Saturday morning, four members of the BertFlex crew (and one groupie) took a road trip to Kansas City to see the Cardinals beat on the Royals.  I’m willing to take all the credit for the two wins: so yeah, you’re welcome.

Going to KC has been on our minds for years now, and we were finally able to work it into our busy blogger schedules.  In general, I'm not one of Kansas City's biggest fans, but I'd be comfortable placing it in the top 300 cities in America, give or take a few. 

It was really cool to see a ton of other Cardinal fans in attendance, though I guess it is usually like that every year.  And it’s always fun to spot some gross jerseys at the park (Kyle McClellan, Brian Barton, and Jose Oquendo T-shirts, along with Renteria and U of Miami jerseys… oh wait, that was us).

Before the game on Saturday, we hit up Arthur Bryant’s for some BBQ.  It’s a cool little place (we were at the original location), and we got extremely fat(ter) on 3 pounds of meat, beans, and fries.  Unfortunately, they didn’t have ribs, so I can’t label them as “Best BBQ Ever” on principle.  I don’t know if they were flat out of stock or if we couldn’t order a big-ass plate, but we were denied of ribs.  They knew I was coming, so it’s bad preparation on Arthur Bryant’s part. 

We sat on the lower level behind home plate that night, after somehow getting hold of five tickets Wednesday morning off the Royals website.  Maybe some players’ wives and/or mistresses decided not to go?  Or maybe they knew about the annoying lady a few rows behind us who screamed at everything?  I’m a magnet for idiot fans no matter where I go; it’s unreal.

As for the game, I was impressed with Boggs performance, even if the gun was juiced up a bit (he was hitting 95 numerous times).  It’s actually a half miracle that Kyle Davies didn’t get torched; he left so many pitches up, he was pretty lucky his night wasn’t over by the third. 

Side note – the Royals’ new HD scoreboard is awesome.  It really brings out the badass facial expressions of guys like Ross Gload and Billy Butler.  And it’s better than anything at the new Busch… except for the whole “more retired numbers, championships, and fans” thing.  If I had to pick, I’ll take World Series flags and a black-and-white scoreboard over a high-def scoreboard and a head-scratchingly bad Royals Hall of Fame.  Also, I’m not a big fan of Kauffman Stadium; the view from the seats is nice, but overall, I actually think it’s kind of dump-like (similar to Busch II, but not as charming).  The HD scoreboard is certainly one thing to copy from this place.  Bill DeWitt, make it happen.

Sunday went according to plan as well, assuming your plan was to see Jason LaRue have the game of his life.  On our website, we have a thing called the Pellegrino Curse, named after one of our staff members (who was on this trip).  Pretty much any time he calls a player shitty, terrible, horrible, etc., that player tends to make him look bad by hitting a home run (or scoring a goal in hockey, TD in football, etc).  It’s not a one-time thing either; it’s happened countless times and is rarely ever contagious, until the second inning Sunday. 

With Kennedy on first and two down, Buck went out to talk to Bannister about the encounter they were about to have with the never-dangerous LaRue.  I said, “Why do they need to talk about anything; it’s Jason LaRue?”  One of my cohorts, Big Head, said “They’re probably saying ‘Ah, this guy’s shitty, just throw it over the plate.’”  Second pitch: two run bomb – and it wasn’t even Pellegrino’s fault, though I’m sure he agreed with everything said in our conversation.

After some shaky innings from the bullpen, the Cardinals closed it out and took home a 5-4 record on a tough road trip.  We saw a nice two days of baseball – and when you toss in lots of food, some RBI Baseball at the hotel, and plenty of offensive moments, it turned out to be a productive trip.  Like Jason LaRue, our brief moment of excitement is over; it’s back to polishing Molina’s cleats for us. 

HMW shows flashes of brilliance over at www.bertflex.com.  Also, if you are a high school girl, or just a creep, become our friend at www.myspace.com/bertflex.  Like, yeah.