The Mayor of St. Louis Needs to Hire a Better Intern to Write Columns for Him

I tried to ignore this response from the St. Louis mayor to the idea the Cardinals are the most hateable team in the 2014 MLB playoffs. I tried. The response from the St. Louis mayor just sat there in my Bookmarks staring at me everyday, wondering why I can't muster up a response to that response. I have a hard time not responding when I disagree with someone. It's a flaw of mine. On Twitter if someone Tweets something stupid at me I usually make a joke back or ignore it completely. It's a lot harder for me to ignore it completely, because as I'm told on a weekly basis, "You don't have to respond, just let it go." I can not. So I sit and stew over a Tweet sent my direction that is an obvious troll attempt and I know if I respond then I am just buying into the troll game. It's not that I am argumentative, it is more like I can't let someone who has stated something factually incorrectly stand uncorrected.

I had a sportswriter email me one time about something I had written here about something he had written (you know, like I do all the time) and we went back and forth over email for an entire Saturday. I had to make him see my point, which wasn't going to happen. He didn't want to see my point, he wanted to point out what he really meant to write even though he didn't write what he meant to write. I kept pointing out he didn't write what he claims he meant to write, so my criticism was fair. He kept pointing out what he MEANT to write, so my criticism was unfair. But that's not what he wrote...and so it went on and on. I had a hard time pulling myself from that conversation.

So anyway, this response from the St. Louis mayor has been sitting there, just begging me to post something about it. I have given in. I can't ignore this troll attempt by the St. Louis mayor (or by whoever really wrote this response). It's impossible for me to do.

The Wall Street Journal recently released its second-annual Major League Baseball Hateability Index in which it ranked the 10 playoff teams for 2014 “in order of general loathsomeness.” The rankings were based on 10 essential categories to haters including drug suspensions, “ridiculous beards” and, of course, the time-honored crime of winning too much.

Unfortunately what comes with "winning too much" is the fan base believing their team is more special and unique than any other team simply because their team wins a lot of games. Winning breeds cockiness and cockiness breeds loathsomeness.

On the strength of its pennant collection and rabid fan base, which both travels to opposing stadiums and refers to itself as a “nation,” my hometown St. Louis Cardinals came in first.

As I have said before regarding other situations like this one, it's not that the Cardinals necessarily travel to opposing stadiums, it's that there are fans of the Cardinals who live in the same city or area where the opposing stadium is located. Thousands of Red Sox fans don't travel to Atlanta to come to a Red Sox-Braves game, these people often live in the city of Atlanta and want to cheer for the Red Sox team they don't get to see play very often.

You see, while you might think of St. Louis as flyover country and not pay us much due, we’re kind of a big deal come October on Major League Baseball diamonds.

See, this is overly-douchey and is a great example of why some people find the Cardinals loathsome. It's cockiness dressed up as false modesty. Because St. Louis is known as flyover country and that's why it's not a tourist attraction at all. No one comes to see the Gateway Arch or anything. You see, the Cardinals get their due. They get a lot of due. The public is aware the Cardinals get their due because douchey Cardinals fans like the mayor of St. Louis are constantly reminding everyone just how great the Cardinals and their fan base are.

In fact, we’re kind of a big deal for a number of reasons.

This sentence is a great example of why the Cardinals came in first in the hateability index. Nobody said the Cardinals weren't a good team, but in response to a hateability index that partly factors in how many pennants that team has won over the past 10 years, the mayor of St. Louis refutes this index by reminding readers how many pennants the Cardinals have won. His response to "we shouldn't be hated" is reminding readers of exactly why the Cardinals tend to be hated. It seems like the mayor of St. Louis doesn't have a firm grasp on exactly why the Cardinals are hated. This. This writing is why the Cardinals are seen as hated. Nobody likes false modesty and refuting the Cardinals' fans think too much of themselves by saying "scoreboard" only serves to prove the point of the hateability index results.

Thus, I feel compelled to deliver a simple message to America: We’re sorry.

Sure, we’re sorry the Cardinals have won 11 World Series championships, two since 2006.

No, we are sorry you are coming off like a smarmy braggart. You know, essentially what you are writing this column to prove you as a Cardinals fan are not.

Indeed, we’re sorry that New York and San Francisco are 2.3 times and 1.7 times respectively more expensive to live in than the St. Louis metro area.

Just don't be black and live in the St. Louis metro area or else one of two things will happen. You will get shot by a police officer or you will be quarantined in East St. Louis where the city prefers to keep their unwanted citizens. Also, how expensive it is to live in St. Louis has nothing to do with sports or why the the Cardinals are at the top of the hateability index. Whichever department in the city of St. Louis gave you this information for the purposes of this column probably didn't know you were going to use it to make a strawman argument like this.

We’re sorry for producing one of the world’s best-selling batteries (Energizer)

Oh, I didn't know St. Louis produced one of the world's best-selling batteries. How can anyone hate a city that produces so many batteries which take up landfill space and don't decompose? Not to mention, Town and Country, Missouri is actually where the Energizer headquarters are. It is a suburb of St. Louis, so I guess if I can make a reference to Ferguson, Missouri then I can let this one go.

and two of the 10 best-selling beers in the world—Budweiser and Bud Light.

Which is the beer that should only be used to put in the cups during beer pong to punish your opponent when you land a ping-pong ball in one of their cups. But no, congratulations on producing one of the 10 best-selling beers that is losing market share to craft beers and other beers that don't taste like watered down Sprite with a slight twist of cat urine.

We’re sorry that the four largest metro areas in the nation lost nearly 25,000 financial-service jobs between January 2007 and September 2012, while St. Louis added more than 5,500 in the sector.

(Mayor of St. Louis calls his Economic Development Director) "Find me some jobs that we have gained and other cities have lost."

(Economic Development Director) "We have a lot more police now and military supply sales have gone up in the past month due to Fer---"

(Mayor of St. Louis) "No, I want gains in jobs that people like."

(Economic Development Director) "We have gained jobs in the financial services sector over the past five years."

(Mayor of St. Louis) "Shoot that information to my intern so he can include it in this letter I am writing that he is actually writing for me. Everyone loves people who work in the financial services sector of the economy. America doesn't feel at all like these people make huge income and profits on the back of working class Americans through shady deals and investments."

That guy Jon Hamm? Yeah, we’re sorry for raising him here and sending him out into the world for your entertainment delight.

That's weak. Where does Jon Hamm live now, at least when he isn't being trotted out like a mascot to some St. Louis sporting event? Oh yeah, he has moved the hell out of St. Louis and lives in California now. A lot of cities can take credit for celebrities who were born there, but don't live there anymore. The key to proving your city isn't shitty is if the celebrity still lives there. The Charlotte area can take credit for K-Ci and JoJo, but I'm not sure anyone wants to do that.

We’re sorry for our diverse community in that more Bosnians—over 60,000—call St. Louis home than anywhere outside of Bosnia.

Whoops, that's 59,999 Bosnians. Someone just got shot for carrying a pack of gum that a St. Louis police officer thought was a pipe bomb.

But seriously, who the hell writes, "You can't hate our baseball team because we have a lot of Bosnians who live here"? What is that? So far, the mayor of St. Louis has said, "Scoreboard" and "Look at all our Bosnians" as to why St. Louis shouldn't be hated. I would venture the mayor can count the number of these Bosnians he really knows on one hand.

We’re sorry for Forest Park, our beautiful 1,300-acre urban park comprises an award-winning zoo, science center, art and history museums, golf courses, ice rink and green space.

This has nothing to do with sports. Clearly the mayor was too busy doing other shit and didn't understand the hateability index had to do with sports. Bringing up points that have nothing to do with sports is stupid and proves the mayor of St. Louis doesn't really understand what's supposed to be refuted.

We’re sorry for not only being home to 18 Fortune 1000 companies, but for developing one of the most promising and fastest-growing ecosystems for startups and entrepreneurs, delivering innovations that are being used by businesses and consumers world-wide. You know, like that pesky social-media platform Twitter (St. Louisan Jack Dorsey )

Lives in San Francisco and graduated college in New York.

or credit-card processing device Square (St. Louisan Jim McKelvey).

Which is a company based on St. Louis. McKelvey does have several businesses in St. Louis though, so in terms of proving the Cardinals shouldn't be hated because a rich dude owns businesses in the city of St. Louis, this is a big win for the mayor.

We’re sorry that at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, Richard Blechynden served tea with ice, thus inventing iced tea (although not the rapper/actor Ice-T).

Well, the intern who did the research on this one probably should be reprimanded. Blechynden probably didn't invent iced tea.

The point is that we here in the Midwest are not a boastful people. 

Except you just spent the entirety of this response to the hateability index bragging about how great St. Louis is and randomly bringing up famous people who hail from the city even though that has nothing to do with sports. Other than all your bragging, you are not a boastful people. 60,000 Bosnians would agree.

We’re humble

Nope, a listing of the team's and city's achievements is not being humble. Might want to call the intern to get you a dictionary to look up the word "humble."

and quietly go about our business, inventing the things you use every day, entertaining you, finding employment for your citizens and handing you losses on the baseball field regularly.

Yep, this sentence isn't "quietly going about our business." It's an example of bragging and then desperately trying to bring the discussion back around to sports when that's not at all what this entire response was about. The hateability index was not about not hating St. Louis for non-sports related reasons, which seems to be the point the mayor of St. Louis has missed entirely.

(We’re especially sorry to Chicago.)

This is why you are #1. Exactly why.

Don’t hate us because we’re beautiful here in St. Louis. But if you do, just know that we’re sorry. Go Cards!

The intern who did all the research, wrote and proofread this response, and then emailed it to the mayor certainly needs to step it up a notch and work on his/her reading comprehension skills. Either that or this is a huge troll job by the intern who wanted to prove exactly why the Cardinals ended up #1 on the hateability index by bringing up the points that were made in this insufferable, strawman introducing, "best fans in baseball so who can hate us?" response. 

Very poor showing here by the intern.