Sam Mellinger, Brandon Phillips called. He wants his bit back.

Friday, just before the beginning of the twice-yearly snooze-fest that is the Cardinals playing the Royals, a series that might as well be the World Series to the craptastic (though, admittedly more talented than usual) Kansas City Royals, the Kansas City Star choose to run a link-bait piece ripping St. Louis by Sam Mellinger. It really wasn’t all that original, and frankly was kinda sad since their St. Louis counterpart ran a piece begging it’s readers to not hate the Royals, but feel sorry for them. Good for the Post Dispatch! Largely ignoring a hollow attempt at comedy and instead ask for pitty for the very nice, but clearly lesser, of the two Missouri cities. Don’t play their game and stay right there on the classy side of the moral ground.

We’re loving all the Cardinals vs Reds stuff over the past year. It has real potential to get good rather than that stupid “We just respect each other too much.” rivalry with the Astros a few years back. The problem is that Tony LaRussa and Walt Jocketty are still buddies and that friendship is really holding this whole thing back.

Take this recent business with the Cincinnati radio station doing a contest bit making fun of LaRussa’s on-going spat with shingles.

In a triumphant return, Popeye Tony LaRussa reclaimed the bench and got the Cardinals back to their winning ways after getting swept by the hated Reds.

In fact, much like Popeye, Tony’s brother in squinty-eyed  face grimacing, he too suffers from the awesome problem of just being to damn tough!

La Russa, after joking before the game that “I’ve been on vacation,” said, “The biggest mistake I made was in not treating the pain. I went through all that agony for nothing – just to prolong this stuff. I wished I’d taken the pain medicine sooner. I wasted a month.”

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The secret of Tony’s horrible, gross, game-missing eye lies within season two of Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Below is an episode summary with added emphasis:

After Master Shake nearly destroys the house by leaving garbage everywhere (especially in Frylock’s room, whose entrance he has bricked closed), burning styofoam [sic], stockpiling chicken carcasses, and planting land mines in the hallway, Frylock becomes disgusted and moves to a condominium. Frylock throws a housewarming party, but none of the people he invites attend. Out of desperation, he invites the Mooninites, who show up only long enough to trash his place.

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Ryan Theriot, the solid bench player that was scrappy enough to convince Tony LaRussa to give him a starting job. The facts are, 1. He’s really a pretty piss poor shortstop. 2. His jersey gets dirty. 3. He’s really really bad at talking to the press.

Post Dispatch’s Bernie Miklasz describes Theriot’s latest flub:

Theriot may be in for some jeering when he returns to St. Louis after joining in on the fun on a Chicago sports-talk show (ESPN 1000).

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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.

Well, you’re chin is the last place we would look for more pitching ability and apparently Ryan Franklin has finally reached that point, shaving of his famous goatee.

So that’s how we’re going to play it this year huh Franklin? Times get tough and you lop off trademark-able facial hair? (ahem) We wouldn’t do it. Maybe we were fans of the Oklahoma Sooners (just an example) and whenever they had a bad game would we’d go out an shave the mane off the mascot? We don’t stand out there on the sidelines telling them to shave something to see if that will help them suck less!

It’s prom time, and high school girls all over the area are kneeling down only to be smacked in the face with some balls, but for one Festus girl, it wasn’t a euphemism this time:

Authorities said the 17-year-old girl threw the shot put and then went to retrieve it. Before she got completely out of the way, the next girl threw her shot.

The shot struck the girl on the side of the head. She was alert and conscious at the scene.

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UVerse must have accidentally let a Cardinal game through because last night we sat down and actually got to watch the Cardinals hammer the Diamondbacks. It had been a few days since we last watched a Cardinal game, so as we blissfully drank in the offensive displays that usually bore us and watched Lance Berkman’s grand slam shot float over the wall of Chase Field we had all but forgotten the thing that would later ruin the game for us. The same thing that has ruined every Cardinal game, despite the outcome, so far this year…no, not Ryan Franklin…it’s those horrible Ray Vinson commercials featuring Tony LaRussa!

11 games in to the Cardinals 2010 season and for two prominent Cardinal members we have the following lines:

Ryan Franklin: 9.82 ERA, 1 Save, 4 Earned Runs in 3.2 innings

Albert Pujols: .182 Average, 1 HR, 4 RBIs, in 44 at bats

It’s early of course, but these ugly starts have been over-analyzed already by every sports talking head both in and out of town, but they’re all wrong. Who has the real answer? Well we do of course! Albert could probably adjust his stance a little bit and Franklin needs to keep the ball down but also…this: