I think we all need to take a seat, maybe form a circle and just relax for a few minutes. We get a little bit too crazy about sports sometimes, and we tend to overreact toward athletes and media analysts for their decisions and/or opinions. I mean, take Twitter, for example. Have you seen the horrible verbal venom that is spewed at famous people on that “social media” site on a daily basis? Hell, I’m as guilty as the next guy for making cracks at some athletes, but I’m talking about the violent threats.

It’s really getting out of hand, and it’s been spilling out into our stadiums and arenas now, ruining the idea of fun competition for everyone. What the hell’s the point of going to a game or a bar these days if you constantly have to look over your shoulder and wonder if someone is about to stab you? Sports are supposed to take our minds off the really sh*tty things in life and provide hope and inspiration. Instead, we have people slaughtering each other in the streets.

Everybody calm down and let’s remember why we’re here in the first place… to hope that the other team loses and pray for people to be fired. That’s what sports are all about, dang it.

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For the first time since 2000, the St. Louis Cardinals’ roster on the team’s official website is missing the name Albert Pujols. And while that’s simply routine procedure, it is certainly cause for panic and dismay in Baseball City, USA, with free agency well under way. Pujols is arguably the top free agent available, unless you see Prince Fielder’s youth as an advantage to Pujols’ upcoming “32nd” birthday or Jose Reyes’ value as a shortstop more appealing. And I hope that you do, as I also hope most general managers see it that way as well so it becomes that much easier for the Cardinals to re-sign Pujols and let him finish his career where he started.

Alas, with the free agency period beginning, the rumor mill cranks into full gear as well. My favorite rumor of the day is one that most people surely saw coming – Tony LaRussa and Albert Pujols joining Theo Epstein and the Chicago Cubs.

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The St. Louis Cardinals won Game 7 of the World Series on Friday to secure the franchise’s 11th title (11 in ’11 is not ironic, despite what Shane Victorino thinks) and they had a whopping 48 hours or so to enjoy it before the entire world crumbled around them. Yesterday morning, Tony LaRussa announced his retirement after 33 years of managing and three World Series wins (16 and 2 with the Cardinals, respectively). Instead of celebrating an incredibly improbable championship run, Cardinals players and fans now wonder, “Who will be the next manager and will it affect whether or not Albert Pujols stays?”

Only one man – St. Louis GM John Mozeliak – knows the answer to that first question, and only one man – Albert Pujols – knows the answer to the second question. Granted, his agent, wife and kids probably know, but he’s the only man who matters for right now. That doesn’t mean, though, that every sports writer, blogger and Internet commenter on Earth won’t make predictions, some of them accurate and most of them way off base. First up, former Cardinal and the grittiest shortstop ever, David Eckstein.

“Albert would stay if (Jose) Oquendo got the job.”

“My initial reaction (after learning of La Russa’s retirement) was, ‘It needs to be Jose Oquendo,’” Eckstein said. “When you played for Tony, you didn’t want to disappoint him. When I was playing infield for Jose, I didn’t want to disappoint him. I know how much he has put into this. When you can get a player to play outside of himself, for someone else, that’s when you get the best out of a player.”

(Via Fox Sports)

LaRussa has long lobbied for Oquendo to get his shot at managing a big league ballclub, and he certainly has a nice foundation and situation in St. Louis. He makes sense as a replacement, as the fans and players love him. But that really doesn’t mean much of anything.

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For the second time in 6 years, the St. Louis Cardinals are the World Series champions. And for the second time in 6 years, people are scratching their heads and wondering, “How the f*ck did the Cardinals win the World Series?” On August 25, the Redbirds were, of course, 10.5 games back in the Wild Card race. At that same time, the Milwaukee Brewers had also established an insurmountable lead in the NL Central, so it seemed like the Cardinals didn’t have a snowball’s chance. Then they simply did what everyone loves to hate them for – they played gritty and determined, and they took advantage of other teams’ misfortunes.

It has been building for a few years now, but the Cardinals have finally developed into that team that people love to hate for no other reason than, “I hate them.” It has spread beyond the usual divisional hatred into a full-blown National League contempt. Fans of the Philadelphia Phillies despise the Cardinals for ruining “their season.” Atlanta Braves fans hate the Cards because it’s their fault that the Braves fell into one of the biggest regular season collapses in league history. And as one Milwaukee Brewers fan put it to me at Game 3 of the NCLS, “You’re the Yankees of the National League.”

I could debate that rhetoric for days, but I don’t want to spoil the moment with nonsensical arguments. Instead, the Cardinals spent yesterday celebrating with their city of “baseball’s best fans,” a title that certainly fuels the growing fire of hatred. The Birds also stopped by Edward Jones Dome to give the St. Louis Rams a little luck in their defeat of the New Orleans Saints. And the attention has already mostly turned to Albert Pujols’ destiny, but we’ll get to that later. In the meantime, Cardinals fans rejoice, everyone else – haters to the left.

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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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$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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