By Tony La Russa

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It’s four A.M. Cardinal’s time. The gin is poured, the red wine is poured, I’ve consumed an entire large pepperoni from some vegan pizza shop that my nephew, Dennis La Russa, insists is the “future, you old bitch”, and an entire baseball that I ground into a hamburger-like substance and injected into my right thigh. To put it mildly, I’m in a mood. See, six hours ago I was engaged in my habitual scouting of traffic lights to grade in regard to how much i’d enjoy taking a nap underneath them on a scale of 1-10, when I drove past a yard of some great curiosity. The grass was green and well kept. It was nice. True idealistic americana poured over the entirety of the middle-class domicile. I’m not sure what it was that held me so suddenly spellbound but I couldn’t look away. I just idled the car and looked on in my state of captured curiosity. 

Then I knew.

I was just off South Broadway. The arteries that lead to baseball’s Mecca, Busch Stadium, bustled with the traditional traffic of drunk driving Saint Louisianaganders and they swerved around me with the practiced prowess of the midwest alcoholic. Swerve they would too for some time as I took this home into consideration. It was so ideal and yet so bleak, for nowhere over the entirety of  property was there a display of fealty to the fearsome American past-time performers that call our city home. Not a single display of appreciation for Cardinals nation lay within sight, but ya know what there was? Do you know what I fucking saw? A yard sign that read, and I quote.

“Trump Vance 2024” 

This Time we eat our enemies!

What has happened to this world? Look, voice your political opinions all you want, god knows my grandson, Dennis La Russa, does–he’s obsessed with that goddamn blog he runs, “Dennis La Russa First.” This is America, we vote, we argue, we transition power, we go on and on and on, but when the fuck did we let election supercede our celebration of the one true reason we have to live. Fucking Baseball.

Look, maybe this is the gallon of Uzo speaking but in my day we bled Red all year long. Sure my pappy, “Johann La Russa,” would put a sign every election that read “Free Alsace-Lorraine” but did he take down his statue of Stan Musial? Hell the fuck no he didn’t. We need to have our priorities or perish as a people. Campaigns last a year, administrations four or eight, but baseball goes on and on forever. The glorification of the blessed game cannot fall into the shadows of politics. In the 1980s every street in this town had a big as fuck red flag with Ozzie Smith’s face, stats, and a tasteful but accurate silouete of his Batting Manager–if you catch my drift. I can’t remember the last time I saw a town make a sacrifice to edify the works of our fine team. There was a time you couldn’t drive past a mcdonalds without seeing a pyre of Big Macs burning to satiate the great and terrible desires of the dreaded and powerful, Mark Mcguire. Now, its sad but true, I think i’m the only one on my street that slaughters a pig before every home game.

I’m not writing this just to chide the American public and the Doordash guy just brought me 120 chicken nuggets so I am sobering up a bit too much to be writing, so I’ll get to my point and stop jibber-jabbering like my Grandson, Dennis La Russa, when he’s hacked up on adderall and posting links of immigrant crime videos on the Joe Rogan subreddit. The American people are failed by a system of politics that keeps us divided. It keeps us angry and upset with each other in ways I wouldn’t wish upon Dodgers fans. We need a system that encourages the best of us to become leaders, we need a new political tradition that unites us, and, most of all, we need baseball. So here me out…

Let’s awaken Fred Bird prime and install him as a dictator, or, as I prefer to call him, America’s Coach.

Coach Fred Bird 2024 baby! It’s time. People may call it crazy but who wants to vote for this diaper-dumping orange fucktard or this coconut-pilled milfy mama when we can finally fulfill the prophecy and restore the Fallen One to his throne! People have forgotten that it’s been nearly 100 years since the true Fred Bird– who was much more than a mere mascot– self-immolated his soul and powered a span of baseball excellence the likes of which had never been seen. His time spent in the echoes of baseball glory, or the warp as some refer to it, has surely regenerated his soul and the time is right to summon forth his physical being. Once restored in body and spirit his powers will be even greater than before, and when could possibly be better to welcome home the fallen one than an election year?

Look, what’s the coolest thing that bloated carcass Trump has ever done? Fuck a bunch of porn stars? Who gives a shit? And Kamala is a girl so who wants that shit when you can restore the awesome power of THE BIRD. Need I remind you that he once stood four hundred feet tall and devoured the head of Dinger the Dinosaur when he dared sneak attack our fair city from the riverside? What about when he would shed his mighty feathers to give the Children of East Saint Louis sustenance every Christmas? Oh, and ye, I doubt even the most estranged from baseball boys and girls have forgotten when he consumed in flame everyone who wanted a soccer stadium in the 1920s.

How far we have fallen.

So let the ritual begin. The prophecies have said a game must be played that has never before commenced and, as the inventor of the illustrious “Mega Base,” I shall redon my priestly garments and oversee the procession. So hear ye now my proclamations and we shall not be governed by less than the feathered fellow who best may take us unto glory.

First off, Ten Cent Beer Night is back! Listen it’s the only good idea Cleveland ever had! It’s a ball game to save America and do you know how much our founding fathers drank? George Washington has a bar order that I consider very moderate, so enough to kill many normal people! Look it up! Ben Franklin? More like Ben Dranklin. He once said, ‘Beer is proof that god loves us and wants us to be happy, and these french whores could short-dick every cannibal in the Congo, so, Tanzig, go fetch my coin purse and all the vitamin E you can your get your hands on. I’m fitting to bust animal style, G.” Even that goofy ass Alexander Hamilton put ’em back when he was singing and fucking dancing. So yes, Ten Cent Beer Night is coming to Busch Stadium, and speaking of the stadium…

We must destroy Wembley, Fenway, Wrigley Field, and… um, ya know what, Camden Yards. The sacrifice will awaken a turbulence within the sundered soul of our fallen God Mascot and may serve as a powerful catalyst to draw him unto our ritual– this is very important if we are going to cause the all important physical manifestation. But fear not, now homeless baseball lovers, your stadiums will not be merely dismembered but they will be added to the structure of our newly built super stadium: Buschembleywaywrigfieldyardium. Yes, a great and powerful cathedral of baseball excellence, and, to really make sure the structure is sound, Buschembleywaywrigfieldyardium will consume the baseball hall of fame; the artifacts lying there in will be brought to their new home before the former hall is consumed in righteous flames to further signal the return of the fallen one. And, just like that, the most powerful sporting arena imaginable will make welcome our lost king. Come forth ye sundered sovereign, Come forth Buschembleywaywrigfieldyardium.

The game shall be played with new, more powerful rules. Obviously the Mega-Base will get its long awaited inclusion to our fine sport but listen ho, there will no gloves on the field. That’s right, instead great plumage of red must be collected and all the balls captured raw upon the hands of the participants or caught in the great crimson feathers they may wield. Never again shall balls be made of the skins of hooved creatures, now birds egg shall be compressed and the flesh of goose and gosling shall comprise the balls so essential to our ritual; I mean game.

And for this game and this game alone, bats of steel and uranium shall be used! The power with which balls will fly into the depths of our now seemingly infinite-sized stadium will ring out across the galaxy, into the hearts of all sporting fans. They will ring as a siren song to call the soul from depths of the afterlife and hasten our lords arrival. The uranium is also very unstable and that may help disrupt some of the natural laws the sometimes interfere with incantations of this degree; plus the bats will glow in the dark and that will be cool.

After the requisite 45 innings have completed. All participants shall be led to Big Mac Land. There, in the legendary kitchens splendor, the entire staff of the Cardinals and Cubs franchises shall be ground into Big Mac quality burger meat. The blood that will pour forth must then gather in a great pit. The coagulation will slowly settle into the shape and effigy of our lost leader, and then, and only then, can the ritual be completed but at a terrible cost. Both candidates of the former systems so called “Election” must be fed to a swarm of no less than ten thousand Red Birds. Their screams must echo through Buschembleywaywrigfieldyardium and call clear as ringing bells unto the night! Only then may the birds fly unto the crimson pit of coagulation and their bones and beaks join together to create the body to contain the soul of Holy One. 

It is then that I, Tony La Russa, will prove my dedication to Cardinals Nation. I have instructed my nephew, Dennis La Russa, that only blood may spill blood of a high-priest of Cardinals Nation. The boy has accepted his task with tears in his eyes, but there is no other way. to complete the Ritual, I, Tony La Russa, must be decapitated by the very bat wielded by Stan the Man in that holiest of year 1944. So hear this, beautiful reader, I can hear your confusion even as I write this letter, “Greatest Manager of All Time, Tony Larussa, how can you sacrifice your life with a weapon that was lost in the realms of warp space after Stan the Man Musial opened a rift when he hit a two run dinger that killed several onlookers in the postseason of that very year?” It’s a fair question, but hear ye this, my scientists at La Russa-Yutani have successfully opened a rift and it is stable. This letter to you, my dear citizens of cardinals nation will be my last communication until I may return and the Fred Bird may be restored. We are entering warp space in mere moments and I feel a queerness to it all. I am cold. The darkness seems somehow new, but familiar. Complete the stadium with great haste. Buschembleywaywrigfieldyardium must stand. I shall return friends and then the kingdom shall rise again.

 Fare the well friends.

Until I see you again.

P.S. If I don’t make it back in time don’t vote for Trump. He owes my nephew, Dennis La Russa, money and I fucked his mom. Thanks