out Paul Rudd is a Kansas City Royals fan.

Oh well, guess it’s just me and you, Jon.

Read the rest of this entry »

Sure, the big baseball news right now is all about how Milwaukee Brewers slugger and 2011 National League MVP Ryan Braun beat the system and had his 50-game suspension overturned yesterday. Everyone was all like, “Hooray, bro! He did it! He proved that MLB players can use banned substances and not get in trouble because the FedEx guy will forget to deliver the urine on time, thus rendering the findings obsolete because of the MLB’s drug-testing policies!” Or something like that. I honestly stopped paying attention to this story the moment it was announced that a Brewers player was suspended, because my natural response was, “LOL, Bud Selig won’t suspend Brewers.”

But my silly, sarcastic conspiracy theories aside, I’m happy that Braun isn’t suspended, because he seems like a good guy. The only way he could seem any cooler would be if he had a sweet mustache like my main man Lance Berkman up there. Berkman showed up to St. Louis Cardinals – the reigning World Series champions – facilities in Jupiter, Florida sporting a new and quite porn-o-rific flavor savor. St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Derrick Goold Tweeted that he looks like Sgt. Slaughter, but I think he’s working towards something a little more manly.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

Man, time sure does fly. It seems like just yesterday I was praising Drew Brees. Actually, it was just yesterday, but I was referring to when I named Brees and the New Orleans Saints winning Super Bowl XLIV the top Sports Moment of 2010. And you know what? That was a boring, predictable pick and it left nothing to the imagination of you, our beloved readers. You deserve more than just the run-of-the-mill year end list, because With Leatherites are smarter than the average sports blog reader, and I know that because I was called an idiot by you guys plenty this year.

You also have a better sense of humor than the average sports blog reader, so when I was entering the qualifications for this year’s Best Sports Moments into my sophisticated super computer (read: old yellow notepad) I wanted to kick the sentimental crap to the curb and really focus on what makes us all tick – namely, poop jokes and hot models. But mostly fun sports moments. As always, I don’t expect everyone to agree, and I’m sure that I left out a few moments here and there (sorry hockey). So feel free to school us on your biggest moments of the year, and let’s all hope that 2012 is a little more sex scandal free…

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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]