Musical Chairs

With Spring Training about to get into full effect, it is also that time of the year where players pick out music for warming up, bullpen entrances, and batting intros. The more memorable ones lately have been Trevor Hoffman's Hell's Bells or Mariano Rivera coming out to Enter Sandman. We have heard some shitty intros before, so I'm going to do my best to help out some of MLB's best pick out their new muzak.

Purple Pills (D12)- Barry Bond's intro

Make it Rain (Fat Joe)- Kip Wells' warmup...every inning

Ditty (Paperboy)- A drunken night with David Wells (just because you can't understand anything in the song or what comes from Babe Jr's mouth)

I Wish (Skee Lo)- David Eckstein

Hair of the Dog (Nazereth)- Pujols

Money (Pink Floyd)- A-Rod

It's Raining Men (Weather Girls)- Jim Edmonds

Hard Knock Life (Jay-Z)- Jason Isringhausen trotting in

Let's Get Retarded (Black Eyed Peas)- Brad Thompson

If Everyone Cared (Nickleback)- Florida Marlins' theme song

It's Not Over (Daughtry)- Ryan Dempster coming in

Loser (Beck)- Jeff Weaver warming up

I'm Back... (Mase)- Roger Clemens

Not again!

Another "OOPSIE" dumb-ass injury sports story...

MESA, Ariz. (AP) - Oft-injured Kerry Wood is out again — this time because of a flub in a hot tub. The Chicago Cubs pitcher is not expected to throw off the mound for a few days after he slipped this week getting out of a hot tub at home. Wood landed on his stomach and chest. "It was just a little spill," Wood said Thursday. "I didn't think anything of it. Nothing's wrong. It's just going to be a few extra days. My arm feels great. My body feels good." Wood said he probably would not have thrown off the mound until Friday had he not gotten hurt. He participated in most drills on Thursday when pitchers and catchers worked out for the first time. Bothered by an injured right shoulder the past three seasons, Wood is being converted to a reliever after being limited to four starts last year.

I predict this (as well as many other off-season flubs!) will come back to haunt the Cubs later this year...

Just Wingin' It

Coming across the wire might be the "What the hell?" contract of the 21st century. A-Rod's $256 million, Barry's $15.8 mill, and Bill Hall $24 million over four years! Read that again. Bill Hall is making $6 million a year. Wait, let me equate that for you with zeros; $6,000,000 a year, or 12,000,000 tacos at Jack 'n the Box. Hall is described on espn.com as "super-utilityman". Thinking in the form of "super-utilityman", I have come up with a "super-utility wingman" of former Cardinals that cannot be beat.

Tripp Cromer-Not only could this guy not bag a girl, but he also threw like one. He was Royce Clayton's backup, which as you repeat that to yourself in rehab makes you want to bite the business end of a 9mm.

Tripp's pickup line: "You know what they say about guys with long necks"

Eli Marrero- Eli can thank his minor league star batterymate for helping get him to the majors. Who would that 'future star' be? None other than Manny Aybar. Yeah, these were the Cards 'stars' in Memphis/Louisville in the 90's. Eli could catch, play first, and any of the outfield spots. He could hit sometimes, but by the time he got between first and second, he was breathing harder than a lunch lady unloading a Sysco food truck. The chances of him taking your girl was next to nothing. All you would have to do is stand 270 feet away. He'd need a breather before he even got close.

Eli's pickup line: "I'll get you some dugout seats cause that's where I always watch the game from"

Jose Vizcainio- And this guy got a ring with the Cards last year?? I can't honestly remember him stepping onto the diamond other than the Post-Dispatch shot of him running onto the field for the celebration. I think he's old enough to have brought baby Jesus the frankenscense.

Jose's pickup line: "Remember the Lincoln administration? I do!"

Stubby Clapp- If this were a name contest, he would have won hands down. Stubby got a little PT at 2B/SS and is in the same catagory as Bo Hart. While I have no clue where Hart is, as I flipped on the WBC last year, I saw Stubby Clapp playing the field for Canada. Almost makes you wonder if it was like one of those NHL/Olympic things where in reality, the country is already too damn good so you have to change your citizenship to a shittier country in your sport. This is also known as the Mike Piazza rule. His name alone would kill his chances with your lady friend.

Stubby's pickup line: "I'm Stubby Clapp bitch! Show me yo' titties!"

Bertflex Night at Dave & Buster's

There was one ugly showing of Bertflexian's during my trip back to the 'Lou, all commensurating at Dave & Buster's in Maryland Heights. All the pictures are loaded in the Bertflex Photo Gallery, but lets share some of the better moments.

Sir's clinic on the Dance Dance Revolution machine was a classic. Granted, I have never tried DDR, I don't understand DDR, and I have no need to ever do DDR. There is video of TP's DDR moves, so if you want it, leave your name on the comments screen, and I'll get it to you. I've never seen the use of a metal pole like that without throwing money on stage.

Shaun is hands down the "Pop a Shot" king. Some advice to Wise Lebron: Watchout! While I was fairly drunk and ended up throwing headfakes on the machine, Shaun decided to throw down 73. Sick...

On the flipside of being good, TP's showing on the football toss machine was awful. Another video is available. I think an RZ Trainer might be under the Christmas tree in the Pellegrino household. PS...Tom Emanski won't be calling after seeing that aim. Watching Josh throw southpaw on the machine was pretty amusing too. Did I say I was drunk?

I ended up getting faded quickly. Throwing back big mugs of beer did help me get down on the mallet pounding machine. More beer also made me repulse/hit on some decent looking chicks on the Trivia Game. Unbelievably, the girl and I ended up winning and screwing the rest of Bertflex out of some more tickets for prizes. And about those prizes? Poker set, D&B ashtray, some shitty baseball cards, a Tyler Johnson plaque (sounds like a name of a disease that will be around, i.e. 'Lou Gehrig's Disease'), and an Adam Wainwright card from Spring Training.

The best part may have come after Sandwich and I took the Regal Beagle by storm. I 'played' darts ('play' is a strong word. More like 'laid down and died'), drank more, and ended up getting some free drinks from the fatty bartender because there were three guys scarier than us in there and she didn't want to be left alone. When I'm in the bar late, I'm usually the creepy guy that she's wanting to get rid of, so a switcherroo wasn't so bad for once. It's like Freaky Friday and I left my body for once! With a game of 20 Questions, I also figured out that one of my best friends took the fatty bartender home. YIKES!! Oh, St. Louis, how I miss thee. Oh, and I'm still scarred by what I caught Brian from 'Family Guy' doing at D&B...

Maybe Even Peyton Mannin'...Maybe...

With the exception of the always exciting Pro Bowl, another football season is in the books. And for about the tenth straight year, I capped it off by eating around 8 pounds of food.

For a "real" recap of the game, feel free to stop by a credible website for all that, but for a recap of what the Super Bowl is all about--food and gambling--keep it locked here.

At the Knights of Columbus party, I loaded up on a few ham and roast beef sandwiches. Yes, I said a few. Combine that with four piles of those little smokies, a bowl of chili, some Italian meatballs, a ton of tortilla chips (covered with more chili), and three cupcakes, and we've got ourselves a good first quarter. I know the ILL-side party had some chicken wings with Ben's special sauce (oops, that came out wrong), plus the ever-so-lovable Flamin' Hot Cheetos.

As for the gambling, I sucked on the squares games, and was shut out once again. I think I fared better at the degenerate dollar bets going on at Justin's party. Tony will calculate the totals and I'm sure will send out the "invoices," errr face-punching squad, sometime this week. I know a couple of us won on the length of the National Anthem. Big ups to the Piano Man for keeping it under 1:42. Feel free to add your results to the comments section.

And thus concludes another fun year of football. Time to defrost Mel Kiper and get him ready for the draft pre-game show, which starts Thursday I think. Until then, let's focus on getting Ted Ginn fitted for his Rams uni...


photo courtesy www.blackbettie.blogspot.com; she shares her love for Flamin' Hot Cheetos in the May '05 link.

MissFlex

Welcome one, welcome all to the 2007 MissFlex Pageant. Yes, I did just say “Miss” as in females. See fellas, there are these things called ‘women’ (which are opposite of us). We naturally repulse them with gas, wiffleball, drunk dials, movie quotes, and the fact that we can legitimately name all the members of the California Angels squad on RBI Baseball. I realize that many of our readers may be more familiar with Ted Power’s ERA for the 1990 Cardinals than what a hot chick looks like. Let me get you up to speed on that what's hot and what's not classification…


















Now that we have that covered...we already have Bertflex, and it is now time for MissFlex. Get your wife, girlfriend, mistress, hot friends, or random bar whores to pop on a Bertflex.com jersey and snap a picture. Don’t have a jersey? No problem! Just have the hottie hold up a random sign about one of the Bertflex writers (example: “I gave Tony the Heisman at Bertflex.com”, “Big Sandwich is still a virgin”, “York Hearts Roy Williams”, or Shaun’s favorite “I’m too young for Tony”). This can definitely spice up a lame night at the bar, plus it gives you the chance to make small talk with a hottie. It’s “Girls Gone Wild”, only with a more pathetic Joe Francis!

You can email the pictures to bertflexdotcom@yahoo.com. We will vote in a few different categories to crown MissFlex; hotness, drunkenness, great quotes on signs, and we will compact it down to a top three or four for you to vote on later. The person who submitted the winning photo will receive a gift basket full of goodies/random bowl, courtesy of myself.

A reason to celebrate...

Yes, yes, hell yes! Myself and fellow Cheeseheads across the country get to postpone one more year of agonizing "Who the hell is this guy" talk as #4 "officially" announced this morning that he would return for another year. With the Badgers losing to Indiana Wednesday night, we needed something to celebrate going into the weekend. This has given me the perfect opportunity to fight the below-zero weather to go out drinking!