Who's Your Padre?

BertFlex breaks and sprains stuff.

Mah Name's Ken Rosenthal...People Call Me Ken Rosenthal

As I was heading to bed late last night, I flipped on the ol' television for a minute before dreaming about donutburgers and Jessica Biel (preferably in that order of importance).

Since I still had on FSN Midwest from the Cardinals/Padres game earlier in the night, everybody's favorite, The Best Damn Sports Show was on. I noticed host Chris Rose interviewing what looked like a nerdy high school kid possibly talking about a chess tournament or something. Actually it was FSN's Ken Rosenthal, wearing his Forrest Gump Halloween costume.

I hate to pull my fashion police badge out Ken, but tell your mom to pick out better clothes for you next time. I suppose your luggage could have gotten lost and this is all Best Damn could find laying around backstage, but I doubt it. Stick to the suits Kenny. Hopefully Rob Dibble didn't give you a wedgie after the show.

Douche Bag Report: Troy Glaus Edition

The "real" media is chiding Cardinals fans for failing to embrace Troy Glaus despite his newly hot bat (ha! hot bat) and more-than-respectable fielding percentage. But I think it's important that we set aside the statistics and acknowledge what we all know in our hearts: Glaus is a raging douche. Some evidence:

1. When a playable ball flies past Glaus and drops for a base hit, he adopts a limp-armed stance and vacant stare ala Daria Morgendorffer on the volleyball court.
2. Allergic conjunctivitis that strikes only during evening home games in April? Are you kidding me with this?
3. [(casually unbuttoned jersey+man necklace+Oakleys) x (irritating batting ritual at plate)] / haunting memories of former glory days = douche bag.

Plus, dude looks like Bruce Campbell. That shit ain't right.

Cris Carter Is An A--Hole

There, I said it.

You can't step to this!!!11!@!

Life's Good for Dave Kreig

Oh, you thought Dave Kreig was just the shitty Seahawk QB in Tecmo Bowl? Wrong! He's a playa as in hanging with two Playboy Playmates. One arm = one blonde. Lindsay Wagner and Spencer Scott are some sweet ass arm candy. But...


How's that feel Dave Kreig?

Breaking News: The BertFlex Media Takeover Continues

It's been a huge month for us, and to add to the huge-ness, I'd like to announce that bertflex.com has found its first sponsorship opportunity. Despite making no money on the site, we have decided to sponsor the 2006 World Champion Cardinals team page on baseball-reference.com for a mere $45. Some may call this a "bad business decision," while others say it's a "horrible business decision," but I love it. Kudos to the University of Missouri-St. Louis for my keen business sense.

We have been in touch with our accounting department and more sponsored pages are in the works (teams and/or players). See below for a look, or click here for the web page. Ahh, let that sink in. Buzz Bissinger is probably punching a wall right now.

Be A Better Fan of BertFlex

We've had a little more exposure as of late, so to any new readers (and those of you who have stuck with us over the years), here is our contact info and a few ways to be a bigger part of the BertFlex community:

-Email us any questions, comments, or concerns at haymang@yahoo.com. Another edition of the world renowned Who's Shitty Fantasy Report is in the works, so send your questions in! If you have no idea what that is, click the Who's Shitty tag to the right and find out.

-Comment on our articles. Even if you are not a contributor to the staff, let us know how much we suck at this blogging thing. Signing up is really easy, and we'd appreciate your praise, er "feedback."

-Buy your own bertflex.com jersey! To show you what they look like, here is Sir modeling the front, and the lovely Big Sandwich showing off the back. Even a Cubs fan knows what's up. Leave a comment below or email us and Sir will get in touch with you about ordering them. Sorry Likes To Fight Guy, you'll have to cut your own sleeves off.

-Subscribe to us. You can use any number of blog readers, like google reader (official choice of HMW), feed burner, or any other feed reader you so desire. This is especially helpful if work has blocked blogs from your internets. Besides us, be sure to subscribe to mizzourah.net (Big Head lost a lot of money at the track this weekend, so help him out). Signing up is also easy and it can gather tons of different sites that you read into one happy, magical place.

-Get a BertFlex-related tattoo. Just a suggestion...

Tigers Unleash the Fury; Nebraska Gets it All Over Themselves

(Originally posted on Mizzourah.net earlier tonight)

A few weeks ago I wrote about seeing the Tigers in action while playing a two day series in St. Louis. That night, after losing a 2-1 heart breaker, I complained about the lack of excitement due to the teams using wooden bats. Even high profile bloggers can go around hitting bombs with wood bats...well maybe not all of them.

To make up for that poor display of college baseball, BertFlex superstar 'The Good Face' and I took a little trip to Columbia, MO to catch game two of the Nebraska/Mizzou series. With a 22-9 beatdown, we were not disappointed in the least.

In all, there were 7 home runs and 6 HBP's. This is what I came to see.

The only complaints were that 1) Kyle Gibson did not start (he came in Friday night's game to throw six pitches in the 9th), and 2) we were forced to walk up the gigantic hill to Taylor Stadium. I thought that being a prestigious Mizzourah blogger, we would have had a guy in a suit holding a "HMW & Good Face" sign, so he could drive us up the hill in one of the golf carts. I see how it is around here. (Although I was going incognito today w/ sunglasses on, that's probably why...)

Seriously though, it was a fun time and we'll have to do it again next year. We were even part of history today, as we helped set a Mizzou single game attendance record - 3,126 in the stands.

To get a better understanding of how bad Nebraska got torched, check the box score. I sent a text to Big Head saying that I wanted to start the "O-VER-RA-TED!" chant in the second inning, but it seemed like a family crowd today, so I behaved myself.

With this win, the Tigers clinched the 4th seed in the Big 12 Conference Championship. The final game of the regular season is Sunday at 3:30, on FSN.

(See the photo gallery for pics, like Oh my God, it's Aaron Crow!! and what I call "Looper Face.")

Ted Drewes Ain't Got Shit On This!

Bacon has a special place in our hearts here at Bertflex, and by that I mean our poor arteries are working a lot harder than they should because of the "candy bar" of meats. It made it all the way to the Final Four of our Super Xtreme Asskickin' Monster Truck Firestorm Tournament of Death or SXAMTFToD, as we lovingly call it. The weather is warming up and bacon has invaded one of summertime's favorite indulgences, ladies and gentlemen:

There is now a viable reason to visit the state of Delaware. Udder Delight Ice Cream House also includes the following flavors in their arsenal: Memphis BBQ, Viagra, Cappuccino Stout Beer and Peanut Butter and Jelly which apparently won the World Series of Ice Cream in '04. There's a WSOIC! No wonder other countries hate us!

Rays-Cards: The Battle for the Good Face's Soul

If you've heard me speak or read my posts, you know that I have an affinity for the St. Louis Cardinals. Likewise, I am developing quite the crush on the Tampa Bay Rays. Through the magic that is interleague play, these two teams begin a three-game series tonight at Busch Stadium.

Ordinarily, a mid-May series wouldn't seem like such a big deal. But this isn't just any mid-May series. I'm putting the belt on the line: Whoever wins this best-of-three tilt gets my full and undevoted fandom for the rest of the season. If the Rays win, I'll lose half my wardrobe because I won't be able to wear my Cardinals-related apparel. If the Cardinals win, my Carlos Pena tattoo will just have to wait.

What does Esteban have to do with any of this? I don't know. When I googled "Cardinals Devil Rays," his picture came up.

Truth Facts of Yesterfar

Witches float.
The sun revolves around the Earth.
Poor health is the result of imbalanced humours in the body.
Black people are worth 3/5 of white people.*
Cigarettes: Good for you.

The Mad Librarian: Your Most Trusted Source of Truth Facts of Yesterfar.

* This is still considered a truth fact in at least three Southern states.

New Contributor

We have another new contributor to the BertFlex team - Mad Librarian. You may remember her from our 2008 Cardinal Off the Field Problem Pool.

What's that you say? Another giirrrl??? Well, we here at BertFlex have always been an equal opportunity employer when it comes to the opposite sex. That's about as far as it goes though, since we're coincidentally all a bunch of cracka's.

Please give a warm welcome to Mad Librarian, as she'll be helpful in cleaning up the BertFlex offices and making sandwiches posting a lot of quality content soon.

(At least I'm not racist)

Bat Like a Cardinal

Here's a great youtube video of Cardinal batting stances from the 80's to today. Stick with it until the end, the Tom Lawless is hilarious. It is quite reminiscent of some jerk playing sandlot a couple weeks ago...




These guys put out seven other videos here.

An Internet First

Yesterday at work, I partook (partaked? English is dumb) in an enlightening discussion regarding Africa. More specifically, we were discussing sub-Saharan Africa – at which point, it occurred to me that you never hear about the other half of the Cradle of Civilization: Uber-Saharan Africa.

The Mad Librarian and I confirmed this with a quick Google search (pictured somewhere around here). In the entire history of the Internets, no one had used that phrase. Until now. The next time someone googles "Uber-Saharan Africa," we're gonna dominate that search.

BertFlex: Re-shaping the Way We Think About Stupid-Ass Shit.

j15 edm0-4ds is a cub, rE-8lly?

So how long is it going to take until we hear "Louuu, it's tooo collld out here. I can't playyy todayy." Or "why haven't they cut this grass stuff off the outfield wall yet? Louuu?"

My take is that it's 100% obvious now that it was the right move to trade Jim Edmonds over the offseason. Luckily the Cardinals brass don't listen to the old ladies too much, although Dewitt & Co. were in this jam because of their own stupidity. The two-year deal after the '06 season was horrible judgement. I doubt that Edmonds was pushing the team hard to give him two years, I'm sure he would have been happy with them just picking up that option for '07. But I'm just a dumb blogger, ruining society with my click clacking on the computer machine, don't listen to me.

As for the Cubs, technically this is a low-risk signing, but at the expense of Felix Pie, Matt Murton, and the newly acquired (and useful) Reed Johnson, it's dumb...if you want slightly more analysis, read below. Being a Cardinal fan, hey we love ya Jimmy, but we are fully expecting you to take down the Cubs from within. Hopefully when the Cubs are mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, Edmonds will rip his jersey off, revealing a Cardinals shirt, completing the best heel turn of this decade.

I love hearing reaction on the Edmonds signing from our friends to the north. Maybe our resident Cub fan Big Sandwich will weigh in later this week, or Sir since he is in the heart of the furious Chi-town bloggers right now:

Ivy Envy - But if Jim Edmonds wears blue pinstripes, I will root him on. It’s going to be hard for me to stomach. Besides Barry Bonds and AJ Pierzynski, Jim Edmonds is probably my least favorite player. He is playing so poorly that he was cut by the worst team in baseball, but apparently Jim Hendry has a plan. Like they say, Jim “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. We’re scoring runs just fine.

Chicago Cubs Blog - Hendry, will Edmonds do anything that Felix Pie can’t do? Who cares if Pie is struggling at the plate, at least he isn’t trying to play center field with bum legs like Edmonds is doing.

I don’t like the move one bit, and a lot of other Cubs fans that I have talked to think the same way. What do you think? Would a Cubs jersey burn right off of Edmonds when he put it on?

Goat Riders of the Apocalypse - Since Edmonds is the newest Cub, he shall be designated as a rookie for the duration of the '08 season (even if real rookies later join the squad). Consequently, he shall be forced to wear women's garments on all road trips, and he shall be taunted and bullied before every game. ...come to think of it, this is not unlike his normal routine.

Hire Jim Essian - Jim Hendry, you’ve done an awful lot of dumb things in your tenure as the Chicago Cubs’ general manager. You signed Neifi Perez a couple of times. You thought Shawn Estes belonged in a starting rotation. You traded Kyle Farnsworth right after a crap year instead of right after a good year. You ate that whole cheesecake that had been sitting out on the counter for a week, even though I told you that the top shouldn’t feel slimy. I’ve forgiven you for most of those things. But so help you God, if you sign Jim Edmonds, you are dead to me.

Random Tidbit from Tonight's Game

It was just a random May game vs. the Pirates, but none other than former Cardinal reliever/closer Mike Perez was in the house tonight. I heard him on the radio, and he still lives in St. Louis. Somebody find his address, so I can get him to sign my Mike Perez baseball card collection. I was pretty high on Perez back then, and thought for sure those cards would have made me a rich young man by now. This one (1993 Upper Deck) is easily my favorite. I know it's hard to see the ol' "holding my own card pose" but this is the best I could find. The photoshop back then was top notch.

(update): Listening to Perez at Shannon's after the game, evidently he works with MLB now. Doing even more digging for you, according to the Post-Dispatch, he was talking to Yadi about his little meltdown Monday night:

On Wednesday, baseball official Mike Perez, an assistant to Bob Watson, the leagues’ vice president for rules and on-field operations, met with Molina to, as Perez said, “get his side of the story.”

College Life, How I Miss Thee

Maybe it was fate that I caught a little bit of Van Wilder this past weekend. I've seen it a few times and actually thought it was a pretty decent movie. It's not up there with Animal House or Old School as far as college movies go, but probably in the second tier with the likes of PCU and Revenge of the Nerds (oh and Blue Chips...anyone?).

I'm pleased to say congrats to College Life for winning the first ever Super Xtreme Asskickin Monster Truck Firestorm Tournament of Death. It was a decisive winner (10 votes to 5) over BBQ, which was a worthy runner up.

If you're just joining us, we ran a tournament of 64 "things" and had our panel of experts pick which is better. We had a few guidelines on what was included (full bracket here):

*Leave any sex-related stuff out.

*Historical objects and figures will be thrown out too.

*Tangible items only (physical objects).

*Things like "the internet" or "jokes" are too generic and boring.


Well, maybe college life isn't technically tangible, but we felt it had to be included into anything called "Tournament of Death." College life also defeated the likes of Menthol Cigarettes, Home Run Derby, Beef Jerky, Nintendo, and Wiffleball - a mighty impressive lineup of challengers.

It seemed like just yesterday I was skipping class for some N64 Mario Cart, Mario Golf, or Bond. I tried using legitimate reasons like that during my freshman year; by the time I was a senior, grunts or random noises were a good enough excuse not to go (ex: meh, ughh, and bah).

I'd like to thank our voting committee for helping out, including celebrity voter Will Leitch of Deadspin for playing along in our fun and games.

There are already rumblings of other Bertflex-sponsored tournaments, so stay tuned for more. In the meantime, we'll have to schedule a College Life-themed party with the Bertflex staff singing a drunken version of "One Shining Moment."

If I'm Here, Who's Watching Our Libraries?

It's my dream scenario: having the undivided attention of four lovely young women, and what do I do? Talk to them about Yadier Molina. Well done HMW...well done. Click the link for this week's insideSTL column.

And because it never gets old: Carl Monday in action.


(Update 5/20: because of the insideSTL website switch, they messed up a couple parts of the article, including the author's name. I'm not sure if they'll fix it...oh well. As of now, that's the only old article they carried over, which is hopefully a tribute to my greatness)

Save Your Money, Kids: Coolio Edition

I was flipping through the ol' tv channels tonight and I caught a few minutes of Coolio on Chelsea Lately. I wasn't sure what he was promoting at first, seeing how they were talking about him wearing a hat to cover his receding hairline. But at the end, Coolio mentioned his big project going on right now.

New CD? No.

New movie? Nope.

New clothing line that only features Tyrone Wheatley jerseys? Gots to say the nay-no.

These were the obvious choices, so I'm sure your fourth guess would be 'internet cooking show.'

On mydamnchannel.com, Coolio has ten videos up (all a little over five minutes) showing you gangsterrs out there how to cook. I'm guessing that big comeback will take a little longer. Nothing says falling off more than a rapper who was awesome in 1996 + cooking show + catchphrase of "shakazulu."

Actually that's a recipe for greatness, forget what I said. Check out at least a minute or two of any of these videos. Entertaining stuff, like in video #1, Coolio says: Imma teach you how to make a salad that'll get them panties right off!

I've got the urge to hit up my kitchen and make some Coolio Salad and Soul Rolls. How many you want? 1, 2, 3, 4...

Sandlot Slam Pics Are Up

Check the photo gallery for 110 pictures of last Saturday's Sandlot Slam III, which was won by the MO-siders. Pic 77, is to the left. You'll notice me standing here...bat flip over there. Big Sandwich is still feeling the effects of giving up such a bomb.

Thanks to Katie for wasting her Saturday being our photographer. As a side note, SSIII was referenced in this week's insideSTL column. I'm really hurting for topics, I know; it'll get better next week...barely.


(Update 5/20: because of insideSTL's website switch, this article is no longer up. I'll repost the link if they fix it.)