I still can’t believe that the St. Louis Blues won the Stanley Cup. This was a day I never thought I’d see. I thought the Blues were doomed to another 50 years of championship drought a la the Cubs or Red Sox. I’ve never been so happy to be wrong in my life. Congratulations to the St. Louis Blues, and the Blues fans around the world.
Before there was a Hot in Herre, there was Highway Farty and carn on the cob. No, I’m not having a stroke, I’m referring to the dialect that I heard as a child growing up in St. Louis. Citylab recently had a post explaining the St. Louis accent.
The most stereotypical St. Louis pronunciation is “farty” for “forty.” St. Louisans swap an “ar” for an “or” sound, so they eat “carn on the cob” and wish each other “good marning.” This is unique to St. Louis, but the city has other features in common with the Midlands. Older St. Louisans say “worsh” for “wash,” “wants off” for “wants to get off,” and “I waited on him” instead of “I waited for him.”
The whole article is pretty fascinating. Go and give it a read.
Now that Baseball season is upon us, I thought I’d share a link that was sent to me a couple of weeks ago. Distilled History has a great look at the history of baseball parks in St. Louis (please forgive the author for not being a Cardinals fan). I never realized how many there actually were, especially in north St. Louis. Growing up, I only really heard of Sportsman’s Park, and of course, Busch II & III.
Go check out the post. He has some great images and maps.
“Do I want to be in St Louis forever? Of course. People from other teams want to play in STL and are jealous that we are in STL because the fans are unbelievable. So why would you leave a place like STL to go somewhere else and make 3 or 4 more million a year? It’s not about money, I already got my money. It’s about winning, that’s it”.
-Albert Pujols Feb 15, 2009
He reportedly signed a 10 year contract worth $255 million (which is $3-4 million per year more than what the Cardinals reportedly offered).
Proposition A jeopardizes the funding of critical services including fire and police protection, street repair, park maintenance, after-school programs, services for seniors including senior nutrition, transportation, cultural attractions and even restaurant health inspections.