It’s not like the Cubs/Cardinals rivalry needed any more gasoline added to the fire but for some reason, it’s gotten plenty over the past couple of days.
In case you’re unaware, on Friday night, Cubs star Kris Bryant was at the Cubs convention being interviewed by former Cubs pitcher Ryan Dempster. In that interview, Bryant made a joke about the city of St. Louis being “boring” and that he doesn’t enjoy playing there. Dempster doubled down and said when he was in the process of being traded there was a “zero chance in hell” that he would have accepted a trade to St. Louis.
I wrote an article about it and included some of the comical (and ridiculous) responses from Cardinals fans on Twitter. I’ve read anything from “Kris Bryant isn’t good enough to play in St. Louis” to “I hope Kris Bryant gets hit by a bus and turns into a quadriplegic.”
Yes, seriously.
I can expect those responses from fans who live and die by their favorite teams but even some Cardinals players were none too pleased with Bryant’s comments. Relief pitcher John Brebbia called Bryant a “loser” (although he later said he was joking) and the poster boy for the Redbirds, Yadier Molina, took offense to the comments and went off on his Instagram account.
Here again we see a Cardinals player calling Bryant a “loser” for a harmless comment which I find hysterical for a variety of reasons.
- Bryant said the comment at Cubs Convention in a room full of Cubs fans. Did anyone think he’d really say, “Oh man. I love St. Louis. Beautiful city. Great food.” The comment was obviously meant to feed into the crazy Cubs fan base.
- KB only referred to the city of St. Louis and nothing about the Cardinals organization yet damn near every fan comment brings it back to being about the organization.
- The only “insult” that came out of Bryant’s mouth was that the city is “boring.” He could have really been a dick and bashed the city in pretty much any way he wanted to but he made a joke about it being boring instead. Completely harmless.
Well, Yadi has had enough of KB and his thoughts on St. Louis. He told MLB.com’s Jenifer Langosch that Bryant’s words will “carry on into the season” and he “can’t wait to get on the field.”
What’s even funnier to me is Yadi went all “300” during his interview and vowed to defend his ground treating St. Louis like goddamn Sparta.
“I said to the guys, ‘We are like a family. We have to stick together. We have to defend ourselves, and we have to defend our ground.’ Whoever says something about us, we are going to be there to defend us.”
Calm down, Leonidas.
Look, if ANY Cardinals player was asked about the city of Chicago during their Cardinals Caravan bullshit they do every winter, I’d EXPECT them to trash the city and Wrigley Field. It’s what rivals do. You know how many trash comments I read from Cardinals fans about how dangerous the city of Chicago is, or Wrigley Field is outdated, or Cubs fans just go to games to drink, or you may get shot if you go to Chicago…I could keep going with the comments if I had to.
My point is, Bryant’s comments were harmless and I wouldn’t even consider them to be trash talk because the dude doesn’t have that reputation. Even if he did have that reputation, he called the city boring dude…get over it.
I don’t know. Maybe the Cardinals need this to try and stoke a rivalry that has been non-existent the past five years.
