Nation prepares for onslaught of Cardinals slobber

UPDATE: Ken Rosenthal muscled his way to the top of the shit heap today with a column in which he speculates that magic is real and no fun-murdering sabermetrician can convince him otherwise.

If Billy Beane’s s**t doesn’t work in the postseason, how come the St. Louis Cardinals’ s**t always does? Seriously. I want someone to explain this to me. Preferably a sabermetrician, but at this point I’ll settle for a witch doctor.

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The Cardinals’ annual October magic is not some accident. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, and there is such a thing as Clutch.

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What, you expected the players to provide answers? They’re merely foot soldiers in the Cardinals’ best-of-seven nation army, executing some unknown, mysterious, grander plan. I want to know what that plan is. First one to explain it to me gets my endorsement for Dollars GM.

Whoa-ho, there, potty-mouth! Sounds like the Cards really got Rosenthal's bow tie spinning. "The Los Angeles Dollars?!" "Some sabermetrician or witch doctor?" The snark on this fella!

Basically, lil Kenny Rosenthal had a few too many pixie sticks during last night's game (Mom said to only have one, but you snuck a few, didn't you, you sly dog!) and he couldn't get a wink of sleep.

Instead, he hopped out of bed in his onesie and typed up a load of drivel no stat-touting baseball fan can respond to! It all makes too much sense: The Cardinals have harvested baseball magic from fairies living in Busch Stadium. The dust they secrete is implanted in several key locations - the dugout, the clubhouse, the bases so a cloud of it poofs out every time they touch a base - and voila! 63 post season victories!

I can't decide what would be more satisfying - a massive, team-wide Cardinals steroid conspiracy or them getting swept by either the Giants or one of the actually likable AL teams. I'm having trouble sleeping imagining either.

EARLIER:

Because the National League is tangled chaos from which only the Cardinals are greasy enough to escape, the NLCS will again feature St. Louis and its famous fans in 2014.

Upon the conclusion of Tuesday's NLDS Game 4, in which the Cardinals eliminated the Dodgers 3-2, MLB broke the glass and pounded the "CARDINALS LOVE" button. The nation could only watch in horror as yet again, headlines, tweets, and stories were blasted out from the league's central command, informing us that this could never have gone any other way.

"Please, no," cried the MLB.com content producer. "There's nothing left. We've gotten it all."

The editor's eye flinched involuntarily. "What did you say?"

"I said," the producer repeated, voice cracking, thoughts of his young family filling his mind, "I think there are enough Cardinals stories out there. I think the fans can live with what we have until tomorrow. I think we can all go home."

The editor smiled grimly and propped one leg up on an office chair, revealing a large hunting knife attached to his belt.

"Now you all listen to me. We're gonna stay here and we're gonna keep our hands down the Cardinals' pants until the internet runs out of space. You understand me?" The room nodded. "Does anyone have a family to go home to?!" the editor asked, subtly patting his blade.

The producer bowed his head into hands, weeping. "I don't understand. What we'll have to write will be so meaningless, so inane, such a repulsive, mindless, shameless waste of space, I... I can't even picture what it could look like!"

There will be more. And there is nothing we can do now. The world is theirs.

Cardinals fans have an endless source of power. If you're reading this in the future, and MLB exists as a one-team novelty league, please understand: we tried to fight. Well, not Don Mattingly, but everybody else tried. But they were too much - too smarmy, too self-aggrandizing, too insufferable, and we all just found better things to do than suffer a salvo of headlines like this:

Uh whoa wait how did that slip in there?