Dear Cardinals fans,
Hello. I hope all is well with you, but I know that it's not. The last month has just been brutal, hasn't it? Take away the beatings of the Reds and well, not a lot has gone right. What once looked like a promising season is now slowly moving toward a regrettable ending.
Let's be honest, Cards fans, the season is going to be over soon, and not in a good way. There won't be any champagne showers at Busch this year — well, unless Dan McLaughlin throws a party after a game. Baseball season in St. Louis is coming to an end, which means your allegiances are up for grabs. May I suggest throwing your support behind the local hockey team?
To tide you over until Spring Training, your local rooting options are limited. The choices are really the Blues, the Rams, Mizzou or SLU. First off we're going to throw out support for college teams, because A) Football doesn't count since the NCAA doesn't name a champion in Div. I and B) College Basketball is only fun in March. That leaves you two options: Join the Rams bandwagon, or hope on board the Blues bus. The choice is obvious.
The Blues won't be bad.
The Rams are getting a lot of heat right now. Hype for a team that has finished second to last, second to last, and last in the league is pretty high. Apparently, the Rams drafted some kid named Sam Bradford and he is all that is man. Hype for a four-win season is high. This is a joke.
The Blues made the playoffs two years ago and narrowly missed last year. Had the Note been in the Eastern Conference, they would've been in. With a new man in net (we'll get to him in a second), the Blues are expected to get back to the Stanley Cup playoffs. In hockey, if you're in you have a chance. The Rams' best hope is not finishing dead last.
The Blues play a long season.
You're baseball fans. One hundred and sixty two days a year, you watch baseball. Want to switch to football? Enjoy 16 Sundays of action. How much fun is that? Want to go to a bar on a Wednesday night for no reason? Football won't give you an excuse.
On the other hand, the Blues play 82 games. You'll get multiple chances to watch them play. How awesome is that?
Jaroslav Halak is better than Sam Bradford.
Bradford is the No. 1 overall draft pick with a rocket arm who has scouts drooling over him. As we all know, scouts are never wrong with NFL quarterbacks. Tim Couch, JaMarcus Russell, Ryan Leaf, Heath Shuler, and so many others all turned into Hall-of-Famers, right? His highlight package thus far is picking on defenses in preseason games and tearing apart lousy Big 12 (10) defenses.
Jaroslav Halak is the Blues biggest offseason addition. Unlike Bradford, he's actually seen real professional action. And he's been good. How good? YouTube good.
Halak has the potential to be the best goalie for the Blues in 15 years. Bradford? The Rams have Kurt Warner a few years back. The big shoes he has to fill still smell like winning. The Blues' goaltending has been an issue for much, much longer.
The Blues have been here longer.
The hockey team came to St. Louis in 1967. The Rams? 1995. You're telling me you'd rather support the new kid than the one who has been here since the '60s? Come on.
T.J. Oshie.
He's scrappy AND talented. He's like David Eckstein if he weren't bad at baseball. Who fits that role on the Rams? Danny Amendola? Please.
Cardinals fans, the choice is simple. Don't buy into the Rams hype. The Rams are going to be the same-ole sorry Rams. The Blues have potential. The Note started rebuilding long before the Rams, so now's the time to get on the bandwagon. That way, when the team gets really good—next year, hopefully—you can say you've been a fan for a while.
So Cardinals fans, I ask you: Make the right choice. Avoid the Rams at all cost. Turn your loyalty toward the Blues.
We have Jon Hamm. If it's good enough for Don Draper, it's good enough for everyone.
Sincerely,
Joe
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