CARDINALS WIN...so what?

Last night the Cardinals won the World Series, and apparently, no one outside of St. Louis and Detroit cared.

I didn't either. I ended up casually rooting for the Tigers because I like their young players and because I don't like how the media generally deifies LaRussa.

The Tigers showed what a middle market team with a committment to winning can do. That was one of the worst organizations in baseball, but Dave Dombrowski made investments in free agents, getting Ivan Rodriguez, Magglio Ordonez and Kenny Rogers. Then, he spent some dough on the farm system, which produced guys like Verlander, Bonderman, Zumaya and Granderson, who should be tough players for a long time.

That's bad news for the Indians, who are stuck with a well-intentioned GM but a miserly, skinflint of an owner. But, I digress.

The other reason I rooted for the Tigers is that Tony LaRussa is an ass, and the media's love affair with him makes me want to puke. He's got a law degree. So what? I know a lot of people with law degrees and half of them are idiots. If he's so smart, why couldn't he figure out that two of his stars, Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire, were pumped up on steroids? Didn't that law degree help out when opposing fans would chant "STER-ROIDS! STER-ROIDS!" every time Canseco stepped into the box? Didn't his vaunted intellect engage in a little critical analysis when he saw empty bottles of androstene in McGwire's locker? Maybe I'm being too harsh. Maybe LaRussa just stopped being a genius for those 10 years or so.

Anyway, he's an idiot, and as Forrest Gump might say, and that's all I have to say about that.

On the other hand, how 'bout that Jim Leyland. That poor guy loves baseball and apparently he walks a tightrope every game night. According to him, he was so wound up during Wednesday's rain out, he smoked a carton of cigarettes. He described it as "probably the worst day of the year for my lungs." That guy just has stones. I would have loved to have been hanging around the Tigers' dugout watching Jim fire up one butt after another. I'm sure he was pacing around the dugout, with his metal cleats clacking, just swearing about the rain.

His team lost the Series, but Marlboro should do the right thing and throw the guy a bone with some big advertising dollars. If the man's smoking a carton a night, he's earned it.