Today officially marks the opening of Spring Training for the 2010 St. Louis Cardinals baseball team. And since we have absolutely nothing else to talk about other than that- let’s go to the Tubes.

First a clip of the 1983 Cardinals on their first day back to practice after winning the World Series in 1982. Whitey looks like he partook in every celebratory meal he could in the off-season:

Remember the ‘Fan Show’ on KPLR? Could possibly have been the best show in the history of the TV, but of course it got yanked off the air. Here’s their Spring Training coverage circa 2007:

More posted in the comments as we find them. Feel free to add your own...

Today is very last day until (hopefully) November where there won’t be at least some sort of something to talk about as it pertains of to St. Louis Cardinals baseball…

… Pitchers and Catchers report TOMORROW!

Let’s be honest. Over the past 4 months this website has gotten woefully off track. From NASCAR photo ops to Super Bowl food spreads. Tacky give-a-ways and peeping tom vids. Oh, and Cubs anal. It’s been a mess of HTML.

Unfortunately, not much will change- we’ll just have baseball to talk about too.

READ NEW BLEACHER REPORT ON MARK McGWIRE MEDIA CIRCUS HERE

Something about those fawning reports on guys having a catch from crusty white men in awful Hawaiian shirts gets me excited for guys wearing tights and swatting a ball with a stick.  Or something.

Se la vie winter, you miserable fuck, Spring is officially coming tomorrow. And it couldn’t be soon enough.

In other news…

Those not privy to my Gmail (and Google has done everything they can this past week to make that a non-issue) haven’t been keeping up with the e-mail chain that details how much the InsideSTL.com commenter’s hate my guts.

Let’s go to the screen cap:

I’ve redacted my place of work from the creepy guy with the most recent hateful barb… but the Waterboy was wondering how he knew where I worked AND that I had a Mardi Gras party? Is a Facebook event advertising? Is this guy a friend of mine? Is there anything douchier than calling someone a douche bag?

So many questions. If you want to check for more comments later today, here’s the link.

Bottom line, though: I suck at everything and deserve to be flogged.

Yup. Sounds about right.

NASCAR has made a concerted effort to re-connect with the ‘Joe 6 Pack’ in 2010. From unified start times to behind the scene shows like Jimmy Johnson 24/7 on HBO. But throwing a pothole in the Daytona 500? That’s thinking outside the bun! Watching the end of the race roughly 331 hours after it started, I couldn’t help but wonder if Kevin Harvick had THIS running through his mind while in the lead on the last lap…

Pitchers and catchers report to Jupiter Florida this week. This week. We learned last week that the Cubs already had their catchers in camp a week early…

Mardi Gras in STL this year was muted in comparison to past years. The weather has honked a big, fat dong the past 2.5 weeks and while it didn’t snow that much Saturday, you could still sense that the real pussy-whipped amongst us weren’t catching a wicked hangover for V-Day unless it was sunny and 50+. Hallmark, you’ve finally won… 

That's called, grinding, kids...

Usher AND Gretchen Wilson open the NBA All-Star game? I missed you 2007, where the hell have you been hiding out at…

Has any sport in the history of sport been more limited by its uniforms than men’s figure skating? How many really, really talented men’s figure skaters wouldn’t go within 2 miles of a competition because they had a shred of hetro in their body? If the dudes just wore some warm-ups wouldn’t this be a more viable option for 90% of American dudes?...

There will be a new Cardinal by this time next week. But who will it be? Now that the Spring Training season is opening up- some guys need jobs…

Kids are a pack of pussies in 2010. But the adults that run schools should be punched in the gunt. Calling off school at the first sight of 2 flakes is not only weak sauce, but its making watching TV annoying as hell. I don’t need cute graphics and flashing scrolls.  I need my full screen. And hey, KSDK, it’s 2010, we’ve got the internet. We’ll check there if we need to know…

We always kind of suspected that the small bears were into a little something other than BP and small ball. Try DP and small balls.

The fine folks over at Chicago Now have gotten their paws on a copy of the forthcoming 'Cubs Anal' which seems a bit much for someone we barely know. (At least a trip to the Melting Pot or something, eh boys?)

I'm afraid to see what's in the "Bounce Back!" section. That sounds painful.

Later this afternoon, America will sashe and flaunt it's semi-effeminate opening ceremony outfits in front of a bunch of very polite Canadians. Then a nondescript white famous person will light a cauldron of fire in a more difficult than necessary manner.

It's the Winter Olympics. Johnny Weir has re-entered you life. Like it or not.

READ INSIDE STL: THE DEATH OF CARDINAL NATION HERE

It's easy to bag on the winter games as a every four year PRIDE rally, but look deeper and I think you will find some compelling athletic competition:

+ Skeleton - Going head first down the bobsled chute on a dinky sled may not take much more than a set of brass balls, but somehow they've made this into a legit sport. These crazy sons of bitches are going up to 100 mph in a sort of weird pseudo-superman fantasy come to life. It's like watching the Coors Light party train come to life.

+ Biathlon - You know what makes cross-country skiing more interesting? Guns. That's what.

+ Ice Hockey - If the NHL decided to just cease operation and re-form in America using just nationalities as teams all while touring the country, would you be opposed to this? One night the Scottrade center might get Canada v US; other nights perhaps Sweden v Finland. Everybody always says this is the best hockey ever. Why can't we have it all the time?

+ Curling - The one Olympic sport that maybe, just maybe, if we got off our fat asses, we'd actually have a shot a making a national team. Somehow these people have convinced the IOC that this game needs to be a medal sport in the world's biggest athletic competition. NASCAR drivers are jealous. They've pretty much lived every shuffle puck player's dream.

+ Half-Pipe -  All the awesomeness of Shaun White. Without having to hear Sal Masekela once.

And if you can't get behind any of these, then watching late night downhill qualifying runs on tape delay has to be better than the 200th repeat of Law and Order SUV on USA, right?

Now some links...

• A link of dogs howling when they hear Law & Order's theme song. LINK HERE (HT:WL)
• Guy balances a chair over a huge cliff. LINK HERE (HT:RH)
• 11 things you didn't know about Natural Light. LINK HERE
• Looking for a last minute Valentine's Day gift? Try the Hug-o-Gram. LINK HERE (HT:KA)
• 50 pictures of kids giving the middle finger. LINK HERE
• 10 stories about bears you need to know. LINK HERE
• Introducing the new food craze: Wafflewich. LINK HERE

That's all we got this week. Be sure and check out the Cards Diaspora app by clicking on the story below or the graphic on the right hand side of the screen and download it ASAP. Otherwise we'll see you after a long weekend of drinking (Mardi Gras) and loving (V-Day).

Has mobile technology hit its nadir?

With the introduction of the Cards Diaspora app, in my estimation, yes.

Believe it or not, some people enjoy reading this site. I know- hard to swallow. But true. And one of the questions (by questions, I mean complaints) I get on a semi-regular basis is that our website is horrible to read on the web. Now since we’ve moved to Bloguin from the MVN Network, this problem has been less serious… but still, it wasn’t perfect.

Until today.

Today we’re releasing the Cards Diaspora app for iPhone & Andoid operating systems. So if you have an iPhone, Driod or any number of other Andriod phone, please do us a favor and shut the hell up. We’ve heard your complaints and now you have a dedicated app that makes getting your daily dose of shenanigans mobile friendly.

It also gives you other news, let’s you search the site and do some pretty cool things. In the next update we even hope to have mobile commenting enabled. It’s not pocket fart yet… but we’re getting there.

READ MORE & DOWNLOAD HERE

If you’ve got a Blackberry, Nokia or HTC smartphone, we’re working on that app now. Unfortunately, it takes a little bit more work for those platforms than anticipated. But we haven’t forgotten about you guys. Promise.

Go to the big bolded link above to learn more and to download- TODAY! As always, thanks for your support of this stupid little hobby.

PS:  This really isn’t some sort of joke. I know that you’d like to think it was, but it isn’t. Go to your iTunes and check it out. Apple even had to have some lackey look at our app and read a story about Chris Duncan humping something!

Spring Training is only 7 days from today.

Fucking. Sweet.

Let's dip our toes back into some serious Cardinals related yacking with this article I've published on Bleacher Report.

THE 7 CARDS WE NEED TO WATCH VERY CLOSELY THIS SPRING

And now that you've read that, feel free to check out that hacked footage of the Cubs very secure home field. I'm not nerdy (enough) to hack into security cameras, but if i was... I don't know if Wrigley Field would be my first choice.

The Chicago Cubs are never one to shy away from spending money on crappy products. I'm sure a wall covered in ivy eats up a lot of dough. Alfonso Soriano gets paid a brazillion dollars a year (not to mention Jason Marquis a couple years ago). And a state-of-the-art security cam system using Windows 95's firewall. Nothing can possibly go wrong with that...

Hat tip to @bigleaguestew

The St. Louis Cardinals signed Jared "Skip" Shumaker to a 2 year deal for 4.7 million dollars Monday evening.

Buddies Mikey, Punk'n and little Johnny were not available for comment immediately, but chances are they're going to expect a kick ass clubhouse sometime soon.

The inking prevents and arbitration hearing and saves the Cardinals roughly 800K if Shumaker would have won his case. It also shows that the Cardinals are serious about the Shumaker experiment at second base. After 1.5 years of experience at 2B the value of this contract should be made apparent very quickly.

In all seriousness, congratulations to Jared. I think lost in the shuffle of an MVP season by Albert and a mid-season acquisition of Matt Holliday amongst all the All Star Game shenanigans was a pretty awesome story about guy changing positions to stay on a MLB team. And doing it pretty respectably.

How many times have we said something like "If X player could only play X position, we'd be set"? Jared actually did that and didn't look like a complete boob while learning against the best baseball players on the planet. That's some tough shit to do... while trying maintain a solid bat.

Good guy. Solid player. Fair contract for everyone. No downside to this at all.

What the hell, cookies and milk for everyone involved!~

What happened to the balls on Super Bowl spots? Maybe the spots haven’t lived up to expectations for years now or maybe they were never as good as we remembered, but whatever it is- Madison Ave’s onion sack is filled with estrogen. (see: Go Daddy circa 2010 aka not an itoa of cleavage, about as dangerous as Play-Dough VS Miller Light 2005 aka the best commercial of all time). Mitigating factors like cost, the economy and Janet Jackson’s areola obviously are having a dragging effect on creativity… but for fuck’s sake capitalism- all it takes is some creative people to make a memorable spot…

Normally the half-time act would have hordes of people crowding the stage to give it that ‘concert feel’, but Dade County authorities couldn’t confirm that every participant would be over 18 and didn’t want any youngsters getting into Pete Townshend’s laptop again…

I’m offended that an ad admonishing abortion also promoted violence against women…

Congratulations to Sean Payton who becomes the first Super Bowl winning head coach to win wearing a visor since Jon Gruden. I’m always curious to find out why some coaches go with the visor over a cap, but you’ll notice that once you choose sides- you’re pot committed and don’t change…

The CBS coverage of the Super Bowl was surprisingly muted. Only one cut to Archie/Eli Manning. No cuts to Kim Kardashian that I observed. Nary a Hurricane Katrina reference. Jim Nantz better get a schmaltz shock treatment before the Masters in April because this big game had a disarming lack of superfluous hyperbole…

So does this mean that sitting your starters the last 2 games of the regular season is definitely NOT the way to win a Super Bowl.  We heard so much that the Colts were achieving their goals by fucking with Karma. Turns out Karma is a real asshole…

The worst part for the Colts is they have to go back to Indiana…

Do you think Kendra dumped Hank Baskett immediately after he botched that onside kick recovery or did she wait until after the game? I’m not saying she’s a front-runner or anything, but Garrett Hartley had a very, very good night…

It doesn’t matter how much CBS wants us to watch Katie Couric read us the news, we’ve voted through our remotes and we don’t. So let’s stop shoehorning this lady into any marquee network property and let her get back to the Today Show with a strand of dignity left…

Stop saying Who Dat. You weren’t a Saints fan 2 weeks ago and you won’t be a Saint’s fan by tomorrow. Every time you say it, an angel gets a douche chill…