Seriously, what the hell is wrong with our state senators?!  First they hate on poor defenseless nudie bars, then they try to strong arm the zoo, and now…well they are kicking a man while he’s down.

A Missouri state senator is trying to remove Mark McGwire’sname from a five mile stretch of Interstate 70 that runs through St. Louis. It’s the same lawmaker who pushed for the road to be renamed in honor of McGwire after his 1998 home run fueled season.

State Senator Ryan McKenna says that it’s now inappropriate in light of McGwire’s steroid admission.

Ok, so McGwire was taking the roids while we all collectively gave him a fan-job. Yeah, thats bad. But you know what? At the time he was basically a god and all we did was take a little stretch of a highway in the ugliest part of downtown and basically fake named it.  Yes, fake named it.  Its not really the Mark McGwire highway, its just highway 70…with a sign over it.

And now Senator McKenna wants to take the sign away.  Probably just so he can look cool and win the next election to state senate…you know because of all the power he wields.

That’s all.  He’s not “un-naming” anything, he just wants a sign taken down.  At this point, who gives a crap?  The dude knows he screwed up, and at this point who cares about a sign on the north part of downtown.  No one seems to care about the other ones there, like “Please don’t shoot other people.” or “It would be great if you would take a dump on the street homeless guys.”

We know its probably unpopular decision, but we at Punching Kitty say Don’t Take McGwire’s Sign!

Who’s with us?!

via KSDK

Wentzville High grad, 6th pick in the draft a few years ago and current Washington National’s starting pitcher Ross Detwiler is out for three months after undergoing surgery to repair torn right hip cartilage.

No word yet if the wound was self-inflicted when he realized he had to go back to Spring Training for the Nationals.

via ESPN

Its been confirmed through a few sources that it is in fact the Matt Holliday tweeting at twitter.com/mattholliday7.

Not only that, but after reading over his stream of “tweets” we can say Matt Holliday seems pretty cool. Below is a sampling of some of his best mind droppings.

Matt Holiday’s thoughts on…

Turkey Bacon:

not sure turkey bacon has earned the right to be called bacon, maybe breakfast turkey strips

Brett Favre:

qb no no, roll right throw back left to middle

Former football players getting fat: [Editor's Note: Watched this and thought the same thing.]

Duece is enjoying the retirement gumbo a little to much

And lastly, the offseason:

On my way to workout with trainer, trying to pump myself up. Ready for spring training! ST is way easier than offseason workouts

Follow Holliday at mattholliday7 and while you are at it, follow us at punchingkitty!

According to ESPN’s MLB prospect, and faking himself into thinking he is way more important than he is expert, Keith Law says St. Louis Cardinals prospect Casey Mulligan might be good enough to get to St. Louis this summer:

Relievers don’t usually make my top 100 unless they’re top-shelf, but ex-catcher Casey Mulligan and his plus changeup could sneak into the big leagues this year.

You might recognize the name Casey Mulligan.  Since he’s not quite famous for his relief pitching just yet, you probably know him as the ballplayer that suddenly busted out a rendition of Thriller during a rain delay.

We really hope Law is right.  St. Louis has had a real lack of interesting bullpen guys since our favorite Steve Kline left.

I feel like we let you down.  We were right on top of Matt Holliday’s wife, but we missed new Cardinal starting pitcher Brad Penny’s sexier half!

Luckily Cardinals Diaspora has it covered.

Wait, Brad Penny? The Pitcher?

I did a double take too, friends. But it’s true. And lucky for us he decided to take his babe to Turks & Caicos last week and have her play catch.

On the beach.

In a bikini.

Here’s to you Brad Penny.  We always thought you looked like the guy from SmashMouth but apparently that works for some broads.  In fact it worked on Alyssa Milano.  Who looks like this:

Jesus, its like this guys privates are made of dark chocolate.

In a related story Ray King recently drew a face on a pillow and named it Sarah.

What do you do when you product now seems old and the kids these days with their iPods and internets don’t respond to your marketing?  Make it extreme!

In this case, that means add a word that still technically means the same thing as eat but sounds awesome because generally its about cars.

Wheaties Fuel!

…oh and add Pujols to the box.

Notice the reproduction of Pujol’s signature.  That’s how you know he approves of it.

via Matt Leach on Twitter

Rick Ankiel has come to an agreement to play with cross-state pseudo-baseball team the Royals.  Soon Royals fall in love with Rick’s ability to hit the occasional beautiful home run and the breeze in center field he provides on most at-bats for those steamy summer night games.

Ankiel with make $3.25 million next year because he wasn’t very good last year and didn’t play that much.

In a related story I once had a job I wasn’t very good at and only really showed up half the time, but they fired me and I still owed them money for the blue vest.

Over the last weekend the national media descended on St. Louis for a chance to talk steroids with Tony LaRussa, Albert Pujols and of course Slightly-Less-Big Mac.

Pujols had some really nice supportive things to say about McGwire to the press, but we can’t shake this feeling that Pujols is a little confused about what Mark confessed too exactly…

Maybe not though.  McGwire did seem pretty happy dancing with those “Single Ladies” in that video.

[Ring! ... Ring! ... Ring!]

Scott Boras: Hello?

Rick Ankiel: Hey!  How have you been?

SB: Uh, good.  Who’s this?

RA: Ha!  Yeah…so haven’t heard from you in a while.

SB: I know…I’ve been busy.  Seriously, who is this?

RA: Rick!  Rick Ankiel.

SB: Oh yeah!  Sorry…you know…bad connection.  How’s the old pitching arm kid?!

RA: Scott, remember?  I’m an outfielder now.

SB: …oh yeah. Real shame about that.

RA: Yeah, so anyway…great job with Matt Holliday by the way.

SB: Thanks! We really came out great on that one.  Really great deal.  When you get to free agency, hopefully you can get a deal yourself.

RA: That’s the thing actually.  I am a free agent.

SB: Oh.  Call your agen…

RA: You are my agent!

SB: Oh.

RA: Think I can get back with the Cardinals?

SB: No, I think I already took their money…er…I mean with Holliday…

RA: Yeah…Yankees?

SB: Maybe I’ll give them a call…or…well…

RA: What?

SB: Piratesayswhat?

RA: What?!

SB: Great. You’ll love Pittsburgh.  I hear the Steelers were good last year. …

RA: The Pirates?! Dude!

SB: Yup, turns out that was legally binding.

RA: But I hate Pittsburgh!

SB: Well seeing as how you rarely leave Spring Training, I don’t think that should be a problem.

[Click.]

In a story about as shocking as the day Rosie ODonnell came out of the closet, today St. Louis Cardinals hitting coach and former home run champ Mark McGwire confessed he took steroids during his major league career, including 1998.  Which of course is the year that JD Drew first played major league baseball…oh and he and some crazy black guy hit a bunch of home runs.

McGwire said he also used human growth hormone, and he didn’t know if his use of performance-enhancing drugs contributed to some of the injuries that led to his retirement, at age 38, in 2001.

“That’s a good question,” he said.

He repeatedly expressed regret for his decision to use steroids, which he said was “foolish” and caused by his desire to overcome injuries, get back on the field and prove he was worth his multimillion salary.

“You don’t know that you’ll ever have to talk about the skeleton in your closet on a national level,” he said. “I did this for health purposes. There’s no way I did this for any type of strength use.”

I’ll give him credit for this though: McGwire actually called the family of Roger Maris to tell them first and apologize!

McGwire hit a then-record 70 homers in 1998 during a compelling race with Sammy Sosa, who finished with 66.

On Monday, McGwire called Pat Maris, the widow of Roger Maris, who had held the home run record with 61 in 1961, and admitted taking steroids.

“I felt that I needed to do that,” McGwire told Costas. “They’ve been great supporters of mine. She was disappointed and she has every right to be.”

Told by Costas that certain Maris family members have said that they now consider Roger Maris’ 61 the authentic home run record, McGwire responded: “They have every right to.”

When asked by Costas why he preferred to stand for the interview, McGwire replied “Are you kidding?  I’ve had more things poke me in the ass than Paris Hilton.  I don’t really poop any more, it just kinda ’sweats’ out of me back there.”

We here at PK aren’t hypocrites though.  We advocated that Big Mac come out and just say what everyone already knew.  Stop acting like we are all morons and just say it!  He did.  We are cool now.  We aren’t going to be like some of the press that urged him to come out only to kick him in the jimmy when he finally did.

Stop by any time for a beer Mac!

Quotes and video clips via ESPN