The year was 2000, and Joe Buck was emceeing a Sporting News special event at Union Station.


"Because Bob Costas was not available, my name is Joe Buck, and I'm here to make a very special announcement," Joe said.


"The Sporting News has selected St. Louis as the Best Sports City in America."


And...why not?


The Rams had just won the Super Bowl. The Blues had just finished the NHL's regular season with the league's highest point total. And, the Cardinals won the National League Central Division Championship.


Meanwhile, 125 miles down the road in Columbia, Missouri football's apparent rebirth in 1997 and 1998 appeared to be a false alarm, and the Tigers were on their way to a dismal record and the firing of Larry Smith.


8 years later...
...the world is upside down.


Here comes some sports talk radio hyperbole in print...but I actually believe it: yesterday may have been the most damaging day---ever---to all three of the city's pro sports teams' short-term and long-term hopes.


Sounds like something you might hear every Monday on SportsCenter when Mike Greenberg and his producers want to turn the previous day's activities into the latest prisoner-of-the-moment sports news superlative?


Why yes...yes it does.


But, when evaluating the goings on from 11 a.m. to approximately 5 p.m., I don't think St. Louis area sports fans have received anything like the shot after shot after shot that we took yesterday. And, each shot could have severe long term ramifications.


The day started innocently enough. On The ITD Morning After, we even wasted---I mean---spent some time on the previous evening's Cardinal game. While just saying the words "Scott" and "Linehan" on the air these days can get the phone lines to light up like Lindsey Lohan's eyes if she were to see Porti De Rossi holding an eight ball, the show was chock full of its usual grabass...as there weren't really many (or any) legitimate hot-button topics to dwell upon.


One hour later, it all changed...and I'm not sure the city's sports scene will ever be the same. Sounds dramatic, I know, but I fear this to be the case.


At 11 a.m., the Rams sent out an email announcing Scott Linehan was benching Marc Bulger and starting Trent Green for Sunday's game against Buffalo.


I understand why Linehan is doing this. I'm quite certain he's aware that there's a good chance Sunday will be the last time he is the head coach of an NFL team. When you're drowning, you'll use anything---or anyone---to try and stay afloat.


However, in my estimation, this is the beginning of the end of the Marc Bulger era. Personally, I think he looks like he's on the decline...not necessarily through any fault of his own so much as the fault of, initially, the system in which he quarterbacked and, most recently, the offensive lines inability to protect him.


Either way, this past Sunday he actually had time to throw, and he couldn't deliver.


He will probably be back to start a game in 2008...and 2009. But, despite the monster contract he received within the last 2 years, this move signifies the Rams' admission that something isn't right. And, so that means that despite the obvious need for help on the offensive line and all of the defense, the Rams now *must* take a quarterback in one of the first three rounds next April.


The commitment of a high pick like that only further delays the inevitable rebuilding of a franchise in absolute disarray right now.


I was hopeful that the Blues would be the bright light of St. Louis sports this year, but at 3 p.m., the news of Erik Johnson's torn ACL and partially torn MCL came through the insideSTL.com offices. Sources told us that Johnson would be out "upwards of 3 months." Later in the evening, Blues President John Davidson said Johnson would be out "indefinitely." The Post-Dispatch's Jeremy Rutherford reported "indefinitely" would probably mean 6 to 9 months.


And, if the photo to the right as Davidson made the announcement doesn't sum up how both he and the organization feels about this news, I don't know what does. The despair and frustration on Davidson's face encapsulates the feelings of both the Blues' President...and the fan base, which today must feel that there really might be a curse surrounding the franchise.


Literally 3 days before the start of training camp, Johnson tears knee ligaments in a golf outing with teammates at the Lake of The Ozarks. This was a trip designed to create some team unity before the boys began camp...and instead, the trip may be the most destructive one since the team boarded a flight to Vancouver in April 2003 to try and avoid blowing a 3-1 series lead. Things haven't been the same since that Game 7 loss 5 years ago...and the hope was this year would be the year the team returned to the playoffs.


As Kelly Chase said in March while sitting in studio with us at Team 1380, "Boys, I hate to put this pressure on you, but you got to make the playoffs" this year.


All the offseason work. All the development of young talent. All the hope of mixing the youth with the veterans...all of it takes a vicious, vicious blow...with an accident to *the* key to the team's success this season...on a golf course.


Will Johnson ever be the same? Will this curtail his development into the superstar and cornerstone the franchise hoped for? Those questions will be answered down the road, but for an organization that needed a big year...and had the stage to themselves with the Rams and Cardinals struggling...the news of Johnson's injury is catastrophic.


As if the city hadn't had enough, just 90 minutes later, the Post-Dispatch's Joe Strauss posted a story online indicating Chris Carpenter's career is in jeopardy because of what was called a compression and scarring of nerves in his right shoulder.


Signed to a monstrous extension after the 2006 season on which he's still owed more than 40 million dollars, Carpenter has made 4 starts since the day he put pen to paper in December 2006. The Cardinals have paid nearly 5 million dollars per start over 2007 and 2008.


And, now, according to the outstanding reporting of Strauss who had to put this story together without official comment from Tony La Russa, John Mozeliak, or Carpenter himself, Carpenter's staring down another potentially lost season next year.


From the Strauss  story in the Post-Dispatch, Cardinal fans read this discouraging quote:
"This is a big deal," according to source close to Carpenter. "If the nerve doesn’t recover, it’s a serious problem. It could prevent him from pitching."
 

Late Tuesday night, Mozeliak said a specialist recommended surgery for Carpenter to try and get the shoulder back to where it needs to be...and that the maximum time he'd miss would be three months.


Perhaps on the darkest day for all three sports franchises in the city's history, it's nice to have some---at least perceived---light at the end of the tunnel. But, realistically, even if Carpenter does somehow recover, the organization cannot possibly approach 2009 counting on Carpenter...and that means as opposed to bringing in (or back) just one starter, now they must focus on bringing in two...along with a bat for the middle infield and a solution for the disastrous 2008 bullpen.


In other words, 2009 has gone from visions of a rotation featuring Carpenter, Wainwright, and Wellemeyer to fears of another "transition year." And, I wonder if this news will impact the return of Dave Duncan and Tony La Russa.


Optimists like to say when all hell breaks loose something like, "Well, it can only get better from here."


I, as a realist---some would say pessimist---who tends to see things as they are, say September 23, 2008 could be the start of a long, brutal time in St. Louis sports. Some deus ex machina will have to arrive on the scene for one of the three franchises to be competitive in the short term. Is there another Kurt Warner lurking out there for the Cardinals, Rams, or Blues? Perhaps.


But, you and I both know that's not likely.


8 years ago, the smiling faces of Edmonds, Pronger, and Warner shined brightly on the cover of the Sporting News proclaiming St. Louis the Best Sports City in America while Missouri football reached yet another lowpoint.


3,000 days later, you won't be finding a Cardinal, Ram, or Blue on the cover of any magazine. But, Missouri football has been on the cover of Sports Illustrated twice in the last 10 months.


Our world has been turned upside down over the last 8 years...and it's never been worse than it has been over the last 24 hours.