1 post tagged “st. louis”

Brian Burwell writes a sports column for the St. Louis Post Dispatch. This is an excerpt from it today.

As we welcome one and all to the official "warm-weather" site of this 2006 World Series (game-time temperatures a simmering 52 degrees), it's always nice to escape from frostbitten Comerica Park and its huddled, teeth-chattering feline masses. Unlike October baseball in Detroit, October baseball in St. Louis does not require horse blankets, ski caps, orange parkas, wool mittens and long johns.

We're a heartier baseball bunch here. We brace for the chill of the night with a bit more style and substance than all those Tigers weather weenies who showed up for Game 2 in Detroit looking like they were on their way to an Upper Peninsula hunting lodge instead of the Fall Classic.

So what can you expect at Busch tonight for Game 3 of the World Series?

I'm thinking fur.

This guy sucks. Fur? What is this, Diddy’s white party out in the cold? What is it with black people and fur coats? Sean Combs, Jay-Z, Beyonce and LeBron. They all wear that shit like a superhero cape. This isn’t some anti-fur rant. I wear leather shoes and eat chickens so I’m not about to utter Syllable One about animal cruelty. I just think they’re tacky.

Yeah, we wear Carhartts and flannel caps in Michigan. Funny how a columnist from St. Louis isn’t saying shit about it until he’s BACK at home, the bitch-made punk. It’s 35 degrees and you’re going to be outside for 3 1/2 hours. Those are the warmest clothes possible for that type of environment, the dumb shit.

This is Detroit. We work our asses off and always have. And yes, it’s not the prettiest city on the map, far from it actually. And yes, when it gets really cold out, a lot of Michigan denizens end up looking like Elmer Fudd. But this is by choice and by design. People across the country point fingers at Detroit all of the time and say things like “Ha! Ha! Look at your shitty economy,” or “Ha! Ha! Look at your crumbling infrastructure,” and “Ha! Ha! Look at your embarrassing murder rat- oh, hey, I was just kidding man, put that thing away, it’s cool, I was just, you know …”

Yes, Detroit’s school system is in shambles, more than half of its residents can’t read, its mayor and city council is corruption defined and the downtown is a just a step down from Baltimore and Denver, which is REALLY embarrassing. But we work tirelessly to improve what little we have here and to build on what resources are available to us, that is, when we’re not plucking from the middle of our backs, the slings and arrows hurled at us daily from cities across the country, cities filled with people who moved there from elsewhere. Yes, the building is burning to the ground. And while that happens, some elect to get out, others choose to stay and try to put it out, and to rebuild with pride and integrity what was once there. That’s just a personal decision some people make. Get off our dicks about it.

So, Brian Burwell claims St. Louis, MO to have a bit more “style and substance." Does it? How exactly is this measured? Well, it sure as fuck isn’t in median income, apparently. In a 2004 cnn.com poll, Detroit ranked fourth in the Poorest American Cities list with a population greater than 250,000 (behind first-place Miami, Newark and Cleveland). Detroit, like I said, was fourth. St. Louis is sixth.

And what about that substance Brian Burwell was talking about? Well, it sure as fuck doesn’t come from the intelligentsia in Missouri, understand that. In a 2006 cnn.com poll of America’s Smartest Cities, municipalities were labeled “brainy” based on the number of folks 25 and over in their population who’ve earned at least a bachelor’s degree. Seattle topped the list. San Francisco was second, which should be no surprise to anyone. St. Louis, or any city in Missouri for that matter, failed to make the top 25. And neither did Detroit.

So, you’re just as broke and dumb as we are. That’s what I don’t understand. It’s like two gays guys in an argument and Percy calls Cecil “ a fag.” Well, so are YOU, ya dumb fuck.

Brian Burwell is reaching more than Tayshaun Prince with poor table manners, and he’s clearly doing his readers a disservice by generating this delusional sense that they somehow have more class and dignity than we do, elements that have no empirical methods of proof in the first place. People in St. Louis and Detroit are probably both equally fucked when it comes to wealth, education, job prospects and viable housing.

But there is one glaring difference, now isn’t there? We have the pitching.