Sports & Recreation >>

• Best St. Louis Cardinal
  Darryl Kile
  The easy answer in general is Mark McGwire, and if he hadn't been hurt, that would be the correct one. But this year, Big Mac has missed too many games to be the best. The next obvious answer is Jim Edmonds, who has been the Cardinal lineup anchor without Mac in there. But the Cardinals have a... More >>
• Best Unknown St. Louis Cardinal
  Placido Polanco
  Placido Polanco, at age 23, is, simply put, an established major-league starting second baseman. There aren't 15 better ones in the game, much less 30, which would be one starter for each team. Because Polanco is young, this should make him one of the National League's hot properties. But on the... More >>
• Best New Sports Personality
  Jim Edmonds
  Will Clark is a tempting choice -- his arrival from Baltimore coincided (and it was no coincidence) with the Cardinals' reaching escape velocity in the Central Division after almost falling back to earth in the long stall following McGwire's injury. Since Clark's acquisition, the Birds are... More >>
• Best Reason to Keep Busch Stadium
  Owners' Closed Books
  Where to begin? There are so many reasons to keep our beloved Busch that settling on a single one as "the best" is tantamount to singling out the best amendment to the Constitution, the best thing about living in America, the best part of drinking beer. There's the money angle -- why spend a... More >>
• Best Reason(s) to Replace Busch Stadium
  Inevitability and Intimacy
  There's no doubt that the millions of dollars that will be spent building a new baseball stadium could be better spent elsewhere, but in the first place, you know they won't, really, and in the second place, of all the sports teams in St. Louis, the Cardinals are first in our hearts and minds --... More >>
• Best St. Louis Blue
  Chris Pronger
  For Blues fanatics, the only bad, bad thing about Chris Pronger is that in praising him, they have to credit, however indirectly, former Blues despot Mike Keenan. For many Blues fanatics, Mike Keenan is the Hannibal Lecter of St. Louis hockey -- in their view, he not only killed the team, he... More >>
• Best St. Louis Ram
  Marshall Faulk
  Here's a category that could go any number of ways. After all, who had a better year than QB Kurt Warner, who was the MVP of the season and the Super Bowl? Or wide receiver Isaac Bruce, who shook off years of nagging injuries and attitudinal indifference to become the NFL's most dangerous... More >>
• Best Coach
  Dick Vermeil
  A little more than a year ago, we wanted his head. After a last-place finish, there seemed little hope for the Rams under Dick Vermeil. The team itself mutinied, showing him abject disrespect after the final loss of 1998, and unless something was done, there was little doubt that the fans would... More >>
• Best Sports Bargain
  Kurt Warner
  When quarterback Trent Green's leg bent awkwardly beneath him and snapped in the third exhibition game of 1999, the Rams' season appeared over before it had begun. Even sunnily optimistic coach Dick Vermeil trailed dark clouds as he halfheartedly talked up second-stringer Kurt Warner. One Super... More >>
• Best Sports Bust
  Trent Green
  It's unfair, perhaps, to cite Trent Green in this category: When he was taken off the field with a season-ending knee injury last August, Green had completed an astonishing 28 of 32 passes, for a league-leading percentage of 87.5, and his preseason quarterback rating of 126.6 was the best in... More >>
• Best Sports Value (1 Comment)
  St. Louis Swarm
  Recently we came across a car with four stickers on the side windows. On one side: St. Louis Cardinals and St. Louis Rams. On the other: St. Louis Blues and St. Louis Swarm. The Swarm? Who are they? Though we've never met you, brother sports fan, we salute you. For you know that St. Louis does... More >>
• Best Jockey
  Ricky Feliciano
  Flea. The moniker sounds fitting for a rock musician, but it belongs to Ricky Feliciano, currently riding a blue streak at Fairmount Park and living proof that nice guys do finish first. With last year's retirement of Dave Gall -- after 42 years in the saddle, the fourth-winningest jockey in... More >>
• Best Run
  Labor Day Classic
  The Labor Day Classic, up and running for more than 20 years now, draws more than 400 runners, and even more attendant spectators, to the Jewish Community Center of St. Louis. The annual event comprises a 10K, a 5K and a one-mile family run through the rolling hills surrounding the JCC grounds,... More >>
• Best Motorcycle Ride
  Great River Road
  It's not exactly the Yellow Brick Road, but the Great River Road alongside the Mississippi River is as close to Oz as you can come on a motorcycle in these parts: winding turns, beautiful scenery, minimal traffic and lots of down-home taverns in tiny towns that dot the route north of St. Louis.... More >>
• Best Rural Bicycle Ride
  Monroe and Randolph Counties, Ill.
  Monroe and Randolph counties in Illinois offer top-notch rides through farmland on roads with so little traffic they may as well be bicycle paths. Although Monroe County farmers have a reputation for disliking bicyclists, serious run-ins aren't common. Be on your best behavior and ride... More >>
• Best Urban Bicycle Ride
  Downtown
  Get off those overcrowded Forest Park paths and see the city. Don't be afraid of cars. With judicious timing and route selection, you can meander just about anywhere without going elbow-to-fender against motorists. On weekends and anytime after 5 p.m., downtown makes for good riding, especially... More >>
• Best Place to Work Off Steam
  Bruce Sikes' Fencing Class
  There are few workouts as demanding as a 90-minute fencing class with Bruce Sikes, a U.S. Fencing Association (USFA)-certified instructor who offers beginning and advanced lessons around the St. Louis area. Trained at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Sikes gently leads his... More >>
• Best Bowling Lanes
  Tropicana Lanes
  Taking a trip to Tropicana Lanes is like being transported back to the early 1960s, when Sputniks circled the earth and bowling palaces dotted the suburban horizon. Many of these icons of American postwar leisure have disappeared along with drive-in movie theaters. This makes Tropicana Lanes... More >>
• Best Public Golf Course
  Forest Park
  Talk about pressure. What course in town makes the holes in your game as plain as Forest Park's? You drive along Skinker Boulevard, as the traffic runs by, with cars full of folks watching you play. The Forest Park course was built in 1912 by the architect Robert Foulis, who also designed the... More >>
• Best Private Golf Course
  Bellerive Country Club
  There's a reason Bellerive Country Club (12925 Ladue Rd., 314-434-4400) keeps landing major tournaments, including the World Golf Championships-American Express Championship in 2001 and the U.S. Senior Open Championship in 2004. The course, located on a 353-acre site at Ladue and Mason roads,... More >>
• Best Stables
  Kraus Farm
  It's not just because the Kraus family knows and understands horses -- literally inside and out -- that they merit kudos. After all, they've worked with equines since 1936, when Ben Kraus featured Wild West shows with chuckwagon races, Roman riding (son Darwin astride two cantering horses),... More >>
• Best Pool
  Kirkwood Aquatic Center
  The Kirkwood Aquatic Center, partially financed by and shared with Glendale and Oakland, provides us the most wonderful relief from the St. Louis summer, a.k.a. the sauna experience. We'll probably start by lounging on a float tube as the current pushes us along the 700-foot Lazy River, past... More >>
• Best Hike
  Bell Mountain Wilderness Area
  When many St. Louisans refer to the Ozarks, they mistakenly associate the region exclusively with the Lake of the Ozarks. Such urban geographic ignorance helps keep the crowds down in the real Ozarks Mountains, some of which are much closer to the city than many folks realize. The Bell Mountain... More >>
• Best Place to Bird-Watch
  John F. Kennedy Forest, Forest Park
  The ovenbird flies from Mexico in early spring, following the Mississippi River all the way to Canada. She flies by night and rests during the day. As this large warbler reaches the halfway point along her migratory flyway, she soars above the steel-and-concrete caverns of St. Louis, looking for... More >>
• Best Place to Stargaze
  Washington University Observatory
  The cosmos, the heavens, the infinite. It's all right there over our heads, all the time. Go outside and look directly up after dusk. Besides the space junk, the low-flying Piper Cubs, police surveillance helicopters, commercial aircraft and fighter jets, there are visible stars, planets, astral... More >>
• Best Place to Take Out-of-Town Visitors to Gross Them Out
  St. Louis Zoo Insectarium
  This would otherwise be a tossup between anyplace that serves biscuits and gravy or uses Provel cheese, but a visit to the St. Louis Zoo's Insectarium should rank at the top of the list. Now, we like insects (and arachnids, and gastropods) just fine, but some may find some of the exhibits... More >>