As much as I try to ignore the start of the NFL season each September, it’s growing increasingly hard to do so. Maybe this disinterest stems from the Rams offering nary a glimmer of hope (let alone proof) that they’ll be worth watching (let alone possible to watch on home Sundays). Maybe it’s because I care much much more about football played on Saturday. It’s possible the Cards inching closer to the return of playoff baseball has something to do with it as well.

Nevertheless, I have to acknowledge that MLB would be best served to take a page from the NFL book in the way they hype and produce the season’s start.


Thursday night in Pittsburgh, the Steelers kicked off the season with too much glitz and pageantry to avoid.


Admittedly, it was cool.


Before busting out a pyrotechnic display usually reserved for a KISS concert, the NFL and the Steel City played host to a rather solid concert outside of Heinz Field to get those not yet jacked into a frenzy as the defending Super Bowl Champions began their title defense.


It was right there and then I was reminded that we have already been introduced to our pennant chase soundtrack. Whether you like the Black Eyed Peas or not, you can not deny that their latest chart topper ‘I Gotta Feeling’ is a song we all might as well grow accustomed to down the stretch this season.


Yes, I’ll acknowledge that the song is borderline terrible, that it will be played out (if not already) by the time the first pitch of the division series is thrown and that it probably should be titled ‘I Got A Feeling’ but that’s neither here nor there.


Hell, I’ll be the first to admit that until last Thursday, I didn’t know that Will I. Am (of the Peas) and Wyclef Jean are not actually the same person. My bad.


What matters, arguably, is that in the spirit of classic Cards-in-October melodies like Celebration, The Heat is On and even the more recent BEP jam Let’s Get it Started, the ’09 season has its song that will hopefully live in infamy in Cardinals lore just like this team.


Again, I can’t with a straight face endorse a song that bypasses normal rhyming tendencies by naming off the days of the week. I’d rather not be caught singing out loud ‘jump off that sofa, lets get it up!’ and I would like to believe I could resist belting out a few dozen ‘woo hoos’ in front of strangers after each verse. But I have no choice.


What’s the alternative- Taylor Swift? Nickelback? Shinedown? Mudvayne? Some other meth-induced rock that becomes way too popular in this part of the country. Pish posh.


Give me the Black Eyed Peas.


The song works in the wee hours of the AM in anticipation of the Cards next game, it works right before first pitch as tension builds and of course it plays perfectly to a crowded house in most all drinking establishments all over this fine city.


Oh, and they started playing it after Cardinal victories at Busch already. They got some smart folks up in that booth.


With Monday night’s ‘outlasting’ of the Fish, the Cards magic number is now 10. Yes, this number is probably still a bit too high for an at-Busch clinching to happen later this week. I guess our collective wet dream of wrapping up the Central against the Cubs with DeRosa hitting a walk-off home run that somehow bounds off Soriano’s melon into the bleachers will have to wait another year.


However, chances are high that this team will seal the deal in the central in about a week’s time. The Cards will have amazingly won a share of their seventh division championship in the decade. It will be a time to celebrate, the heat will indeed be on and in every place you set foot in, some non-Jewish person will be yelling ‘Mazel Tov!’


You’ll join in too, even if you prefer Nickleback. Woo Hoo!