Curveballs, Curveballs, Curveballs!

Time to right the ship, Redbirds. Right the old Sloop John B.

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"Back in your old neighborhood
Cigarettes taste so good" - Misunderstood

I'm not a smoker. Well, I smoke when I'm drunk, so I do smoke. About everyday, really. Ah, hell, I'm a smoker. (Not really. I go through maybe a pack a month.)

Anyhoo, I make it back home to Peoria about four times a year, and back to my old hood about every other trip. I think of these lyrics whenever I'm a few blocks from my parent's former abode. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad they don't live in that shitbox anymore, but I do sometimes wish I could sit on the stoop of the old house at two in morning, drinking a Mickey's grenade, smoking a Marlboro Light, and listening to Pink Floyd tapes and remember exactly what it feels like to be 16 years old again. Of course, I'd probably get shot if I tried to do that now.

I've lived in my current 'hood for long enough now that it too brings these words to the forefront of my mind when I drive in after an extended break away. I've had enough good times and bad here and enjoyed triumphant smokes and depressing fags.  I probably remember smoking more cigarettes here then I actually have.

The one constant between these two places? Desmond Hume Cardinals baseball. Growing up, I'd watch the handful of games we'd get on TV on our back porch and listen to the rest in my bedroom. These days, thanks to the magic of technology, I don't think I've missed a Cardinals game since I've lived here.

Two places, unique in my life, bonded by tobacco and baseball. USA! USA!

"Then I fell asleep and the city kept blinking
What was I thinking when I let you back in?" - I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

Remember, come late June, how excited you were right now. How the entire summer of 2010 was at your fingertips, controlled by your own destiny. Remember how you felt this week when you drove home with the windows down for the first time, catching the pre-game show. You mowed the yard and had a beer on your porch. The trees were getting green and you had the the next five months at your disposal.

There comes a point in time every summer when you realize half of the summer has passed you by. It normally happens for me around the All Star break. Maybe you haven't played as much golf as you wanted to, or you still have those ten extra pounds around your midsection. Don't let summer pass you by. Grill out every night you can. Drink a beer or eight on your deck. Go for a walk every night. And hit up the ice cream man when he comes down your street.

Don't pass up the tickets, go to the game! 'Cause once this is done, you've got five months of hibernation, and you do not want to look back and think that you wasted this summer. Not this effing summer.

"Remember to remember me
Standing still in your past
Floating fast like a hummingbird" -Hummingbird

It's going to go fast. Yes, we will marvel as Pujols hits his 50th dinger of the year, maybe Colby flirts with a .400 OBP, Holliday drives in 125, or the entire starting 5 gets past 180 IPs with ERA+'s equal to or greater than 100; but this season, this summer, will be gone as soon as you know it.

Mike Shannon has provided countless hours of entertainment which have bled into a memory of twenty minutes worth of ridiculousness. Weeds have overtaken the alleys, corn is getting high, we're on our third heat wave, it's been summer for awhile, even in Kirksville. Vince Coleman bobblehead day has come and gone; but the Cards are still in first.

You blink, it's August.

"All the leaves will burn and autumn fires then return.
All the fires we burn, all will return" - Sunken Treasure

Maybe we don't know how this season will go, but we have a good idea. Barring a season ending injury to a starting pitcher or Holliday/Pujols, I am confident in saying this will be the best Cardinals team since the last juggernaut of the oughts, 2005. The real test should not be in the regular season; we proved last year this nucleus is good enough to run away with the NL Central crown, it's in winning the National League title.

The measure of their success will be the ability to win seven out of twelve games in October, and if we can pull out eleven of nineteen, we go down with the ages.

"The drunks were ricocheting
The old buildings downtown" - Sky Blue Sky

I'd like to be doing that in late October, please.

"Saxophones started blowing me down
I was buried in sound
Taxicabs were driving me around" - Handshake Drugs

There's an intoxication that surrounds Busch Stadium on game days, and it's not from the terrible, overpriced beers. Perhaps the last bit of homemade culture left in Saint Louis, Cardinal games are real and organic, as much as some may want to Disney-ize it with ESPN Zones and the like, it remains a gritty, fun bastion of pride in the city.

I don't want to leave Busch Stadium without guys playing Sax for spare change, rickshaws offering me rides, and cheap, hometown bars wanting to get me soused. 

If it offends or frightens a few, I'd apologize, but, honestly, fuck 'em.

It's Saint Louis, it is real, and it is home.

Monday starts the first of eighty one great days in the StL. I've got a great feeling about this summer of soul, lets make it count.

Go Redbirds!

Hey, I got Zobrist at 2B for my fantasy team! Oh, you don't care? And why is that? Because fantasy baseball is for nerds? And my mother is a coc--- hey there, pal, what the heck!?!

You're saying the real money is in Vegas? Eff yeah, I'll take the Rangers on the flop to cover the trifecta! Yeah, I don't know what I'm talking about... So what?

Wait... you're telling me all I have to do is bet if a team is going to have more or less wins then what I am assuming is an absolutely arbitrary number that youse guys picked off of the top of youse heads, and I can win cash? Sold and sold!

What are the lines? Did I say that right? Are?

New York Yankees: 95½
Boston Red Sox: 94½
Philadelphia Phillies: 92½
Tampa Bay Rays: 89½
St. Louis Cardinals: 88½
Atlanta Braves: 85½
Colorado Rockies: 84½
Los Angeles Angels: 84½
Los Angeles Dodgers: 84½
Minnesota Twins: 84½
Texas Rangers: 84½
Chicago Cubs: 83½
Seattle Mariners: 83½
Arizona Diamondbacks: 82½
Chicago White Sox: 82½
San Francisco Giants: 82½
New York Mets: 81½
Detroit Tigers: 80½
Florida Marlins: 80½
Milwaukee Brewers: 80½
Cincinnati Reds: 79½
Oakland Athletics: 79½
Baltimore Orioles: 74½
Cleveland Indians: 74½
Houston Astros: 74½
Kansas City Royals: 71½
San Diego Padres: 71½
Toronto Blue Jays: 70½
Washington Nationals: 70½
Pittsburgh Pirates: 69½

Well... who youse got?

Welcome to the third annual Off Topic thread, VEBers.

Today, I'd like to talk to you about something serious which is near and dear to all of our hearts: Burritos.

I love burritos. Effing love 'em! My only problem with them? I can't make them at home. The last time I tried to roll a burrito at home it came out looking like Kathy Bates and Bob Horner's love child. I've honestly contemplated getting a weekend job at Moe's just to learn how to roll a proper burrito in my own home. Why haven't I? After forty hours in the office weekly, my weekends are for drinking and shooting marbles in the Depression, not for earning minimum wage and suffering oil burns.

This lack of ability in the field of burrito rolling is an affliction which I have now come to hear it quite common. So, I came up with a solution. Well, I didn't, per se, but people who make burritos for a living did when Al Gore or Bob Dole or Vidal Sasoon or someother asshole decided that for some reason carbohydrates were bad for us ten years ago (easily the dumbest phase in American culture this century. Eat the burger... NOT THE BUN! Yes, a triple cheese burger sans bun sounds much healthier than just a burger. Thank you, Dr John Goodman). (Number 2 dumbest? The SARS scare. We never even found out what SARS was or how it properly evaluated baseball players performances. Number 3? That time the "Dude your getting a Dell!" guy was popular.) and decided to just dump all of the ingredients of a burrito out of the tortilla and into a bowl.

And, right now, I am eating a burrito bowl with rice, steak, onions, lettuce, cheese, sour cream, jalapenos, fresh lime, and serrano hot sauce... And it is freaking glorious.

[This also reminds me of a time 'bout eight years ago when a friend of mine in North Carolina named Burt went home with a lovely young lady who waited on a group of our friends at a bar and he asked her, once they got to his place, to "put some hot sauce on my burrito, baby" as a euphamism and she (rightly so) had no idea what he meant. I don't remember what became of their relationship, but I'm sure it was a strong, healthy, and lasting one.]

So, anyhoo, if you too suffer from Burrito Rolling-itis, try the burrito bowl. It's quite enjoyable and, if I do say so myself, sensual.

Consider this your Off Topic thread for early February in this, the year of Our Pujols, 2010. Anything goes, besides, well, a lot of stuff. Grab your bag of chex, and enjoy, folks.