The Cardinals haven’t had a game broadcast by the fat, large-foreheaded, bad-suited ESPN figure-head Chris Berman in a while, and even though Mike Shannon tries his best to ruin the Cardinal radio broadcasts, (He’s like your crazy uncle everyone thinks is cute when he hugs your girlfriend for too long and moans.) Berman ruins the name of your favorite players like no one in the business. In the meantime, we can only pretend by making up long-form nicknames.

Here are our best imitation as to what Berman would call some of the more prominent Cardinals:

1. Albert “I’m playing like Poo“ jols

2. Daniel De…”…uh…hold on, give me a second…shoot. I got nothin’.” scalso

3. Yadi “I sure could use a few Mo hits” lina

4. David “I better Freese because if I move I hurt myself”

5. Adam “Back in high school there was this guy named Wain. He was a pretty good guy, seemed nice enough, though I never really hung out with him much, and I’m pretty sure he was kinda stupid. I think he went in to the Army or something and I actually don’t remember him at graduation now that I think about it. So long story short, I heard a few years back that he got in some accident and it was in the paper and my mom was like ‘Don’t you know this guy?” and I was like ‘Yeah.’ and then she was like he was like “You guy’s always hung out right?” and, you know mom’s, I’m all like “No!”. I never did hear, but I’m sure he’s all” wright “Oh, yeah he played baseball.”

First, before we get to the meat of this little ordeal, we want you to know that KSDK brought us this story from Frank Wiley reporting live from downtown St. Louis last night.

Why? No clue. None of this had anything to do with downtown St. Louis. Maybe Frank had to smoke or fart or something so he took his work outside. It added nothing to the story of a local rapper suing ESPN, but maybe if you hit your head really really hard or take a day and drink nothing by antifreeze it might make more sense.

Anyway, some local rapper you haven’t heard of is suing ESPN because they played his song on their widely watched national TV network.

Local rapper and music producer Michael “Dutch” Jackson says ESPN used his music without his knowledge or permission.

Jackson filed a 31-page lawsuit with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District, last week. He says ESPN, Amazon and And-1, a basketball apparel company used his unreleased song, “I Am the Greatest,” to promote its product. Now, he’s looking for financial compensation, and notoriety.

After a clip of him bobbing his head to his own song like Kevin Federline kicking it to Popo Zao back in the day, “Dutch” claimed his unreleased song was “leaked” and then And-1 Studios used it in one of their basketball highlight clips, ESPN aired in and then Amazon sold the video online, so they’re all getting sued! All he wants is an undisclosed amount of financial compensation…and to be on KSDK. Halfway there! …plus after all of this he’ll have the contact info for ESPN, Amazon and And-1 Studios so he can call them back and beg them to use his other songs he’d be happy to “leak” to them.

“I know if I steal from somebody, I’m going to jail. It’s not right,” said Jackson.

If he’s right and has proof, he’ll get a little settlement and his song will be scrubbed from their clip allowing “Dutch” to take his beer money and head back in to obscurity. Meanwhile Mike Bush has your back Dutch because this shiz is straight whack yo! Right Mikey B?! Holla atcha boy!

Word.

Ugh. Seriously, we’re all dying out here for something to report on this week. If one of you could crash your car through a Jack in the Box or go dress up like a clown and sucker punch kids at a mall or something that would really help us all out.

via KSDK

A recent Washington University School of Medicine study discussed the use, or rather misuse, of painkillers by current and former NFL players. The study, commissioned by ESPN’s Outside the Lines, found that 52 percent of former players used prescription pain meds during their active days, and 15 percent of that group admitted to misusing drugs in the last month.

“That’s a very large number in a population that, at that age, we wouldn’t expect to see much use of these substances at all,” Compton said. “Most typical 30- and 40-year olds aren’t taking pain relievers, and they’re not misusing them, so that’s a much higher than expected rate.”

One of the study’s main sources of antidotal information was friend-of-the-site, former Ram and Chief, and master of the homeless guy chic look, Kyle Turley:

Turley said it was commonplace to find comfort in the form of two Miller Lites. But the real relief, Turley said, would come when members of the Saints’ medical staff routinely handed out the prescription painkiller Vicodin on the flights home.

“The trainers and the doctors used to go down the aisle and say, ‘Who needs what?’” Turley said. “If you had something hurting and needed a painkiller to take the edge off so you could sleep that night, they made sure you had it.”

Turley was interviewed on the ESPN Outside the Lines program Sunday morning by Bob Ley. When the questioning turned to Turley’s current method of self-medication, things got awesome: (The clip has been transcribed below, but if you’re at home skipping work because you’re afraid of the snow, click here to see the clip.)

Ley: Is it fair to say that at times or how often you may have used more than prescribed than over the counter medication?

Turley: I try to keep things personally more on the…uh…alternative medical thing. I don’t really believe in all these pain killers they prescribe people. It’s unfortunate we allow these doctors to create these chemicals and put (them) in our bodies and yet a simple thing like a plant that grows out of the ground is continuing to be illegal when it provieds a number of medical uses and relief for individuals pain and all kinds of other ailments…and, you know, I try to think that life can be better as long as I take care of myself and allow nature to help me…

Ley: Can I assume…the plant you’re referring to is…is cannabis right?

Turley: …uh yes. That would be the one Bob.

Oddly, Kyle was red-eyed in front of a gold curtain for the entire interview. Only after the cameras were turned off did we get a peak and what was back there…

Phish concert. Figures.

You can hear more from Turley at Gridiron Records.com

Maybe you thought the Rams should have picked a wide receiver earlier in the draft to give St. Louis’ newest leading man, Sam Bradford a target for  his first year in the bigs, but ESPN’s Sports Science is here to tell you that the Rams did just fine getting a wide receiver in the fourth round with Mardy Gilyard from the University of Cincinnati.

In this clip from earlier this year, the white guy with that same hair cut every TV host not named Regis has walks you through why Mardy (yup, with a d) is no slouch.

We love this video and really are more excited about Gilyard that we were oh about 5 minutes ago. The guy has some interesting skills and seems like a pretty cool guy at that.

Also, ever since we lost the great Brian Barton, we need a new skinny black guy with dreads around here. If you disagree, you’re a racist. There we said it.

Yesterday was a big St. Louis sporting news day!  Tony LaRussa made his decision to return to manage the Cardinals for at least 2010 official and confirmed the rumor that Mark McGwire would be on board as the team’s new hitting coach!

This is a major local news story that broke through the bounds of St. Louis and got national coverage.  Obviously the network synonymous with sports, ESPN, picked up and story and when they needed that local view they turned to the obvious radio station choice…KMOX?!?!

Ouch.  Now that’s gotta sting over the local ESPN Radio affiliate WXOS, 101 ESPN.  Its one thing to have a falling out in private, but to have your old flame have their new slut’s name all over the place?  Wow.  So sad.

Lets relive it shall we?

What do you have to do to not even get a phone call from the company you pay to broadcast their content?

We love ourselves some Pujols out here and the world knows it, but from time to time its good to see someone else on the team to get a little of the spotlight.  From our extensive research, we’ve found that if St. Louis had to pick a second favorite Cardinal, most would say the same guy: Yadier Molina

Guess who got the next cover of ESPN the magazine and is sporting a pretty bad-ass catcher pose?!

Bam!

You can read the cover story in the next ESPN issue, or online right now (if you are an ESPN Insider subscriber).  Here’s a taste:

Molina is a throwback, a catcher in the grittiest sense of the word. He’s a master of an art driven underground by a collective lust for the long ball. In the early 1980s, when offense exploded and home runs became all the rage, many clubs started signing catchers for their skills at the plate rather than those behind it. In the ’90s, Mike Piazza became the poster boy, and the nuances of the position began to fade. But no catcher can drive in as many runs as he can prevent. The stat geeks have yet to master next-level fielding metrics for catchers, so Molina’s defensive prowess is more anecdotal than measured, but his pickoff and caught-stealing numbers are telling.

They also have a video up that we have posted below of a quick interview during the photo shoot.  Of course, as we in St. Louis could have guessed, Yadi is subtitled.