The id of the Cardinals

The St. Louis Cardinals are better than you. They have better fans, and they play baseball the right way. The Cardinal way. And because they are the Cardinals, their way is the right way.

Untuck your jersey after a game, you are unclassy. Celebrate a walk-off win against another team, you are unclassy. Wave white towels in excitement as a fan, you are despicable. Act like you've been there before. Just remember, the Cardinals and their fans are better than you.

Or Not.

What's more offensive to you, an untucked jersey or a horrific porn-stache? Here's a hint, only one of them just made me throw up in my mouth.

If the mustache doesn't convince you, nothing screams classy like one of your top pitchers complaining about fans, well, being good fans.

"He lost the ball in the 50,000 white towels shaking in front of his face," starting pitcher and would-be hero Adam Wainwright said. "It doesn't seem really fair that an opposing team should be allowed to shake white towels when there's a white baseball flying through the air. Dodger blue towels — how about that?"

Yea, those fans and their towel waving, really classy to blame them for being excited that your left-fielder got bag tagged rather than catch an easy pop fly. What's next, are they too loud? Are they saying mean things to you? Or is the problem that you just lost two games with supposedly the best pitching duo in the majors on the mound?

Speaking of the other top pitcher, what about Chris Carpenter's shouting at Dodgers game one starter Randy Wolf? Check out No. 2 in Tom Verducci's si.com story for more. Nothing like venting your frustration... at the other team's pitcher. And even if he did have an excessive bat flip, who cares? It's a bat flip, on an out.

But it's the Cardinals, and that means any shows of emotion from an opposing team are "not playing the game the right way." One of the greatest moments of the 2009 season was when the Crew beat St. Louis with a walk off hit and the entire team ran into the clubhouse to untuck their jersey because the Cardinals have a problem with the untuckem (it's classless).

It's the Cardinal way, Albert Pujols would never do anything like that... No Albert Pujols just stares down every pitcher who tries to throw inside on him. Newsflash Albie, that's baseball. It's not an affront to everything you stand for. If you don't want to get pitched inside stop hitting the living daylights out of the ball. Nobody is out to get you, so stop being an asshole.

But can he stop being an asshole? This team has taken on the personality of their Manager more than any other team in baseball and Tony LaRussa is the biggest asshole in the game today. Your team throws inside he'll have his pitchers hit you, whether it was intentional or not, that's just what he does. His is the clubhouse where no fun is allowed.

Do we all remember when LaRussa got a DUI for getting drunk and passing out in his car? While being stopped at a redlight? And the worst part of that whole situation is that when he managed his next home game home fans gave him a standing ovation. For what? Being a fucking moron? Classy St. Louis, very Classy.

That's right, Cardinalism starts with the team and spreads itself throughout the fanbase. Yes the Cards fans are some of the most informed in all of baseball. And thusly, they happen to believe that that are better than the rest of us, and why? Because the Cardinals do things the right way.

But what is the right way? Players doing off-base things like growing mustaches? Guys getting frustrated once in a while and venting publicly? Or staring down every pitcher who tries to back you off the plate?

Sorry, but the Cardinal way sounds an awful lot like the way the rest of baseball plays the game. Hate to break it to you St. Louis, but you're just like the rest of us. Your fans aren't better, your team isn't classier and baseball is, in fact, fun. Maybe once you get off the pedestal you've built for yourself you'll realize that. If you ever do, give us a call, we're the people that like to watch our team win and celebrate. We don't concern ourselves over towels and the class level of a performance, we just want a good game.

But we won't give an ovation to a drunk driver, that's classless.