NFL Nl Central

In a "I think you do a great job" sort of way, don't get any wrong ideas here. Matter of fact, the two were scheduled to have a "mutual admiration" meeting prior to the Cardinals/Rockies game Thursday night in Denver. How did the whole thing come about you ask? A lot of it started when La Russa read Shanahan's book. From The Denver Post: All Things Rockies blog:

Shanahan and his father, Ed, are planning to watch the game and then meet up with LaRussa.
Last year, La Russa read Shanhan's book, "Think Like a Champion," and came away very impressed.
"I admire him and I've heard a lot about him," La Russa said. "A lot of NFL guys come by our camp during spring training and I hear them talk about him. His name comes up a lot – always complimentary. It's about all the responsibility he has and how he handles it."

Just another example of the crossover amongst successful professionals in the sports world. It's like a secret society of elite coaches. Now you can add Mike Shanahan to the list of La Russa supporters, along with Bill Belichick, Bill Parcells, and Bobby Knight (thanks to MW of DBB for the reminder). I'll say this for the guy, if La Russa ever finds himself out of managing, he'll have no trouble sliding into the NFL.

(Photo Credit: Getty Images)

A few weeks ago, as I purchased tickets to the Saints/Rams game in New Orleans this November on StubHub, I wondered how teams could sit idly back knowing people were re-selling their tickets for gross profit on the Internet (for the record, I paid $70 apiece and a limb for $35 tickets). Historically, there's never been a profit a sports team hasn't liked, and if they could find a way to make extra money on something like ticket sales, why not?

Little did I know that the wheels have already been set in motion. If you live in St. Louis, take solace in knowing that, at the very least, the Rams and Cardinals will be making money twice on ticket sales. Each team will be offering a re-sell option for ticket holders who can't use their tickets. After you pay the team for your tickets, you can bring the tickets back to them, where they'll sell them to someone else for whatever price you set. They take a "convenience" commission. You keep the profits. It's like Flip This House, but you don't have to think about pastel-themed dining rooms or what tile to use in the master bath.

This is being made possible by the repeal on scalping in Missouri, although scalping in front of stadiums (or as I like to call it, the black market without all the fun of drugs or prostitution) will still be a no-no -- this is an Internet-only venture. The San Francisco Giants, in a move that contradicts the city's decidedly bohemian (read: dirty hippy) ethos, have already been using a system like this.

I'm really trying to find a reason to be indignant about this, but I can't come up with anything good. The system is literally identical to StubHub, a service I use fairly often. If someone is willing to pay more than face value for an event, that's their right. The seller sets their price for a good, the buyer decides whether or not to pay it, and the middleman takes a piece for the trouble. Let's hear it for the free market!

Still, I feel dirty knowing that teams are profitting twice on ticket sales. Something about it just doesn't seem right. Any anarchists out there care to conjure up some reason for me to want to rebel against the system for this?

"When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Cincinnati because it's always twenty years behind the times." -Mark Twain

Cincinnati deserves to be dumped on a times. It's a nice city with great tradition, interesting people and their own ways of doing things ... but this comment attributed to Mark Twain pretty much should be the caption underneath the Nati's skyline. Cincy operates in it's own little world and anything from outside doesn't resonate too well here. As a transplant from Charlotte, leaving the city to see my family makes me feel as if I'm leaving the woods and revisiting the outside world again. Sorry, guys, but I'm one of the few people that actually moved to the Cincinnati area ... not from.

That's where ESPN Radio's Colin Cowherd comes in. Cowherd's show, The Herd with Colin Cowherd, spent several minutes ripping the city of Cincinnati [you can listen to the rant here]. Cowherd does a number on the city by commenting on a news story about an airplane forced to land because a smoker goes crazy. That flight was from Cincinnati to Hawaii ... and Cowherd just runs smack all over the city. Listen to it, and you can't fight him on it.

He calls out the entire town, including the sports scene. The Bengals arrests, Bobby Huggins running a rogue Bearcat program, Marge Schott and Pete Rose fire-storming the biggest gambling scandal in baseball. He also talks about Hustler's Larry Flynt being from the city and former mayor Jerry Springer. And he, of course, touched off on the current mayor of Cincinnati's pitch on Monday:

"What is it with Cincinnati? ... For how small a city it is, is it me or does Cincinnati have a disproportionate number of bottom-feeders and low-level gutterballs?"

"Jerry Springer, Pete Rose, the Bengals, Bob Huggins, wild chick on an airplane, Larry Flynt ... They're not serial killers, they just have no class."

"I mean, it's just boring. People get in trouble. It's just boring."

"A similar sized city is Hartford. Charlotte. They're not in the news this much."

"Just a mess."