Why Is Colin Cowherd Spouting Off About St. Louis Cardinals Fans?

Why Is Colin Cowherd Spouting Off About St. Louis Cardinals Fans?

What’s going on everyone and welcome in to this edition of Bshave Daily. Brendan Schaefer with you. It is Saturday, August 16th, 2025. Cardinals lose on Friday night to the New York Yankees four to3. A tough outing by Andre Palante. Just struggled in the early going once again. The Yankees offense gets on the board pretty quickly. Palante ends up with striking out eight batters in the game which was nice to see. But the five innings, four runs allowed. Another clunker of an outing if you’re looking at the erra perspective which you should be. And it’s really been a month plus now of struggles for Palante. Cardinals offensively, they were without a couple of their key starters. Brendan Donovan, Wilson Contrarus, both out of the lineup, dealing with some foot injuries. Contrarus was hit by a pitch. Donovan had a a foot or a toe situation crop up and it may be a couple days before we see him again. We’ll see what today’s lineup looks like and whether either of those gentlemen are back in it. But that hurt the Cardinals a bit offensively as they were able to muster just three runs in the loss. Doing it all pretty late in the game. They scored a run in the sixth and two in the seventh to try to mount the come from behind bid. They had an opportunity there after a wild pitch. Made it four to three. Scored a runner from third base. One more swing could have tied the game for the Cardinals or even put them ahead had it been a long ball. But the Cardinals couldn’t get that last swing and they end up falling four to three in the game. I want to spend some time I’ll probably dive into some of that talk as well. But I want to spend some time talking about something else that happened in Cardinals land on Friday. And this really was something that that began before the game ever did. We’re talking about the tweet that was sent by Colin Cowhurd who is a national sports media commentator. Believe he has a show still on the Fox Sports Network. Used to be involved at ESPN. And honestly back in the day I always appreciated Colin sports commentary but he almost kind of got too big. When you get to be such a big name and on a national scale you almost can become a caricature of yourself. We’ve seen that happen with guys like Stephen A. Smith, Skip Bis. I think Colin Coward to a pretty great extent has had the same thing happen. He has taken on a national profile and what you maybe used to consider the standard for him and the the expectation for his sports commentary has definitely changed to where like realistically seeing Colin Coward comment on baseball in general w would be surprising because on that national show he’s talking about the NFL. He’s talking about the NBA. Maybe he’s talking some college football. If there’s a player involved that’s going to soon be in the NFL, then okay, you could talk about that. But let’s be real, on a national scale, these talking heads are not talking about MLB. And they’re certainly not talking about the St. Louis Cardinals, at least not in recent years. And so when I see this tweet from Colin Coward from yesterday, show it on the screen there. I’m like, what are we doing here? His tweet reads as follows. St. Louis is currently 19th in MLB attendance. There was an argument it was the most rabid and loyal baseball city in America less than 10 years ago. That’s the whole tweet. And I’m like, what are we doing here? What is this tweet from Colin Coward at 4:31 p.m. Central time yesterday? I’ll tell you what the tweet was. Let’s be honest about it. Colin Coward, he doesn’t talk baseball and like I said, certainly isn’t following what’s going on or what’s been going on with the St. Louis Cardinals over the past Well, he says less than 10 years. So less than 10 years would be 2016 to now. I is that considered the golden era of Cardinal baseball starting in 2016. So you got your timeline wrong anyway, right? In fact, 2016 was the first year that I started covering the St. Louis Cardinals. Uh was for 590 the Fan most of that summer and then for KOV toward the end of that season. I was fresh out of college and that’s when I kind of got my foot in the door and that one of the first I think the very first article I ever wrote for KOV was that September like the end of the month end of the season and it was about the attendance actually it was about the Cardinals attendance probably like dipping below 40,000 and I like the article was like what’s going on with the attendance wow fans are really you know upset because you know 2016 that was the year following the Cardinals having a 100 win season winning the Central losing to the Cubs in the NLDS And then obviously 2016 was was a missed playoff season and by the the last series or so. It was completely foreign at the time, but at the time the Cardinals had like a couple games of meaningless baseball, if you will, where they were mathematically eliminated. And it was something that hadn’t happened in I mean since maybe 2010 would have been the last time. And even then I it might have come down to the very end of the season. So it was notable. And I kind of I wrote a quick article just like noting like, yeah, a little bit of a different vibe at Bush. And so when he says less than 10 years ago in his tweet, I’m like, first of all, you don’t even have the timeline correct. The reason you don’t have the timeline correct in like the heyday of the BIB and like the the national narrative talking about Cardinals fans, which is among, if not the most rabid and loyal baseball cities in America. that is still true to this day, which is why the the tweet bothers me from Colin Coward because he’s like divebombing in to talk about something that he has no idea about and and legitimately, if he were being honest with us and with his viewers, hasn’t followed over the course of that last 10 years or so timeline that he gives. And that’s what bothers me about it. Again, you got the timeline wrong. the heyday would have been like 2011 to 2015 I would say for like the most recent era of that that BIBib concept right where the Cardinals were in the playoffs every year the fans obviously you know selling out which they did you know 20 20 2009 was a playoff season 2006 was uh the World Series season that year 05 04 like you can go back the early 2000s were very productive for the Cardinals as well but like it really felt like the national narrative it was around when I was in college, right? 2011 had just happened. So 2012, 13, 14, 15. That was kind of the the era that I feel like he’s referring to here when he says less than 10 years ago. But he’s pointing at the current attendance and to say they’re 19th. And by the way, the only reason he even noticed, the only reason that yesterday Colin Coward remembered that the the St. Louis Cardinals exist as an organization. I I would I would strain to imagine the last time this the the phrase St. Louis Cardinal had been said on one of his shows on TV or radio or that he tweeted about the Cardinals. I would that years. I would almost I would almost bet money on it that it’s been years. The only reason, the only reason that he was able to invoke the Cardinals as an existent organization yesterday and doing so in a derogatory fashion by blaming the fans for attendance. Like that’s the implication here. But the only reason is because they’re playing the Yankees. That’s the only reason he even noticed that they’re alive, right? To say like at 4:31 PM Central. So, he’s probably, I assume, I don’t know, can’t ever keep it straight if he’s out of New York or out of LA. Either way, not probably in the central time zone, but our time it was 4:31 when he sent this tweet. It occurs to him to look up the attendance or a producer probably tells him about it because he’s maybe he’s following the Yankees for whatever reason. He’s originally from Washington State. I don’t know if he was a Yankees fan or what the affiliation there is, but like Aaron Judge, if you’re if you’re doing a national talk show, you don’t talk baseball, of course. I mean, you should, but they don’t. They’ll talk. It could be it could be, you know, June 19th. It could be July 12th and it’s NFL. It’s training camp hasn’t started, but it’s NFL. It’s NBA. It’s why isn’t LeBron? Who’s better, LeBron or Michael Jordan? Uh, you know, it’s that kind of stuff year round. it’s not what’s going on in baseball unless it’s show Otani or it’s Aaron Judge and so because of that you know that’s maybe how he was alerted to the presence of the Cardinals yesterday and it was brought to his attention I suppose one way or another that attendance is down in St. And so he sends that tweet again divebombing into a situation that he has not like the Cardinals have continued to exist for whatever this period of time is since he you know wants to invoke that they used to be so loyal and such a great fan base whatever that period of time is and I’m continuing to insist that he’s got the timeline wrong because when he says less than 10 years ago it’s no offense to Cardinal fans but 10 years ago I was you know I was writing an article almost 10 years ago this month to say attendance is kind of declining. So that was like the tail end of what we’re talking about which again is no reflection on the Cardinals fans. We we know in St. Louis it’s been documented what has happened. It’s been a stale organization for close to a decade with pockets of of good things, right? There’s pockets in there. End of the Matheni era was the downward tilt. Mike Schult comes in. You get some pockets. You get the 17 in a row. You know that 21 season they made the playoffs in 20. That was a co year. We all kind of forget about that. We don’t want to remember that. But they made the playoffs technically and then they made it the next year on the on the 17game streak. Then you fire Mike Schult. Everybody’s kind of wondering what’s going on there. All he comes in, they they do well in 2022, make the playoffs, don’t advance, but you’re still talking about, you know, good support and things like that. And then the last couple of years have obviously been what they’ve been. But that is like complexities and narratives and storylines in a in a full life of of a generation of of Cardinals fans, right? That has gone by since Colin Coward was like, “Hey, what wonder what’s going on in St. Louis with the Cardinals.” And so to dive bomb in and have that comment just it’s so flippant. It’s so off the cuff. It’s so out of pocket because there there’s no context to any of it. Literally the statement is like, “Hey Cardinals fans, I mean, here’s the attendance for St. Louis. It’s in the bottom half. Yeah, they used to have an argument about being rabid and loyal. Huh. Wasn’t that long ago. Wonder what happened. Like that’s the whole tweet. There’s no there’s no other context for it. There’s not you’re not sparking a legitimate discussion or a conversation. You’re just kind of throwing that out there and and you know picking up half a million impressions. And um I’d like to think that at least in St. Louis circles. I added to those impressions because I I decided to uh I decided to to uh kind of throw a little bit of gasoline onto the fire and I responded with this. I said to Colin Coward, I remember that too because it was around that same time that you last provided insight on baseball. Kind of dropped that in there. I like that it was picking up some attention. I knew it probably would. I I I went back and forth on whether or not to say anything because Colin Coward is bigger than I’ll ever be. And that’s fine. I like I said at one time I really respected his game and and what he was doing and for that reason he’s built a humongous platform and he is a national one of the biggest names in sports media. What comes with that is inevitably you’re not going to be able to follow the minutia of what’s going on with every single team and every single major American sport. Baseball is for whatever reason the one that you know takes a back seat when it comes to national media. Not in St. Louis, not in this town, not for me where baseball’s my favorite sport and and you know the the primary thing I do for my living, but for those national guys, yeah, that’s generally what happens. You kind of, you know, it goes on the back burner. And so with that comes this tweet out of left field from Colin. And so I say, “Yeah, that’s about the last time you provided insight on baseball because it’s probably I didn’t check the timeline on that, but it’s probably pretty accurate when you think about the rise that he’s had and you know what he focuses on with his show now.” So a couple of reasons I didn’t like it. I just don’t think he’s the messenger for this conversation. Like he’s not the person to spark this discussion. We’ve been having this discussion. Fans are tired of it in St. Lewis because every time it comes up there’s this little bit of defensiveness right from Cardinals fans which like hey don’t blame us you know this is a reflection of ownership this is a reflection of the front office to to fans who are proud Cardinals fans it’s a reflection of the state of the organization which is has had a malaise over it. It’s been stale. It’s it’s not gotten to the the refresh point as quickly as people want to see from it. And so there’s a lot of, you know, passionate feelings when it comes to this conversation. For a national guy who doesn’t follow it and probably wouldn’t even claim that he does to make that comment just kind of flippantly reduces what I think is a complex, you know, narrative storyline driven conversation. We’ve been over here in St. Louis doing our thing for the last 10 years as as an organization. I say we as baseball media, as baseball fans, as as a community that you know, the the St. Louis Cardinals are at the center of this, right? And so for a national and and look, here’s the other part of it. Anytime from a national perspective, St. Louis gets brought up because what’s the biggest sport in America and what’s the biggest league in America? It’s football and it’s the NFL. And so what automatically comes with anytime St. Lewis is invoked in any capacity. Well, you know, they lost another NFL franchise. You know, the Rams left tells you what kind of sports kind. That was exactly what I thought was coming next, too. I’m like, if there’s anything that I’m going to see in these comments, it’s going to be a commentary about about somehow tying it back to the NFL because they always do. I was kind of relieved that it didn’t happen this time. It would have given me bingo on my bingo card, though, if there would have been another comment about, well, you know, they can’t support their baseball team now. you saw what happened with their football team. I was just waiting for it. Which of course anybody who was even remotely informed understands that that was one of the biggest con jobs of all time in sports history. The way that the whole Rams thing went down with Kroni, Gadell, Jerry Jones, and company. It was the the fix was in Kevin Demoff. Oh my gosh, that guy. And so I was glad that it didn’t devolve into that. But the lens through which those national folks view their sporting conversation and tie it back to St. Louis, it’s usually something to do with that. And St. Louis fans got, you know, ripped apart on that whole deal. And I was just ready to go, all right, if this turns into that, you know, give me a break. It didn’t. But that’s where like there’s that kind of defensiveness of St. Louis sports fans because they get they they they are not accurately represented by the national media in the way people that don’t aren’t from here, haven’t been here, haven’t experienced it, they don’t really get it. They get what they read from, you know, snippets from national talk shows or or media or written stories. And the lens through it which it’s viewed a lot of times is through that Rams thing which is was completely you know fabricated and and the national landscape of sport fan does not understand to this day what actually happened. Most people don’t they don’t have a clue. And so that’s where I was like you’re not the messenger for this. This is a conversation to be had but the implication is not oh yeah St. Louis they used to really support their team and now they don’t you know they don’t care anymore. Believe me, if you read the comments on this YouTube page, if you read the Twitter comments, if you read the the live chat on STL Sports Central, these people care. They care about what’s going on. They’re not always going to in tougher economic times continue to, you know, spend their hard-earned dollar on a product that they don’t consider to be rewarding to that level anymore. It doesn’t, you know, but that doesn’t mean there’s not passion about it and that doesn’t mean there’s not a loyal fan base ready to reemerge at the ballpark when they are given a reason to do so. And I think that is the, you know, the conversation that we have had at Nauseium over the last couple of years. It’s gone as far as, you know, Bill the third with the radio comments he made at one point or podcast comments. I think that was a show with Martin Kilcoin like a year or two ago at this point, right? Where, you know, the perception of, well, you know, if fans aren’t supporting, we’re going to have to spend less money as ownership and it’s just, you know, he kind of, you know, Bill Wit the third kind of stepped in it with some of those comments that he made and people are very passionate about it. And so that’s why I’m like he acts Colin Coward with this tweet acts like this is a conversation that he just invented. He just discovered, you know, he discovered fire. He dis he was the first to discover the open flame and he’s gonna put his two cents in about the the quality of St. Louis baseball fans or sports fans. I don’t know, dude. Like I said, I I I respect what Colin Coward has built of the like national talking head conglomerate that has all become kind of a collective joke. I I mentioned like Stephen A who he’s funny to me at this point like he’s such a caricature that I don’t even mind it. But then there’s like Skip Bis like Stephen A and Skip Bis started out as sports writers as journalists right you know on beat writers columnists those types of vibes covering you know pro teams in Dallas or you know wherever their their winding paths took them and then like the dawn of sort of that you know around the horn PTI you know those types of shows when I was growing up it’s like well who were the people that were on those shows when they it was sports writers Right. And the ones that really had a knack for understanding how to, you know, that was like the early iteration. Now it’s all YouTube and it’s it’s streaming and those sorts of things, podcast, like that was the first iteration of it. And the people that really got it and figured it out made national brands for themselves. And Coward, I think, was always like a radio guy. I don’t know 100% on his origin, but my point was with all of these guys, Coward, I I think is still one of the ones that I’m like, “All right, of this cesspool, he’s more tethered to reality sometimes.” But even still with him, if we’re talking about baseball, that’s I believe one of the more recent commentaries he gave on baseball prior to this tweet yesterday was and I I had to Google it. I was like, “Okay, Colin Coward’s tweeting about the Cardinals now. Are we really doing this? Let me Google and see what else. Is he even talking baseball these days?” I know he’s not, but when he talks baseball, what’s he talking about? That’s sort of what I wanted to gather. And I found a a a news story where from his show he was talking about Showi Otani, but this was when he was with the Angels. In his segment, his argument he was making was the Angels need to trade Shi Otani for draft picks because they aren’t, you know, they’re not going anywhere with him and he’s going to leave and become a free agent. And so they need to load up on draft picks, you know, because Colin Coward pays attention to the NFL, the NBA, you know, sports where you can do that. In baseball, you can’t trade players for draft picks. It’s not a thing. Other than a select few types of picks, these compensatories, these revenue sharing picks, there’s a there’s a couple kinds of picks you can trade. Generally speaking, that’s not even a thing. So, like when when he’s talking baseball, that’s the kind of stuff or he’s connecting it in some way to the NFL. I saw that last year when the NFL changed their kickoff rule and made adjustments, his argument was like the the reason he invoked baseball at all in discussing it was unlike baseball, the NFL is willing to make rule changes that can benefit its sport, even though baseball has almost to a fault been tinkering with its rules for years now. So again, even when baseball comes up as a topic, it’s to crap on the sport, to crap on the product, and it’s often flatout wrong. Like, it’s just not even tethered to reality. So, that’s my thoughts on the coward thing. I don’t know. I don’t know if people care about this. I don’t know if people saw this, but my thought is, what are we going to do? Talk for 20 minutes about the Cardinals, you know, falling below 500? You guys are tired of me telling you that technically they’re still in the wild card race three and a half games out because they technically are still in the wildard race at three and a half games out. I don’t think they’re going to, you know, emerge from that. But the entire NL wild card picture right now is losing and so that’s why the Cardinals are still in it despite, you know, the inconsistencies of their play falling below 500. So I wasn’t going to spend the whole podcast just talking about that because I I just frankly didn’t have the energy for it. And so this kind of coward thing would be more of an offseason topic or a topic that, you know, we can only pay attention to in a middling season like this one. But I I felt like, you know, as I really am trying to get into a rhythm to do these shows and and put the graphics together and everything like that, I want I was like, I’m going to speak on this a little bit today because that was from my world yesterday. I decided to jump in. Let me know, did I do the right thing? kind of coming onto the defense a little bit of Cardinals fans and like it was subtle. I said I remember that. That was around the same time when you last gave any insight on baseball. It took me a while to decide like am I going to even respond? How do I want to phrase it if I do? And that’s what I came up with. I was I was happy that at least some Cardinal fans are like, “Oh, you dunked on him.” It’s like I’m not even really trying to dunk on him. I’m just proving a point that’s like this is this is our thing. You know what I mean? If you want to enter into this conversation, you’re welcome to do so, but do it responsibly, right? If you want, shoot, it should be a national conversation. How did the St. Louis Cardinals, who had this type of it was a revered organization and and fan base and understood to be among the best in sports, how did it come to this? Don’t just dive bomb in, throw out a tweet, and then, you know, get picked up by the chopper and and say, “Bye-bye. I’m not going to talk about this anymore. Argue amongst yourselves. Like that’s I just didn’t respect that move and so I decided to talk about it. Something else we can talk about though and I as far as the game if you’re mad you’re like Brendan you talked for 25 minutes about this stupid crap and you didn’t talk about the game. The pante thing is going to be interesting. You you run him out there the rest of the year for sure. Um because you don’t really have a luxury not to. If they go with a piggyback it’s not going to be Michaelis getting punted off the bridge. It’s kind of akin at this point to John Mo, right? On a smaller scale. Michael has had some good years with the Cardinals. He got one contract too many and and they’re going to let him leave on on friendly terms. It’s almost identical to Mosa on a on a smaller scale because at this point the attitude is like, well, what’s the point of doing it any differently? You also have the Liberator thing going on where he’s just not been able to maintain velocity deeper into his outings. And because of that, when you start to think about a Kyle Lehey stretching him out, piggybacking, Swanson has been a guy that he’s been a reliever his whole career in the minors pretty much, but he’s getting stretched out now. I don’t know if he’s got a starter arsenal the way that Lehey may, but these these the notion of like not in an official capacity a piggyback, but sort of in in like a hey, you’ve got Lehey and and and Swanson stretched out enough to be able to do it every third day or whatever. Not on a specific schedule where you’re going to say, “Hey, every fifth day, this is my piggyback, but just giving some cover to the bullpen once or twice a week.” Those guys can do that. that’s going on. And it may be that they need one of those two guys every time Libertator goes. Like one of them needs to be available to go two or three innings behind Libby because we don’t know what it’s going to look like each time he goes out there. He had a period of this earlier in the season. I only talked about this with the writers on Wednesday morning when I was there at Bush where, you know, he had that stretch of season where he kind of hit a wall, velocity was down, not injured, not really feeling a ton physically other than just the regular rigors of a season, but for whatever reason, the VO wasn’t there and he wasn’t able to maintain it. And this was something that, you know, in past years that was the knock on Libby is that he he would get to the, you know, second or third time through the order and the dip would would show. he would wear down as the outing did and he had found ways to maintain early this season and had a lot of success, but then it it just suddenly wasn’t there in the same way. And that’s when remember they they gave him around the All-Star break some extra time and and even before that it seemed like he had started to kind of round back into form. Now this seems to be happening again and it was better in his last outing where whereas like the previous outing it was a couple innings and you started to see the dip. last time maybe it was 65 70 pitches and then he hit the wall. So getting that stretched back out is important especially for his long-term development. Like that’s one of the things that should be a focus right now. So they’re working on that but I think having a Lehey etc behind is key. All of this to say you don’t have the luxury to then say well Lehey can go in the the rotation for Palante or Michaelis. Like that’s kind of how they’re looking at it is and look you could make a case that Quinn Matthews could come up but he’s been struggling as well at Triple A just not it’s that consistency. I think his last start he had like seven strikeouts but he only got through three innings. That sort of thing. So when that’s going on and you you know what the state of it is when it’s been minor league starters one after the next having injuries you know they just don’t they don’t have the horses which again is why he bloom should be very very active in reorganizing the 40man and bringing guys in taking a flyer on players that may need to you know may need to find their level at the big league level and you know we’ll go from there and see what that looks like but That’s sort of the state of what’s been going on. And that’s why I think with Palante, I see what you see. I mean, if for as bad as Eric Fetty was, the the last five weeks from Palante have been just about as bad, if not worse. Now, in those seven starts, Palante’s had two good ones, but he’s had five that have been, you know, been fetty-esque or worse. And so, that’s why you’re kind of going, man, what are the Well, Cardinal’s got to find something here. But with Palante, I think you run him out there and you do it in a way that you continue to evaluate it for next year. There shouldn’t just be a an earmarked spot for Palante in 2026 in the rotation. But I unless they have a very active winter, I just don’t know how you can look at him and say, “Well, ARB 2, he’s going to make two and a half million. We got to cut him in non-tender.” I would I wouldn’t be doing that. We’ve seen good things from Palante at times. It hasn’t been recent, but they I don’t think they have the luxury to just say, “Eh, everybody that’s struggling has to be has to be gone. Contract is going to play into it, and they could probably do worse than 2.5 million or so for Palante for next year.” So, I’m not to that point with it, but they do need to consider what’s been going on and and try to find a way to work him through it so that he can show up in February and be ready to compete for a spot, not to be given one. But when it comes to other things going on, I do want to make mention of the AAA Redbirds because yesterday a leadoff home run from JJ Weatherhold, his eighth with Memphis. So he is up to a 1042 OPS. The batting average has dipped below 300. He’s hitting .297. Still pretty darn good, especially in this era. He had the home run and a walk yesterday in that one for Memphis. They got a 10- ining win 7 to five over the Charlotte Knights. Ian Bedell was the pitcher, gave up three runs in three innings. He has really struggled, the former Missouri Tiger, and he has been on and off the injured list down there this season as well. But Weatherhol is the main takeaway, him coming through in a big way with that leadoff home run. We’ll see. We have more conversations to have about whether we’ll see him this year or not, but that is something I wanted to make sure to mention because I know it’s a topic. I know that we’re like right around that 45 days to go in the season mark to where they could bring him up if they had a spot to play him. Of course, Mosak talking about it’s not his protection year, which is ludicrous because they’re bringing him up before 3 years from now when it’s his protection year. So, what are we even talking about? 40man does not have a roster crunch. It just doesn’t. I can find the spots if they need help. I don’t think they’re going to ask for my opinion, but I’m going to give it anyway. And that’s what we’ll do here on Bshave Daily all year long, all offseason long. So, make sure you hit subscribe to enjoy Cardinals content as regularly as we can do it. Again, I was on the STL Sports Central post game last night. So, it’s just not feasible this season when I’ve got to do all of those shows to always get Bshave Daily out at night. But, we’re doing it today. We’re making sure it’s here. And so if you would be so kind as to hit the like button before you get out of here. Appreciate you guys as always for tuning in. We’ll talk to you next time on Be Shaf Daily.

Brenden Schaeffer discusses the Cardinals’ loss to the Yankees on Friday night at Busch Stadium, but spends the majority of the podcast today talking about a bizarre tweet by national media host Colin Cowherd about the St. Louis Cardinals fan base.

We discuss why the tweet bothered Brenden and what he decided to do about it.

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