Did Pujols and the Cardinals Censor Joe Sports Fan?

Yesterday Cardinals closer, and recent discoverer of Twitter, Ryan Franklin tweeted out a photo of some country star or something who visited the team’s spring training site. The tweet, since removed, said “Got a rookie on the team @davidnail” with a link to this photo:

We didn’t even notice the awesomeness that this picture held in it’s background, but the guys at Joe Sports Fan.com did and it may have brought the wrath of the Cardinals and Albert Pujols, big bad #5, down on them. Do you see it? Allow us to help you…

Pujols in his little boy underwear! Hilarious? Yeah. Dangerously harmful in any way to Pujols’ or the Cardinals’ image? No. …well that’s what we think, but you see this is where it got weird. Not long after the post went up and we noticed that Franklin’s initial tweet was gone, then so was the photo from image host YFrog…then Joe Sports Fan writer Matt Sebek’s tweets about the now infamous photo started disappearing as well. Soon after were alerted to the fact that post suddenly disappeared from the KFNS.com homepage (the parent site to the local Joe Sports Fan.com)! Right about this time is when we said to ourself: “Self, something seems a miss here.” It’s one thing for someone to tell Franklin that his picture literally caught the biggest name in baseball with his pants down and his tweets getting removed, but its a whole other, bigger step to all of a sudden have an independent sports site rip down their own content so quickly with no notice. …well there might have been a teensy bit of a notice from Sebek:

Did the Cardinals and Pujols not like the photo and flex some muscle on poor little KFNS? Does their afternoon guy Mr. Kevin “The Cardinals Don’t Control My Station!” Slaten know about this yet? Because it really seems like someone should tell him, being as this pretty much makes it clear that they (probably) do control his station.

That being said, what is the big freaking deal here Cardinals? So the guy’s rocking underwear just this side of a Spiderman logo of being clothes meant for 6 year olds? Maybe a little embarrassing, but so what?! Lord knows Pujols could use a little personifying details about himself out there to not make him seem so cold. If it was the case that Pujols pushed Franklin and then KFNS in to pulling everything, that’s not going to help his image any. Don’t forget, you’ve got that big contract coming up Mang! Someone might want you to do a little underwear modeling:

Or maybe it’s not that you’re embarrassed as much as  you are hiding something…what is it Mr. Pujols? Something on an upper thigh that you don’t want anyone to see maybe? Afraid we’d recognize that birthmark from this photo taken just moments before the Kennedy assassination?!?!

That was it all along wasn’t it?! Until yesterday, when Ryan Franklin mistakenly blew your cover, you were going get away with it! No longer sir! You will answer for your pantsless actions that seemingly took place long before you were born (…we think)! We will not bow to whatever pressure you put on Joe Sports Fan and go quietly in to that dark night! We will stay right out in the light…a light so bright it will remind you of your freshly cleaned whitey-tighty undergarments! We’re here, we have a mild knowledge of Photoshop, and we think underwear is funny! We won’t go away!

Anyway…long story short: Someone tell Ryan Franklin you can never…never…never really delete something off the interent.