"No offense, but you're probably the worst kind of sports fan there is. You're like those jerks who call up Mike or the Mad Dog and take everything that happens to their team personally and feel they owe you something."

Happily, that trait is mostly a New York thing, TK. The Boston thing is far more entertaining and goes something like "I know they're going to blow it just to make me miserable, so I have no intention of watching them blow it, but I know I can't help myself so I'm going to watch them blow it anyway and when it's over I'm going to be able to say 'I knew they were going to blow it.'"

Max, you claim everyone misreads you.  If every is misreading you then maybe you need to be more clear.  You seem to paint yourself in a unwinnable corner. 

Like everyone has saide very team wants a new stadium and every team wants someone else to pay for it.  The Vikings are currently trying to get a new stadium.  The only hold up is getting enough tax money. 

As for loyalties like mind to the Cardinals being a bad thing and however you think that is related to the Cubs, I dont get.  I respect Cub fans for being loyal.  It is fun to make fun of the lovable losers but loyalty is not a bad trait.

Edit: Regardless of provacation, entirely too mean.

General point: Fors you don't spend money helping the team, so don't get furious at me because I believe my invested dollars are being wasted. If you prefer to cheer for a team, I think you're in the wrong Century. "Teams" stopped existing in the 1990s, and became a collection of players. I love to see the Cardinals do well, a playoff/pennant race will put my butt in the seats in September/October. My second point, that you completely have written off as "scary" (which really burned my ass to be honest. I was steamed), is that what puts my butt in the seats in April-August is watching amazing players play. Carpenter, Wainright, Pujols, etc. I don't really care if we win game 37 of a 162 game season really or if it happens to be a loss. I want to see a great game, and that's on the players.

We see differently on this, and that's fine, but don't badger me because I'm upset the team isn't doing what I want it to when I'm part of the fund that they spend. It's my right to be angry that we'll be watching Holliday for 7 years, and Pujols might not be there. I won't go watch Holliday play, he's talented, but he's not Pujols, Carp, Wainright IMO.

Last edited by alz (3/01/2011 11:15 am)

alz wrote:

Edit: Regardless of provacation, entirely too mean.

Fair enough.  I deleted my response.

alz wrote:

General point: Fors you don't spend money helping the team, so don't get furious at me because I believe my invested dollars are being wasted. If you prefer to cheer for a team, I think you're in the wrong Century. "Teams" stopped existing in the 1990s, and became a collection of players. I love to see the Cardinals do well, a playoff/pennant race will put my butt in the seats in September/October. My second point, that you completely have written off as "scary" (which really burned my ass to be honest. I was steamed), is that what puts my butt in the seats in April-August is watching amazing players play. Carpenter, Wainright, Pujols, etc. I don't really care if we win game 37 of a 162 game season really or if it happens to be a loss. I want to see a great game, and that's on the players.
We see differently on this, and that's fine, but don't badger me because I'm upset the team isn't doing what I want it to when I'm part of the fund that they spend. It's my right to be angry that we'll be watching Holliday for 7 years, and Pujols might not be there. I won't go watch Holliday play, he's talented, but he's not Pujols, Carp, Wainright IMO.

Alz, you're missing the point.  I've been to plenty of games.  I was at every game of the 2006 LCS and World Series.  I've been on road trips to half of the cities in the NL and I've been to Spring Training more times than I can count.  I stopped spending my money out of frustration with this ownership group and only somewhat softened my stance after they signed Holliday.  Now my lack of spending has much more with a lack of time than it does anything else, but I still harbor many of the same feelings you are describing.  In that way you and I are more alike than different.

But I disagree with you about the issue of "team" and "rooting allegience."  And that's OK.  Again, let me say this very clearly.  I'm not being critical of your position.  You aren't alone in your belief the team should break the bank to re-sign Pujols.  But understand that I'm not alone in my perspective that I'd rather see the team remain competitive.  My first preference is that they remain competitive with Pujols, but I'm OK with the idea that they may have to try to be competitive without him.  On this we disagree--but that's OK.

I wasn't one of the people who went to games 2 hours early to watch McGwire take batting practice.  I wasn't one of the people (and there were plenty of them) who left when McGwire took his final at-bat of the game (regardless of the score).  I was one of the people who showed up hoping that the team would win, and if McGwire did something that helped that cause then that was great. 

I don't know anything about your background, but understand mine.  I'm a life-long St. Louisan who will likely never live anywhere else.  I've rooted for the Cardinals since I was a kid.  Same with the Blues.  I rooted for the football Cardinals until the left, and have since placed that allegience with the team that took their place--the Rams.  The only team that I root for that isn't within the City limits sits about 120 miles to the west out Hwy 70 in Columbia, Missouri, but since my degree says University of Missouri on it, I think I'm entitled to that one. 

I have been part of a Blues season ticket group for more than a decade.  During that time they traded the best pure goal scorer I ever saw (Brett Hull) and shuttled players in and out faster than Charlie Sheen goes through porn stars.  I've been a Rams season ticket holder for several years--lived through a 3 year stretch of 6-42.  I never miss a Mizzou game in St. Louis and make the drive to Columbia at least a couple time during both football and basketball season.  With the exeception of the Rams winning the Super Bowl in 1999 and a dubious loss in 2001, none of these teams have ever been near a championship.  But I enjoy the sports, so I spend my sports dollar.

Note that despite a fairly liberal sports spending budget, the one glaring omission is baseball.  As I said in earlier posts--it goes back to what I perceived as a willingness to allow the team to flounder in 2007 and 2008.  It softened in 2009.  I'm not a fan of Dewitt by any stretch.  And BTW, I agree with you on one point you have said repeatedly--they brought this on themselves by not doing something earlier.  Now, if they would have come out an said they were hesitant because of Pujols' elbow issues, I might have understood, but for two years they told the fans that re-signing Pujols was their #1 priority and for two years they failed to deliver.  That's on them.  And if they don't get Pujols resigned in the off-season, I will personally hold management more to blame than I will Pujols.  I think I've said it before--I don't believe Pujols to be greedy just because he wants to get the largest contract he can.

But here's the thing.  Regardless of how much I dislike Dewitt, I will still root for the Cardinals, just like I rooted for the Blues although I hated Mike Keenan and I still root for the Rams despite their last decade of imcompetance.  If that makes me foolish, so be it.

artie_fufkin wrote:

"I rooted for the Blues although I hated Mike Keenan"

Ok, what, or more appropriately who, would it take for you to stop rooting for the team(s) you currently root for?
- Cardinals - at this point probably only Zambrano, but Clemens or Bonds would have been deal-breakers
- Raiders - If Mike Shanahan comes back to coach, which considering he's still suing Al Davis, is like saying "probably nothing." Maybe if Tim Tebow was the starting QB ...
- Celtics - When Rick Pitino arrived, I left. I still can't watch a 48-minute NBA game beginning to end, but Ray Allen seems a decent fellow. So I watch a little bit.
- Arizona State - The message you send when you turn your program over to a lucid Dennis Erickson is bad enough, but to hire a drunk rule-breaker after he's lost his football acumen is about as desperate as it gets. I should have Fredo Corleoned ASU football a long time ago.

There probably isn't anyone I loath that much

I wouldn't have been happy about Bonds, but I would have still rooted for the Cardinals.  Same if they had brought Manny on board back when that discussion was out there.

The Rams just hired Josh McDaniels which is only a step short of hiring Belicheat.  I'll still be in the stands, assuming there are games this season.

I endured the Quin Snyder era at Mizzou.  I think if I can endure a coach whose star recruit is having phone sex with the Chancellor's wise from his prison cell, I can probably endure just about anything.

I have an advantage in that St. Louis doesn't have an NBA team.  If any team I liked were to bring in someone like LeBron James or Kobe Bryant, that might be enough to do it.

Last edited by forsberg_us (3/01/2011 1:08 pm)

artie_fufkin wrote:

"I rooted for the Blues although I hated Mike Keenan"

Ok, what, or more appropriately who, would it take for you to stop rooting for the team(s) you currently root for?
- Cardinals - at this point probably only Zambrano, but Clemens or Bonds would have been deal-breakers
- Raiders - If Mike Shanahan comes back to coach, which considering he's still suing Al Davis, is like saying "probably nothing." Maybe if Tim Tebow was the starting QB ...
- Celtics - When Rick Pitino arrived, I left. I still can't watch a 48-minute NBA game beginning to end, but Ray Allen seems a decent fellow. So I watch a little bit.
- Arizona State - The message you send when you turn your program over to a lucid Dennis Erickson is bad enough, but to hire a drunk rule-breaker after he's lost his football acumen is about as desperate as it gets. I should have Fredo Corleoned ASU football a long time ago.

I would never switch from being a Cardinals and Viking fan.  I have to much invested.  I could however stop following them because they did something really stupid.  I couldnt become a fan of another team in that time frame though.

Fair counter. I can understand that. To me the owner is the team, to cease to be a fan of the owner is to really question the love of the team. It's Dewitt's team, thick or thin, and you can just as easily name it the Bill Dewitt Cardinals imo. To me, it's impossible to root for the Cardinals without wishing Dewitt success... They are one in the same to me.

My situation, grew up in Oregon with very little in the way of local options, moved here in 1993 and converted over to most everything local eventually. So here's what that broke down into:
Basketball (couch fan, actually no... ESPN.com fan) - Portland Blazers (Oregon, no St. Louis competition, and basketball got ridiculous somewhere when Jordan retired).
Football - Miami (no teams in Oregon). Owners are pounding on my philosophy here too, but I don't give them money, so it's easier to accept. Adopted team, St. Louis and Arizona when Warner played there. Hated Martz as a head coach, loved Vermeil. Martz kicking an onside kick in the 4th qtr against the Jets while up 30-7 just kind of summed up what I hated about the man, even though it was the fucking Jets. Fuck the Jets.
Baseball - Athletics (Southern Oregon A's were close to where I grew up, came here as an A's fan, became a Cards fan when Larussa, McGwire, Eckersly, Duncan and crew came over).
Hockey - Blues although I came via Pittsburgh after Lemiuex retired. Lost season and consequent firesale of the team took me from a season ticket holder to nearly writing off the entire sport.
College - Oregon and Oregon State (unless playing Oregon).

tkihshbt wrote:

No offense, but you're probably the worst kind of sports fan there is.

You are too sensitive, TK.  Why should anybody be offended by a statement like that?


A few simple points:

1. Business owners try to make money, the free market system responds to supply and demand to limit what the owners are able to make.  In MLB, how does that work, exactly?  What limits the owners from taking too much money, as would be the case if, for example, Walmart started charging $100 for a pair of mens Fruit of Loom briefs?


2. Go back to Freshman English and recall the part about a thesis statement.  Assume that the main argument is the outlined in the thesis statement, and recall that picking away at one or two of the supporting lines of evidence does not prove the thesis statement to be false. 

3. I was too casual when I wrote "And while I can't claim lots of knowledge about the front office, there is now NOBODY there whom I respect."  You are correct.  Rather, it should have been something along the lines of: "On the balance, I think that the presence of DeWitt, Mozeliak, and Luhnow is not a benefit to the kind of Cardinals organization that want to root for."  I certainly have respect for DeWitt as a businessman, and I am having growing respect for Mozeliak in myriad ways.  The stories I hear from Fors about Luhnow are pretty troubling; surely there must be something worthy in the man, but he seems to be a guy where I might say that on the whole I do not respect him.

Last edited by Max (3/01/2011 1:25 pm)

"I think I am the only person who likes Kobe Bryant in the world"

You're probably right. I don't think even Kobe's wife likes Kobe anymore.
He's a fraud, and I don't like frauds. I don't mean as a basketball player. I mean as a human being. Remember before the rape allegation, his motif was that of a choir boy. Then he gets pinched and all of a sudden he shows up with tattoos and a snarl on his face like he's been down with the 'hood all his life, when the truth is the exact opposite. He's the sophisticated son of a former pro athlete who was educated in private schools and speaks fluent Italian.
It's the same thing I disliked about Bonds. He'd be the first one to say he was oppressed due to his skin color, when he had more advantages growing up than 99 percent of the population.

Oh my god I have one for Hockey....

If the Blues ever ever ever EVER pick up Sean Avery, I will have a very difficult time dealing with that.

forsberg_us wrote:

Max, if your issue with ownership stems from their efforts to get taxpayers to fund the stadium, you may as well quit watching sports. I. . . Dewitt didn't do anything that hasn't been done by several dozen owners both before and since.

How many others sold the urinals?

As I hope I made clear, I don't have one issue with DeWitt. It began with the arguments for taxpayers funds, but it grew into the perception that the whole thing was disingenuous: We needed the stadium to raise revenue to facilitate a higher payroll that would keep the team competitive and allow them to resign Pujols.  Well, except for the quirk of September and October of '06, how much of that has actually happened?

forsberg_us wrote:

As far as the condition of Busch II, it was asthetically as nice as they could make it, but the underneath was really in poor shape. You couldn't touch the walls in the old video room because they were coated with dried, sticky soda, beer and whatever else had seeped in. If you wanted to take a shower you had to let the water run for a couple of minutes to let the brown (rusty) water clear out of the pipes, and there were cockroaches in the clubhouse that were bigger than a cigar.  As much as people want to believe that stadium didn't need to be replaced, they just didn't appreciate how poor of condition it was really in.

That's easy to say now that Busch II has been killed and the body disposed of.  Maybe it is true, and I assume that it is, but then they should have made a better case of selling that to the public, with tours and videos documenting it all, and bids on repairs showing that they were less efficacious than a knock down and rebuild.  Maybe that happened and I missed all of it.  I was a long way away with other things on my mind at the time.

forsberg_us wrote:

So Max, I have to ask.  What exactly did Dewitt do wrong when he asked for public financing?

I think I answered that.  Asking isn't so much the issue, as the start of a series of moves that seem disingenuous.