Does This Blog Make Me Look Fat?

Pitchers and catchers reported to Spring Training over the weekend. Position players report later this week. I'm not sure if we'll be going to many games this year since Spring Training tickets have become so expensive, but there are two new stadiums here (one shared by the Dodgers and White Sox and another for the Indians with the Reds to report next year) so I am hoping we get to go to one of each.

FYI - the house should be officially ours next Wednesday. The painters will start Thursday. I'll be posting pictures as things ge completed.

Oh. My. God. It feels so weird to be talking about the Cardinals in January. Cardinals football fans have not had anything like this to cheer about in, well, EVER. The Cardinals are playing for the NFC championship for the first time in history. All I can say is..."Go Philly! Beat the Giants!"

I can remember when Holidays were special. I grew up in a small town, and when a Holiday came around the entire town shut down - the gas stations, the grocery stores, the dress shops and the restaurants - and everybody spent time with family and friends. But that's not the way it works anymore. Nowadays, some businesses stay open even on Christmas and Thanksgiving. We've even turned many Holidays into an excuse to shop and buy things ON SALE. Holidays don't seem so special anymore.

Take New Year's Day for example. I used to love watching the 4 big college bowl games on New Year's Day. Now the bowl games start right before Christmas and last for 3 weeks. Tonight is the BCS Championship game, and I don't even care. It's the last bowl game of the season and it seems almost anti-climactic to me. It's like number 10 of 10 and the Holidays are over and everyone has gone back to work. Ho hum.

I know that Holidays are what you make them, but sometimes I miss the old days.

Here's a story that will be of interest to long time Cardinals baseball fans (Angie and Rena). I remember Bobby Tolan. This is tragic, but I think there are probably more facts that will surface.

Son of famed baseballer shot in driveway by cop

Yesterday Bill went to the Cardinals' playoff game. It's been a long time since we watched the old "Cardiac Cards" sitting in my brother's house in Mahomet or my sister's house in Decatur so the win was especially sweet for us!

The Cards are to football kind of like what the Cubs are to baseball:

• The Cardinals are one of only six NFL teams to never make a Super Bowl appearance
• The Cardinals are one of only two NFL teams to have never played in a conference championship game
  
• Their last playoff appearance before yesterday was in 1998 in which they beat the Dallas Cowboys
  
• Their last home playoff game was in 1947 when they were the Chicago Cardinals and played in the old Comiskey Park
• Their record is 2-5 all-time in post season play despite being the oldest professional American football team

Even so, the game was very nearly not a sell out which would have required the television broadcast to be blacked out locally.

But this is a picture of their new stadium with the lights on, and it's pretty damn cool.

I love baseball but I am sick of baseball. Every off season it's the same thing. The Yankees and Red Sox will spend the most money and get the best players. My teams will be too cheap to even buy a bad player but when they do that just puts another bad player on the roster. If we're lucky the baseball season will be exciting, and we'll end up with a World Series that 3/4 of the country won't watch because it doesn't include the Yankees or Red Sox. Until then nearly every nationally televised baseball game will include either the Yankees, Red Sox, Mets or Dodgers. And sometimes the Cubs.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.