The Chris Moeller Archives

Cards' season negotiates a few nasty turns

The Cardinals have been choking their season away of late against the mediocre likes of the Cubs, Brewers, Pirates, Nationals, and Astros. They've lost 8 games on 1st place over three weeks, and I'm beginning to hate this maddeningly-inconsistent team almost as much as Brandon Phillips does. The St. Louis club's wild-card hopes are still at a glimmer, and I'm obliged to remain positive at least through this Labor Day weekend since Aaron and I have tickets for a couple of the games in St. Louis against the division-leading Reds, but some "home cookin'" at Busch Stadium never seemed so vital.

Of course, I'm not thrilled that the manager felt the need to haul Albert Pujols before the crowd at the "I Have a Scheme" "rally... for white self-pity" in Washington. At the urging of the Cards' skipper, Pujols appeared and accepted a meaningless bauble from a cable TV paranoid who loves Martin Luther King Jr. almost as much as he loves "state's rights." But don't count me among those who say sports and politics shouldn't mix. A placard being waved at a Busch Stadium counter-rally last weekend read "I have a dream... baseball wasn't political." Oh, if only.

Pujols should feel free to let his political feelings known, as he did in regards to the Arizona immigration law a few weeks ago. I just question what sort of hidden insight the manager and player possessed into Glenn Beck when they both accepted a promise from the organizer that the event not be promoted as "political," even as the organizer makes his substantial living as a full-time political commentator. Saturday's event may have been purposefully "apolitical," but every day after will be for Beck, just as every day before was. I also wonder how Pujols justifies standing with a man, in Beck, who has not only offered a full-throated endorsement of the Arizona immigration law Pujols says he opposes, but who has even threatened violence in his opposition towards undocumented immigrants. Pujols appears Saturday just because Beck offers him an award engraved with a sentiment of Christian charity? I don't get it.

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Can we call a moratorium on lawn sprinklers? The summer of 2010 is rivaling 1993 as the wettest in Iowa history, and hundreds of people have been flooded out of their homes in central Iowa. Yet my employer's landlord opens up the tap seemingly every day, watering both the grass and much of Vista Drive, with gallons of water running down the street into the gutter and helping to flood our already-saturated water table. Our warming planet will take excellent care of your lawn just by holding more water in the atmosphere. Please turn off the spigot, everyone. It's only vanity.

posted by CM @ 1:30 PM