“I made it clear when we were approached: I said, ‘If it’s political, I wouldn’t even approach Albert with it.’ I don’t want to be there if it’s political,”

That’s Tony LaRussa talking last week about the rally in the nations capitol over the weekend put on by Glenn Beck and featuring Sarah Palin. Political? Maybe, maybe not. Controversial? No doubt about it. Beck’s rally has both ruffled feathers and drawn curious looks for its choice of date and guests, despite Beck’s claims that the point is only to restore the honor of stuff that most believe still had plenty of honor in the tank, and is saying any date-correlations are completely accidental (the day the rally takes place is the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech). To this point, we heard that Pujols was ready to back out of the appearance, up until the last second, if it turned at all political.

Boooorrringgg! Did Pujols hit some dingers in to the reflecting pool or not?!

Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols says he’s honored and humbled after receiving an award for his off-field charitable work during Glenn Beck’s rally at the Lincoln Memorial.

Pujols says he thanks God for giving him a platform through a high-profile career — and says that allows him to be more than just being a player.

After Pujols’ speech with his nondescript medal (as you can see above), Beck, in a shocking move, took to his famous chalkboard to illustrate the problems with this year’s Cardinals team.

via ESPN and With Leather

That is all.

He has elf ears.

Now that’s all.

Step Brothers? As in…

Two aimless middle-aged losers still living at home are forced against their will to become roommates when their parents get married.

See? (move your lookin’ balls right) Its true, though still unbelievable.

The only way to explain this is…well, there’s no way to explain this. Wait: weed.

There, we explained it.

Oh and Ron? It’s your face. And I, again, you know, you’re doing great, man. This is the Catalina Wine Mixer Cardinals Post Game Press Conference. We’re all having a great time. Everybody’s having fun. You pulled it off. Alright? But if you don’t change your face, I’m gonna change it for you.

For a guy that only hit .199 for a 6 year major league career, he hit a home run on this one.

Not liking that one? Here’s three more:

1. Tony sure put his bat in the right place to make this hit!

2. Nothing pisses of Tony more than a pitcher going for his guys, but I’d still take my chances going high and tight to her.

3. Tony LaRussa has a hot daughter. Baseball.

…feel free to give your own baseball/sex/hot daughter metaphor in the comments.

Tony LaRussa doesn’t like to lose. We’ve heard good friends will be in town to have a meal with the man, and if the Cardinals loose that night, he won’t go. That’s mean, but that’s Tony. He can be a hard-nosed competitive, and frankly, mean guy some times. Hell look at him go at STLToday sports writer Bernie Miklasz.

…and then he’ll go do something like this:

…and we love every second of these moments.  We can’t get enough of stuff like this. I mean, how could you? Which is why we couldn’t have been happier to see that our friends at Cards Diaspora.com got their hands on new promo photos of LaRussa and family appearing on some show called Housecat Housecall which sounds just awful. I mean really really awful. Like watching Kirstie Alley eat spaghetti with her hands awful.

Yup. Looks awful.

The site is described on their site as

Each week, Dr. Katrina visits cat loving [f]amilies and, with the help of the Housecat Housecall^®Mentors, Dr. Karen Sueda and Dr. Rich Goldstein, she’ll try to make some sense out of a wide range of feline puzzlers. Whether it’s just a quirky behavior or something more complex, Dr. Katrina and her team work out real solutions that help bring peace, harmony, and well-being back to the homes of cats and owners.

Clearly we’re cool with the whole cat thing, but on Tony. You’re better than this. Also you don’t see Jose Oquendo doing this stuff…just sayin’.

If anything deserves a cat face-palm it’s this.

via Cards Diaspora

We’re starting to think Google, as a company, are Cubs fans:

According to the St. Louis Post Dispatch, long-time Cardinal skipper Tony LaRussa will return to the Cardinals for at least the 2010 season, which is pretty much what every one thought would happen.  The Cardinals return next year with at least the best hitter in the game in Pujols and the tandem of Cy Young candidate pitchers in Adam Wainwright and Chris Carpenter, together that is a recipe most managers, especially Tony, just can’t pass up.

What is a surprise is that Tony has brought along an old friend: Former home run champ and current baseball recluse Mark McGwire as the team’s new hitting coach.

Crrraaazzzy!

What will it be like in spring training with the media?  Will the players that haven’t played or worked with him before work with Big Mac?  I don’t know, so take our poll at the bottom of this post to let everyone know your thoughts.

What I do know, is that I’ve been sitting on this video for the minute Tony officially decided to return as manager:

According to MLB.com, Rolen is unlikely to see action during the upcoming Reds series versus the Cardinals this week.

Reds third baseman Scott Rolen will likely miss at least three more games due to the presence of post-concussion symptoms.

Following the team’s 5-2 win Sunday against the San Francisco Giants, head athletic trainer Mark Mann told reporters Rolen wouldn’t engage in any strenuous physical activity until his symptoms (including an inability to focus) subside.

Over a week ago, Rolen was plunked in the head with a pitch.  At the time it was thought he would be back in action for St. Louis giving rise to thousands of “Rolen vs LaRussa: Round 2″ columns and tweets.  It was not to be though as clearly Rolen’s symptoms still haven’t subsided.

One theory is that Don Tony called in a hit on Rolen so he didn’t have to deal with a series that is all about his failed relationship with his former third baseman…however that theory is blow apart by simply looking at who hit him.

Rolen was hit in the head by a Jason Marquis pitch Sunday. He returned to action by homering Wednesday and going 1-for-5 and scoring twice in Friday’s win over the Giants. Manager Dusty Baker said Rolen didn’t feel entirely right after the game.

So Rolen was laced in the melon by one of the only people that Tony has pissed off more than himself.  ”All My Cardinals” is really a soap opera the world should be watching…its crazy!

Here are some future storylines we want to see:

1. Rolen get amnesia and forgets what team he plays for and the fact that he hates Tony, showing up in the Card’s locker room ready to play third.  The Cardinals decide to let him, and give DeRosa a night off since they can’t stand Thurston over there any more.

2. Tony has a evil nice twin!

3. A guy with a goat shows up and puts a hex on the Cardinals.  Er…wait…what are the odds of that happening twice in the same division?

4. Todd Wellemeyer gets possessed by the devil.  He pukes green stuff between every inning, but it adds 5 miles on his fastball and his breaking stuff is sharper so Dave Duncan tries to let the rest of the staff “catch it” by making them all have a sleep over.

5. Joe Thurston falls down an elevator shaft and lands in a coma.  Both his defense and batting average stay unchanged so no one notices.

#10 in your press guide, Tony LaRussa has decided to drop his lawsuit against Twitter over the fact someone made a fake Tony LaRussa Twitter account.  No settlement, just Tony putting the bat on his shoulders and walking back in to the dugout.

From Law.com:

Tony La Russa, the famed baseball manager known for his charity work with injured pets, apparently knows when he has a dog on his hands.

The St. Louis Cardinals’ skipper has quietly dropped his high-profile and much-maligned lawsuit against Twitter over a snarky impersonator on the microblogging Web site.

If you’ll excuse one more baseball analogy, from the start this really felt like Tony running out to first base to argue a call.  We all knew nothing Tony could do what going to do anything substantial, but maybe just because the fact he got fired up, something might spark his team.

Which is exactly what happened.

As Law.com put it, this case is a dog, and no matter how loud Tony yelled, he couldn’t change that…but maybe you can credit his yelling and dirt kicking for Twitter’s new “Verified Account” program.