Friday, May 15, 2009

Anyone else really starting to hate the Cardinals?

The Brewers begin a series against the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium tonight. As of today, the Brewers and the Cards are tied atop the NL Central at 21-14, so it should be an exciting series. Another reason it should be fun to watch is because of crap like this.

But first it's the Milwaukee Brewers, who are tied with St. Louis atop the National League Central. And who, honestly, are a little bit more fun to beat because of their flamboyant ways.

"Well, they've got a little flair about them that some people don't care for," said closer Ryan Franklin. "But that's just the way they are. So yeah, I think it would be more fun to beat them than it would be the Padres or something, just because of what they do after they beat you."

It's not that the Brewers are bad guys. It's not that this is the Red Sox and Yankees in the 1970s, when players were at one another's throats. But the Brewers are well known around the league to be a little showier about things than some other teams are. And dating back to late 2007, St. Louis and Milwaukee have had the occasional dustup.

This is actually from their game preview on their official website. At first the whole "we're the Cardinals and we 'respect the game'" thing was sort of cute, but now it's just getting absurd. Albert Pujols basically invented watching home runs, and Mike Cameron untucking his shirt has nothing to do with the other team. These guys need to grow up.

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Anyone else really starting to hate the Cardinals?"

Yes.

PaulNoonan said...

The commentary on the shirts is just lazy on the part of the St. Louis media. It's like they're "asleep" at the wheel or something.

PaulNoonan said...

Tony LaRussa has always respected the game with his winning teams, and his big stars like Mark McGwire and Jose Conseco.

E.S.K. said...

He's also stuck by Jack Daniels and Jose Cuervo despite the controversy.

Admirable, I say.

OC Lurker said...

Winning comments, nice work.

I can't believe this Braun is a showboater thing is actually getting legs. Have people forgotten Sosa and Bonds already?

PaulNoonan said...

People apparently only get upset about clean players who showboat.

Anonymous said...

I can't believe you guys are getting upset by this. It was written by an mlb.com staff writer you idiots. And, the Brewers are show-offs, with nothing really to SHOW for it.

So I guess I don't understand what there is to hate about he Cardinals, except for they are stating what everyone else in the league is thinking. Stop watching your home runs and wagging your tongue. Act like you've done it before!

Other than that I have nothing but repsect for the Brew-Crew. They are playing great ball right now. RIGHT now. I personally don't see how Parra, Bush, and Looper can fill CC and Sheets. But who knows.

PaulNoonan said...

Well, Gallardo is filling in for one of them, and our substantially higher OBP is filling in for the other, so there you go.

As for acting like we've done it before, I think they are. By my count, Albert Pujols has hit 332 Hrs. He's cetainly done it before. And no one would claim that Albert doesn't show boat. Therefore, to the extent the Brewers admire their majestic home runs, they're just emulating someone that has hit a few HRs before.

Oh, and while a staffer wrote the piece, a bunch of whiny, namby-pamby Cardinal players are quoted.

As for "stuff to hate about the Cardinals" let's see. Off the top of my head there's Mark McGwire, your drunkie-drivy manager, David Eckstein's accolades, your lucky 83-win world series championship, Jim Edmonds, Vince Coleman...

Anonymous said...

"your lucky 83-win world series championship"

LMFAO

Never knew someone could get "lucky" and win a 7 games World Series?! Hilarious. Their regular season was not as good as some of the records they put up before '06 but they blew through the playoffs!

Your rant is spoken like a true Brewer fan. Go worship your mighty Wild Card banner at Miller Park!

PaulNoonan said...

I think it's funny that you don't consider an 83-win team winning the World Series to be a lucky event. Especially considering the team only ouscored it's opposition by 19 runs, and that they were barely over .500 in a terrible division.

(Only Houston and St. Louis had positive run differentials in the Central that year. Third place Cinci was outscored by 52, and Milwaukee, Pitt, and Chicago were each outscored by over 100 runs. For the sake of comparison, the worst team in the NL West, teh Colorado Rockies, actually scored 1 more run than they gave up, and in the East, while that Nats and Marlins were atrocious, the Mets, Phils, and Braves all put up solid run differentials.)

I think you options with regard to that Cardinal team are to simply thank whichever deity you worship for allowing an average team to squeak into the playoffs on the strength of a bad division, and then for allowing Jeff Suppan to pitch out of his mind for a few weeks. Skill had very little to do with it.

I'm not sure you can really say it was "spoke like a true Brewer fan." More like a true baseball analyst.

PaulNoonan said...

Here are the WHIPs and ERA+s of the top 5 Cardinal starters that year:

Carpenter - 1.069, 144
Suppan - 1.453, 108
Mulder - 1.704, 62
Marquis - 1.523, 74
Reyes - 1.383, 88

Here are the WHIPs and ERA+s of the current Milwaukee Brewer staff that you derided a few comments ago:

Bush - 1.043, 116
Gallardo - 1.050, 144
Looper - 1.513, 94
Suppan - 1.487, 81
Parra - 1.607, 92

So for the question of:

"I personally don't see how Parra, Bush, and Looper can fill CC and Sheets."The answer is, by having slightly less luck than the 2006 St. Louis Cardinals.

Eric said...

So have we determined that untucking one's shirt after a game is Not disrespectful? Why are the shirts only untucked after a victory? If untucking a shirt is respectful shouldn't it be done after every game and not after victories?

If untucking a shirt is respectful why don't other teams do it? Is every other MLB team wrong and only the Brewers are showing proper respect?

If the Brewers are showing proper respect shouldn't they be calling out other teams, past and present, or their disrespect of the game? Don't the Brewers care enough to let other teams know? If they don't care isn't that disrespectful to the game?

Please help me understand why the Brewers are more "grown up" than all the other teams who clearly are not.

Mike said...

Okay, enough with he shirts... if you get offended because someone un-tucks their shirt after they beat you at a game, you've got security issues. If grown adults are going to be insulted by other grown men doing something that frankly is neither offensive nor disrespectful, that's a you problem. There is a boat load of more offensive/disrespectful things hurled at every MLB player in every game from the fans in the stands. You're telling me these guys can take 40,000 people booing them but they can't handle it if another team un-tucks their jerseys? Its absolutely ridiculous. Find something a little more pertinent to whine about, please. This act is getting tiresome.

PaulNoonan said...

Eric, do we really need to go over the rationale for the shirts again? They do it after a win because it's what you do after a job well done.

Eric said...

I'm just tryin to understand why the shirt untucking Brewers are the grown ups and the whole damn rest of the league which criticizes the Brewers are not grown up. What superior reasoning should the Brewers and their vocal supporters provide to make the rest of baseball universe get in line

PaulNoonan said...

How about, "It's not insulting to untuck your shirt, you morons."

Eric said...

Good luck with that

Anonymous said...

Going back to the luck thing. I still think it's funny. You don't get lucky and win 3 playoff series. Granted this team played poor down the strech, but it was mainly due to injuries. Once they were back at full strength, they were awesome.

Regardless, you're convinced otherwise. But anyway, we won the World Series. And all you have is a wild card. Maybe more this year though? We'll see...

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