5 things on my mind, Father's Day edition: Marmol lunacy, Hunnam speed, Burr comedy, and mean driver tactics

As we celebrate the dads, good and bad, let's get into a few things on this HOT Sunday.

Ladies and gentlemen, the forecast for today is holy shit hot. There’s no need to discuss winds, gusts, dewpoint, or anything else weather-related. The high for today is 99 degrees, which would be a record in St. Louis for June. Without a drop of rain in sight, I feel like our chunk of the Earth will turn into the terrain of Blade Runner or Total Recall. The bridge isn’t out, but the sun sure is.

It’s not the sun that’s keeping away Cardinals fans from Busch Stadium games. The attendance has looked smaller and smaller, paid numbers be damned. The team still got the check, but the end result is a lot of empty seats. For a weekday night game before the heat got nuts with schools out, most of the terrace reserved top section was empty. They may as well fill those areas with the cardboard cutouts from the 2020 season. It’ll look better than red seats being baked at 5,250 degrees.

The team’s performance on the field doesn’t help. The Cardinals may be a few miles away from their complete ineptitude from last season, but they are still a below average team with a middling upside. Before the year, I said they could be good, bad, or ugly. They are building a nice house on a street between bad and ugly at the moment. The N.L. Central isn’t as bad as some make it out to be, but it’s Mount Everest to the Birds.

Every time they climb up a few hundred feet and start to make some headway, something knocks them back on their ass. While the sharpness of Shota Imanaga limited the offense to a single run, the managing of Oli Marmol revealed its ugliest trend yet in the two-plus seasons he’s been the Cardinals skipper.

Why in the world do you pull Andre Pallante after 59 pitches in the fourth inning. I don’t want to hear about Chris Roycroft’s sinker, because Pallante has one of those too. He had given up some hits and a run, but Marmol went to his pen and the team got burned anyway. The good, old days of a starter throwing 100+ pitches in a game are just about buried, but it would be nice if they can at least break into the upper 80s or 90s. Think of it like the mph of a pitch; triple-digits can be overrated, but going too far below makes your arsenal lame.

This isn’t new. Marmol pulled Miles Mikolas after 62 pitches when he was dealing two weeks ago. He pulled a cruising Kyle Gibson after 84 pitches this past week, and has yanked Lance Lynn (mostly for good measure) very early in a handful of starts. This is the same guy who would let an aging Adam Wainwright throw 100 pitches easily in a start, even if he was being pummeled. The bullpen is getting roasted due to these premature starter pulls from Marmol.

If there’s a dent in his work, it’s this annoying trait. If John Mozeliak calls, hang up the fucking phone. I really miss Tony La Russa. He may not be able to conjure more wins out of this team, but he wouldn’t dig a deeper hole.

A lot of things haven’t gone right this year. Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado fell off a cliff, offensively. Jordan Walker had a Dylan Carlson cocktail, and rescinded badly. He is having a problem hitting for power in Triple-A. The bullpen has been taxed, and the rotation has been good considering their members. They won’t die anytime soon, but the wildcard is looking like their best bet.

If you win 12 of 15 games only to lose 8 of 15, you’re an average team at best. St. Louis got to the .500 mark on May 29, and then fell back. They reached .500 again with Friday’s win, but have fallen back below. What a shame for $175 million.

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I wish Bill Burr would roast the Cards, because he’s pretty damn good at roasting things and people. Netflix is packed with great Burr content, and the guy always delivers. He’ll cross lines, offend people, and say what we’re all thinking about politics, the future, race, and can even tell his own sexual abuse story.

Burr’s gifts as an actor give a boost to his rapid-fire style delivery. He can switch personas on the fly, incorporating different voices and tones that are dead-on imitations of people he’s more than likely met on the road. The man can play all four characters in a story/bit like Eddie Murphy did in his movies.

How many guys can rant about wanting to adopt a 15-year-old soldier boy, and refer to it as human recycling without getting tossed from the stage? There’s always a means to his comedy’s end, withholding from just blind-grabbing at easy topics. Being married to an African-American woman, Burr can rant about the racial battles he has with her, including the origin of Elvis Presley’s dance moves. It’s hilarious and oddly (it’s a comedy show!) informative.

Watch him roast Michelle Obama’s arena tour in the Paper Tiger special, adding that the former first lady looked way better leaving the oval office than she did going in, while poor Barack looked like 25 years were added to his face. Saying that to a room full of Brits must have been an absolute hoot. (I bet Barack, quietly in his mancave, laughed his ass off at the arena tour joke.)

Burr is my kind of comic, a combination of Richard Jeni and George Carlin laced with Patrice O’Neal irreverence. Give him a look, and check out his shooting-the-shit podcast as well.

One thing I love about him are his traffic rants on YouTube. Burr and I could level on at least 55 traffic gripes, including the following one. The people who ride up right behind you super fast, go around you, and get into your lane almost directly in front of your car. It’s their way of saying, “I’m a shitty human who can’t overcome the rigors of his childhood and scoffs at the idea of adulthood, so I will be a total dick to your drive.”

They’re all over. Every morning on the route, I look down at these tiny human pond scum turds. They’re on their phones, desperately trying to tell the world about their morning… as they drive 45-60 mph. Highways turn into speedways because people can’t leave their house on time, or find a way to mortgage their minutes better. Others pay the price. It’s a never-ending story that usually ends with some Falling Down-type road rage.

Speaking of which, why hasn’t a car insurance company asked Michael Douglas to reprise his role in a witty commercial about controlling your rage and keeping your insurance premiums down? That would be liquid gold. (Next year’s Super Bowl team should be taking notes if they find this blog on the sixth search engine page of my name.)

While I was watching an underrated Netflix film called Triple Frontier last night, my dad and I were having a conversation about Charlie Hunnam. He sprang to stardom with the FX series, Sons of Anarchy, before enjoying a decent movie career that is still riding along smoothly. Hunnam is one of those actors that can be a huge asset in an ensemble, but may not be a great leading man in Hollywood.

It comes off as critical and negative, but it’s really a compliment. Jon Hamm, James Gandolfini, Jeremy Piven, Ian McShane, and the late Michael Kenneth Williams can attest to the same skill set. They were giants on television who carved out a niche for themselves in film. Hamm shined in Beirut and Million Dollar Arm, so he has some star power. But even he admitted that an ensemble is more his thing. McShane shined in Deadwood and has an integral role in the John Wick franchise, but wouldn’t be characterized as a leading man.

And it’s all good. I wouldn’t be classified as a leading man human. I’m good, and that’s good enough. Catch damn good Hunnam work in the aforementioned Triple Frontier, The Gentlemen, and Jungleland.

Speaking of good enough, I’ll end this latest round of #5ThingsOnMyMind with a salute to all the dads out there. There’s no playbook or written method for this job. It changes, evolves, adapts, and pivots in a second’s time. Looking after a human is the toughest of all life’s tasks. Teaching them to be a good person, do things the right way, and stay away from temptation and hate isn’t easy. It wasn’t easy for us, and won’t be for them. All we can do is help the moms be rock stars, and have their back.

I learned from the best, at least in my opinion. Rich Buffa, enjoy the day. To everyone else, be kind and stay cool during another rendition of Hot Ass Wet St. Louis Summer. No Paul Rudd, though.