mjohnson71

http://resistracism.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/horry.jpg We agree. (The vendors outside Wrigley)

I'd have to agree that of the new baseball stadiums, GABP is at the bottom of the list. From what I understand it was designed to be nicer but the Reds scaled back at the last minute due to costs. I guess the Reds decided a workable $300 million place was better than a $600 million (like Minnesota), $900 million (Citi Field) or $1+ billion (Yankee Stadium) monument to excess. I'm just worried that at some point the Cubs will extort public money from some place like Naperville or Downers Grove and build a "replica" of Wrigley in the middle of some suburban parking lot.

And of course TBFIB give him a big wet sloppy kiss at the home opener. http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=5079064

I've been to multiple Blackhawks/Flyers, Bears/Eagles and Cubs/Phillies games and never came close to be concerned for my safety. Maybe you're just a paranoid wimp. Wanna fight about it. Huh, huh, HUH! Because I'll kick your a**. :mad:

More friendly? Have you spent any appreciable time in Central Illinois? It's not open warfare in the streets, but you can draw a line from about Des Moines to Terra Haute, and a hundred miles on either side of that line is a region of fairly fierce partisanship for one team or the other. My daughter is seven years old and doesn't really watch much baseball, but she knows for every kid in her class whether they come from a Cubs family or a Cards family. George Will has written quite a bit about growing up a Cubs fan in Champaign, Illinois and having to deal with Cardinal fans. Let me clarify, from my experience the Cardinals-Cubs rivalry is not vicious as Yankees-Red Sox. East Coast love of violence, foul behavior, cursing and hatred of all other teams is the norm. Back in the 90's I went to a Blackhawks/Flyers game at the old Spectrum on a early season Tuesday night. I thought I'd be safe since it was a weeknight and the teams aren't rivals: but I'd swear half the crowd is "likes to fight" guy. I'm still amazed I got out of the arena alive.

I haven't spent a ton of time in Chicago, but from my memory those types of shirts aren't so widespread that you can find them in malls. That's the case in St. Louis. Right, and not only are the vendors selling them, the "fan base" is wearing them. But the "Cuck the Fubs" t-shirt was the only clean thing dad had to wear for dinner at Imo's.

This sounds dubious. Any Cardinals fans I've ran into in St. Louis were not rednecks. Alcoholics, maybe, but you have to go west until you find redneck Cardinals fans. And I highly doubt those people have the money to just jet off to Wrigley. They have to hold up signs calling people "morans." have you never been to south county? Bingo. Perhaps the rednecks don't travel north much, but they are in full display here. I don't even like to go to games here anymore because it's just full of dumbasses. TBBFIA my ass. In my experience, Cards fans care much more about the rivalry than we do. It goes hand-in-hand with the general inferiority complex they have about Chicago, similar to what KC has with St. Louis. I was driving through Soulard the other day (a neighborhood in St. Louis) and saw a "Cubs suck" sticker on a stop sign. Really? Come on. You can go to any Cards game here, regardless of the opponent, and you'll see vendors selling shirts with billy goats on them and various other "Cubs suck" shirts. I'm not saying it's not a rivalry for us too, cuz it is. But I guess because there is less going on here or because it's something that makes them feel good about themselves, they dwell on the Cubs an awful lot. But to be that wrapped up with a team that hasn't won [expletive] in forever, it's stupid. KC >>> Denver is also a huge rivalry. I went to a Broncos/Chiefs game at Arrowhead and the hatred/vitriol thrown at Denver fans is amazing. Even a father and mother sitting with two kids under 10 (all wearing Bronco gear) were cursed at. It was so bad they had to bail early in the 3rd quarter. Kansas City has a HUGE inferiority complex.

I still remember when I was a kid in the 70's during the summer my dad would go on into the office in the morning and go out on "sales calls" in the afternoon. That meant he'd come home around 11:30am to pick me up. I'd have the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches wrapped up along with the chips in baggies. We'd head to Wrigley, walk right up to the box office and buy tickets for the upper deck. The park would be a 1/4 full at best but we'd still head to our assigned seats. We would eat lunch from home, dad would have his first beer and we'd scope out the box seats. We'd then move down and have a good time watching the game. Now its amazing that you need to have season tickets, plan way ahead or pay big money to go to what will usually be a 100% full ballpark. And good luck trying to move down.

Nobody has mentioned this yet, but lets not forget that the Brewers didn't join the National League until 1998. So that means the Cubs/Brewers "rivalry" is 11 seasons old while the Cubs/Cards has been around for over a century. Plus Miller Park sucks: there's no reason for indoor baseball up there. And even with the roof open it still feels like an indoor game. At least with the old/new Busch stadiums your outside watching baseball being played on God's green grass. Any time I've been to Milwaukee for a Cubs/Brewers game it's basically a Cubs home game. And when the Brewers come to Wrigley field it's hardly noticeable. When the Cardinals come to Chicago the park is overrun with rednecks wearing red. Like many others I view the Brewers as just another team in our division and not a hated rival like the Cardinals. IMHO I hate the Astros more than the Brewers. EDIT: how many times have the Cubs/Brewers been a ESPN Sunday night game? I can't remember one. But it seems like every Cubs/Cards Sunday game ends up on ESPN.

This happens everywhere. Didn't the Cardinals have one of their fielders run over by an automated rain tarp when warming up before a World Series game in the 80's.

Almost entirely paid for by the county taxpayers.

The only reason this "story" got traction was because Ryan Howard went to highschool here in St. Louis. One of the guys I work with down here played ball against him in the same school district. He said even back then Howard was scary good.

I can't wait for when the Cardinals loose Pujols and he ends up in New York or Boston. Can you imagine the excessive level of coverage will be like?

It's still amazing that two guys talking out of their a** is a news-worthy, bottom ticker line and on-air reportable item. What next?

That was my thought. At $315 plus all the fees per ticket that was too big an outlay up front. Plus resale with a profit has to be tough.

1:30 and still nothing. Although I did turn down some of the $315 Dugout Box seats.

I don't see why that's Cubs BS. For about 1-2 hours on one day a year they have a huge amount of demand for a limited number of tickets. But it's not hard to get in and get a ticket. This isn't going on amazon and buying a book with virtually unlimited printings, or even the first day that tickets go on sale for the Pirates. I think all in all things are handled fairly well. But they need to find a process where its not so aggrivating for so many people. If they have limited server capability then they need to find a way where all people get is the g*dda*mn "We're sorry, we were unable to process your request due to high transaction volumes. Please try to submit your request again." message after waiting for hours in a virtual waiting room.

Other New Orleans suggestions: -If going for Mardi Gras take a cruddy pair of shoes and leave them there. They will be detroyed from a mixture of spilled beer, pee, puke and God knows whatelse. -Jazz Fest is a better event to go the first time to the city. (Mardi Gras just messes too much up. Restaurants close or are on limited menus. Other businesses also are limited or closed.) The city is still exciting and the crowds bigger than normal but its not the raging stupidity that exists during Mardi Gras. -I know people that all they do is hit the French Quarter and they're missing tons of great areas. The Faubourg Merigny, Garden District, Magazine Street and many other neighborhoods are great to see. -Saturn Bar: check it out. -a lot of bars are still cash-only. Don't go there assuming plastic is king. New Orleans is well on the way back but theres still a long way to go. I've been there 6 times: 3 pre-Katrina, the first Jazz Fest after Katrina, Mardi Gras 2008 and this last fall.

It was amazing to be at a bar with table of about a dozen Jets fans sitting next to us as we all watched Manning figure the puzzle out and put the machinery into place. The dude may be a goober, but he's also one of the greatest QBs ever. Man do I hate east coast sports fans. From dancing on the chairs halfway through the 2nd quarter to getting in fights and thrown out by the end of the game.

If it was open to the general public how much would it be for game days? $30? $40? $50? My guess it will be VIP/luxury box only parking for games. But it could also be used the other 280 days of the year for all the bars in the area.

That was my first thought. Now if they can just fix that stupid super-short left field in that idiotic ballpark.

I hope that is sarcasm and that your cubbie blue blinders aren't on full. Just like he never used a corked bat: right?

That's where I kind of buy it. I was an Resident Assistant in college and because I was in the newest dorm I had a lot of the athletes. I had a number of instances of student-athletes 'roid raging and after talking with them I'm say the split was about pretty even. Some were flat-out using to help performance but others were trying to recover. And some was a combination where they used steroids to recover but continued for the performance gain.

I am sure all the Who's down then in Hooterville will continue to defend him like the blind sheep they are. Their argument will just change from "he's never flunked a drug test" to "big deal, everyone was doing it." I'm down in Hooterville right now and it's not a praisefest. The local alt-rock radio station morning DJs were ripping into McGwire pretty hard. They replayed the Costas MLB interview with sappy music and made snarky comments. Even most of the callers were between "meh" to irritated. But I will give the Cardinals one thing: this was run about 100% better than A Roid's admission last season: carefully structured and perfectly timed. Tiger Woods' people should be calling whatever PR firm handled this right away.

This was about a 9.99 out of 10 on the "no sh*t Sherlock" scale. I can't wait for the Cardinal Nation faithful to wig out down here. Now where is Sammy or has he forgotten how to speak English again?