Tag: STL Rams

Joe Buck stands up for St. Louis in calling Kroenke out

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If you had any reservation about Joe Buck’s feelings towards his hometown before today, they surely are gone now.

With the St. Louis Rams relocation/new stadium/multi-faceted storm of uncertainty circling the team on a daily basis, fans need a pick me up from a national face. Today, they got just that in the form of local boy Joe Buck taking to Twitter to slam Rams majority owner Stan Kroenke and his plan to relocate the football team to Los Angeles. Check out Buck’s twitter profile for the stream of comments, but it pretty read like this.

What Stan Kroenke is doing to St. Louis Rams fans with this ordeal is a joke and an “insult”.

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After all, Stan pulled the team away from potential owner Shahid Khan years ago in a colossal shift in direction. Without publicly telling fans right away that the Rams would be in St. Louis for a long time, Stan just took the team back towards his corner of the room. He pulled his card and declared other potential owners useless, a little nugget he had built into the alliance with Georgia Frontiere.

When that happened, I had a sick feeling what Stan was up to. He didn’t care about the football fans in St. Louis. He cared about future dollars and cents. He always wanted to move these Rams west. It was never in question. He drove up ticket prices. He stayed in hiding while the Edward Jones Dome struggled to remain up to code. He checked out and bought land in Los Angeles to build a stadium. This was all part of the plan. At the end of the day, Stan was a shrewd decrepit businessman who played St. Louis for a fool. His intentions were clear from the get go. Now everybody is playing catch up.

All Buck did today was voice an opinion that many know and feel but don’t have the national weight to swing.  He called out Kroenke for being playing dirty, lying to the people of St. Louis and throwing a heavy hook towards the body of the Midwest when it comes to its football prospects.

Save me your talk about Stan Kroenke just doing what businessmen do and trying to make money. It doesn’t add up. You don’t see Bill DeWitt III trying to swindle St. Louis Cardinals fans while putting a crap show on the field for years. Tom Stillman has put his heart and soul into the Blues and making them competitive.

What Kroenke did here was lay the foundation for a move years ago. Threatening to move in order to get a new stadium deal financed. Having the dome(which has only been standing since the mid 1990’s) go on a year to year lease with the Rams and the NFL. Slowly but surely, Kroenke has worked all these moves into a plan to leave.

Kudos to Buck for unleashing the truth. Do me a favor and don’t focus too hard on the specifics of what Buck said and concentrate on the meat of the statement. What Kroenke is doing is 100% cutthroat, heartless and it has the potential to damage St. Louis for a long time. When it comes to stadiums/domes in the downtown area of a city, it’s not just about football. It’s about community growth, jobs and building something that can spark life downtown. Ballpark Village, Busch Stadium and Scottrade Center can’t do all the heavy lifting themselves. St. Louis needs the economic punch of a football stadium. It’s fuel for a city. With a new stadium, the Ed Dome could be left to schedule a number of events and dates and the Northern Riverfront could become a booming section of the city with the NFL’s full support behind it.

Stan was never on board with a new stadium here. Not for a second. He always wanted California. He’s holding the Rams over the Pacific ocean while Dave Peacock and Bob Blitz coordinate with the city of St. Louis, Governor Jay Nixon and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to keep the team in St. Louis in a frantic last ditch effort. While signs aren’t dismal for the underdogs, Kroenke is making it a tough fight. Instead of speaking with his words and keeping one foot inside a city, Stan is letting an empty suit jacket and checkbook speak for him. What a joke indeed!

Once again, Stan’s whole ordeal smells like garbage. He pried the team away from Khan with this plan in mind. He always wanted the team out west, where they came from. He’s a scoundrel for insulting a fan base who has shown up to see a pathetic team for years. Buck just called him out. He didn’t use a cryptic arrangement of 140 characters to zing Kroenke either. He threw a series of hooks, jabs and straight right hands to the temple of Stan’s phony initiative. Sometimes, integrity stands taller than dollar bills. Buck’s words won’t fix stadium issues. Just nice to see a big stick take a big swing.

Thanks for speaking up for a city of voices, Joe Buck. Thanks for stepping up for a city you grew up in and are attached to forever. A place you keep sacred roots. Buck didn’t have to say anything. He could have stayed quiet, walked the status quo, and hid behind the mighty Fox kingdom. Instead, he took to the most powerful modern outspoken device to prove his point and that’s social media. He wanted the fans to hear him.

We heard you, Joe. Loud and clear. Thank you for being the voice of the people.

Who Is The Rams QB Of The Future?

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Forget the location of the Rams games in 2015 and beyond. Let’s talk about the quarterback position. Who plays this spot after this year? Another year where three different quarterbacks are slotted in as the lead arm and neither of them impress or survive long enough to make us ponder their contract situation? The Rams are mind boggling and inconsistent, but the biggest leak exists at quarterback. In this day and age, in this game, a solid quarterback is needed. You can be a ball moving runner like Russell Wilson, a management guy like Joe Flacco or Alex Smith or you can be a gunner like Peyton Manning. If you want to make it to the playoffs or the Super Bowl, a team must have confidence in their quarterback. The Rams don’t have it on the field right now and may not have it on their roster at all. It’s a depressing state to be in for so many seasons, especially after the drafting of Sam Bradford in 2010.

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The Bullet Round: STL Sports

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Let me introduce this new round of action:  Since I started blogging to a pack of buddies via an email blast over 10 years ago, I have always liked firing out a post on a
Sam+Bradford+St+Louis+Rams+v+Arizona+Cardinals+QFtwXuRJVTnlwide range of topics.  I’d call it “The Buffa Bullet Round” or “A Buffa Blast”. Bullet points, quick and smooth, about different things. One-topic articles are great but sometimes, firing away on a wide range of things can make for a fun read. On a radio show, they do the same thing. Over the course of the 2-3 hours, a host goes over a range of topics offering his take. Here is my first dispatch/bullet round, STL sports talk.

  • As spring training heats up and games start on the 28th, center field continues to be a hot topic. The Cards brought in Peter Bourjos by shipping out the hometown boy David Freese so they could improve the defense in the outfield. In 2013, the Cards were wretched in the field out there and hurt their team’s chances by not doing the pitchers many favors. Bourjos was brought here to help that. Some are claiming Jon Jay can hit better than Bourjos, which if you compare the two’s baseball cards is true; however, remember the context of the trade that was made. Bourjos gives you fantastic defense in center field and if he can get on base, could change the lineup speed-wise. Jay has been good here and is a good teammate, but I just don’t see where he gets too many at bats if the Cards and Matheny need great defense in center. That was the idea. A platoon doesn’t work because Bourjos can’t hit lefties any more than Jay can. With Jhonny Peralta giving shortstop an offensive boost, I would be willing to sacrifice a bat for a glove in center until Oscar Taveras is ready. And that’s another thing: when Oscar is ready, how many starts will Jay receive? Like Daniel Descalso on the infield, I see Jay as injury insurance. Mark Ellis is rookie meltdown prevention insurance with Kolten Wong taking over the reins at second base. Jay is going to have a hard time finding at-bats unless he discovers some new defensive ability.
  • Thank you, T.J. Oshie, for slashing away at the Russian express in the Olympics. Oshie did a lot more than sink some pucks in a shootout: I have a feeling the “Oshie in Sochi” sensation destroyed the Russians’ morale and paved the way for their loss today against Finland. Coming into the Games with monstrous expectations, Russia didn’t see the Oshie Express coming and got cut in half. Oshie didn’t just perform amazingly in the shootout, say the right things about heroes, and earn an additional 160,000 Twitter followers in a matter of days, I think he handed the Russian hockey team a full-on case of depression. Good for the Americans, the St. Louis Blues and the tournament overall.
  • Let’s not forget about David Backes and his efforts. The man doesn’t go anywhere without making an attempt to change a team and affect the environment he is in. He scored his third goal today against the Czech Republic and shut down their best player, Jaromir Jagr.  Backes has three goals, one assist for the Games and consistently changes the other team’s complexion every time he hits the ice. It isn’t always about goals and assists in hockey, it’s about the rugged intangibles:  inspiring your team to do better,  pushing your teammates and setting an example. Backes is the perfect captain because he looks the part and works his ass off to prove it to others. Every game is a chance to be a presence. Backes is also helping find a home for abandoned dogs in Sochi when he isn’t dominating on the ice.
  • Thank you, Rick Majerus.  I am not a huge college sports fan but I appreciate the effect this man had on St. Louis Billikens basketball.  When he came here, the team was in shambles and not faring so well.  His hard work, maturation, belief in the school and fearless personality turned this team into something the entire NCAA tournament field will have to worry about.  Nice job, Rick.  Everyone should remember this guy by devouring some barbecue because that is what the man loved. Food, life, basketball and making everything around him better.  (Writer’s note: Eating barbecue in moderation, as in once a year to celebrate a man’s passion for life, isn’t going to end any lives.)
  • Every Cardinal fan who claims to hate Robinson Cano’s lack of hustle on groundouts can feel very good knowing their high paid outfielder, Matt Holliday, sprints down the line every time no matter what.    Holliday hustles the most on the team. Pure, true grit.

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