Sports & Recreation >>

• Best Blues Player
  Erik Johnson
  St. Louis Blues general manager Larry Pleau and coach Andy Murray have made no secret of their plans for the down-at-the-heels franchise. "Build from within" has become their mantra as they hungrily stock up on fresh young hockey studs-to-be like David Perron, Lars Eller, Jake Allen and T.J.... More >>
• Best Rams Player
  Torry Holt
  There weren't many bright spots along the way to the Rams' 3-13 season last year. Still, one player continued to shine. Wide receiver Torry "Big Game" Holt led the Rams in total yards (1,189) and touchdowns (7) in '07 and was the only player on the team selected for the Pro Bowl. This year Holt... More >>
• Best Cardinals Player
  Yadier Molina
  If Albert Pujols is the heart and soul of the Cardinals, then Yadier Molina is the guts, a player whose importance you might not consider — until, from his knees, he throws out the tying run diving back into first base, or until you see his calming, but no-BS attitude when talking to one... More >>
• Best Coach
  Rick Majerus
  Rick Majerus' first year at the helm of Billiken basketball was...predictably mediocre. With the cupboard left bare following the departure of Brad Soderberg, the team finished with just sixteen wins and tied for ninth place in the Atlantic 10 Conference. Still, Majerus managed to make things... More >>
• Best High School Athlete
  Ronecia Nash
  East St. Louis has produced scores of legendary track-and-field stars, including Carmelita Williams, Dawn Harper and, of course, the incomparable Jackie Joyner-Kersee. Now we can add Ronecia Nash to the list. Nash led the East St. Louis High School Flyerettes to their first state track title in... More >>
• Best College Athlete
  Jeremy Maclin
  Dear Jeremy: Do you remember when we met on that brilliant Saturday afternoon last September? There we were in the nosebleeds of the Edward Jones Dome, irrationally optimistic (yet again) that this would be our year. And there you were on the field, so cool and confident in front of those 66,000... More >>
• Best Weekend Getaway
  Hermann
  The sounds of the city's hustle-bustle can almost serve as a security blanket of sorts. You grow used to the car horns, the rumbling trucks, the emergency sirens, the obnoxious neighbors. When you wrap yourself in the comfort of the noise, it's easy to forget the simple pleasure that can be... More >>
• Best Bowling Lanes
  Saratoga Lanes
  The International Bowling Museum and Hall of Fame is relocating to Texas. But bowling aficionados need not worry — Saratoga Lanes reflects the pastime at its finest. This year, in celebration of Saratoga's significance as a historic landmark, the building was added to the National Register... More >>
• Best Yoga Studio
  Southtown Yoga
  Now open for a year, Southtown Yoga is a yogi's dream: small classes and a wonderful fusion of yoga styles. Owner Brigette Niedringhaus says her approach is "down-to-earth and friendly, yet deeply rooted in ancient yoga traditions." Classes cost $15 apiece ($12 for students), and the studio... More >>
• Best Fishing Hole
  North Riverfront Park Lake
  The hum of traffic and the "clang, clang, CLANG" of scrap metal bouncing around the iron bed of a flatbed truck on Riverview Drive is muted by the "plop, splash" of catfish jumping out of the water at North Riverfront Park Lake. The fishing hole just inside the northern city boundary of St.... More >>
• Best Tennis Courts
  Shaw Park
  Did you know the United States Tennis Association requires that all outdoor tennis courts line up parallel with the north-south axis? The design mitigates (somewhat) the impact of the rising and setting sun. At Shaw Park the influence of Earth's nearest star is further diminished by the office... More >>
• Best Sports Broadcast Personality
  John Rooney
  In September 2006, this paper noted that in John Rooney's final year as play-by-play announcer for the Minnesota Twins, the team won the World Series. Same thing when he worked for the Chicago White Sox. Though Rooney was in his first year as the Mike Shannon's partner in the Cardinals' radio... More >>
• Best Batting Cage
  Swing-A-Round Fun Town
  You'll be pleased to know that the Riverfront Times softball team enjoyed a markedly improved season in 2008, hovering around .500 for much of the summer. While armchair analysts have attributed this uptick in performance to human growth hormone, carbo-loading with Busch beer and questionable... More >>
• Best Basketball Court
  Richmond Heights Community Center
  A little more than a year ago, Steve Lee, an employee at the Richmond Heights Community Center, and Anthony Bonner, basketball coach at Vashon High School, teamed up to form the St. Louis Stunners, a semipro basketball team in the American Basketball Association. Each week the pair ran open... More >>
• Best Boxing Gym
  12th and Park Recreation Center
  The boxing gym at the 12th and Park Recreation Center is nothing to look at, with its peeling paint and ancient-looking equipment. Sans A/C, or even cross-ventilation, the place blasts like a furnace on hot summer days. But the scrappy setting matters not to St. Louis' young fighters, who flock... More >>
• Best BikeClub
  Belleville Area Bicycling & Eating Society (BABES)
  Fridays are for pub crawls and Saturdays for movies. Wednesday is a night to go riding. And there's no better outfit to tag along with than the Belleville Area Biking & Eating Society. The BABES (as they call themselves) hitch up every Wednesday at 6:15 p.m. Three possible routes, usually... More >>
• Best Urban Bike Ride
  Christy Green Trail
  The River des Peres isn't known for being much more than a stinky, trash-strewn sewer and storm drain. And while it's hardly our city's most scenic waterway, it does serve as a guidepost to a fine, fairly flat bike trail through south St. Louis. A paved trail runs adjacent to River des Peres... More >>
• Best Place to Roller Skate
  Forest Park
  Ahh, roller-skating. That fabled, so very California recreation of the '70s and '80s. Who among us hasn't dreamed of cruising the Santa Monica Pier with Jack, Janet and Chrissy from Three's Company? Or about joining our favorite journalist, Fletch, as he rolls his ankle boots past the beaches of... More >>
• Best Place to Jog
  Gateway Arch grounds
  Former U.S. Senator John Danforth may think he has a spectacular makeover plan in the works for the Gateway Arch grounds. To runners, however, the overtures ring blasphemous. Cafés? Hot-dog stands? As well it should take an act of Congress to hoist commercial property on our fat-ass of a... More >>
• Best Miniature Golf
  Family Golf & Learning Center
  Circles, Tilt, Dropsy: The names of the holes are as straightforward and simple as the holes themselves seem to be. But don't be deceived. The turf is quick, the hazards — hills, curves, strategically placed rocks — subtle, like a sparsely decorated room that adheres to the... More >>
• Best Hole at a Golf Course
  No. 1, Dogwood Course
  The first's the worst for most golfers. But here's an exception: the opening hole on the Dogwood Course in Forest Park. Long and tree-lined, with an uphill dogleg at the lead-in, No. 1 combines excellent scenery with athletic challenge. The par-five begins across Lagoon Drive from the clubhouse,... More >>
• Best Public Golf Course
  Norman K. Probstein Community Golf Course and Youth Learning Center
  Too often golf courses are idealized as refuges from the mundane, workaday world, oases of seclusion — albeit often amid tracts of huge suburban houses. Bucolic, perhaps, but shouldn't we ask for more? And then there's the Norman K. Probstein Golf Course in Forest Park. When you play a... More >>
• Best Sports Bargain
  Horse Hooky Tuesdays at Fairmount Park
  A decade ago there were more than 200 days of horseracing each year at Fairmount Park. These days there are 60. With the deals the track is trotting out, it's hard to fathom why people aren't flocking to play the ponies. Take Fairmount's Horse Hooky Tuesdays, which promise a full afternoon of... More >>
• Best Public Pool
  Wayne C. Kennedy Recreation Complex
  We suspect that the "complex" part of "swimming complex" refers to the number-crunching involved in calculating admission. Some pools charge one amount based on whether you live in the area, another price if you work in the area and if you just want to take a dip but live and work out of bounds,... More >>
• Best Place to Bird-Watch
  Malcolm Terrace Park
  No one knows about Malcolm Terrace Park, not even the birds. Hell, they've been shaking their tail feathers here for years and took it for granted that they owned the place. Like any true Missourian, there's nothing our songbirds like better than keepin' it real, which is easy for them at... More >>
• Best Stroll
  Missouri Botanical Garden
  Let's get this straight: You do not take a stroll for the exercise. If burned calories are all you're after, the results of a stroll will make you cry. No, you take a stroll to clear your mind, to work through whatever knotty problem currently plagues you, or, if you must take a companion, to... More >>
• Best Place to Hike
  Russell E. Emmenegger Nature Park
  Emmenegger Park doesn't offer quite the natural beauty or tranquility of many regional hiking destinations (cf. Babler State Park, Shaw Nature Reserve). But you've got to hand it to this 124-acre preserve in southwest Kirkwood. It sure is convenient. Just a stone's throw from the intersection of... More >>
• Best Picnic Spot
  Concordia Park
  Ah, Martin Luther. By the time you tacked up your 95 Theses on Wittenberg's Castle Church door, the world was ready for your revolution. You tossed papal indulgences to the wind and gave life's indulgences back to the people; things like music, wine and good food. You'd be pleased to find just... More >>
• Best Public Park
  Aboussie Park
  When Interstate 55 cut its way through Soulard back in the early 1980s, residents turned the pie-shape parcel of land at 13th and Lynch streets into St. Louis' smallest park. At just four-tenths of an acre, Aboussie Park, named for the onetime leader of the Ninth Ward Democratic Organization,... More >>
• Best Move
  The Cardinals sign Kyle Lohse
  Last year Kyle Lohse had a turbulent season, splitting time between Cincinnati and Philadelphia and compiling a middling 9-12 record with a nothing-to-write-home-about ERA of 4.62. During the off-season he stood by while other free agents were signed to multi-year deals; midway through spring... More >>
• Best Reason to Look Forward to Summer
  St. Louis Aces
  St. Louis isn't home to Wimbledon or the French Open, but that doesn't mean local folks have to jet out of town to catch top tennis talent in action. Thanks to World TeamTennis and our own St. Louis Aces, great players come to us! For a few weeks each summer, the Aces host matches starring... More >>
• Best Sports Figure Not Named Pujols
  Tony La Russa
  Gnash your teeth as he persists in batting his pitcher eighth. Scratch your head when he sits a red-hot Ludwick for a struggling Duncan. Roll your eyes when the box score shows two or three relievers, each with only one batter faced. And snicker (still) when you see the mug shot from his 2007... More >>
• Best Boxer
  Robbie "The Peashooter" Cannon
  A boxer isn't defined by whom he trains with or by his last fight. A boxer is defined by his career. This is the story of how a kid named Robbie "The Peashooter" Cannon fought his way out of Jefferson County to join the upper echelon of local boxing alongside the likes of Deandre Latimore, Devon... More >>
• Best Sports Bar
  The Scottish Arms
  The Scottish Arms is hands-down the best place to watch football in St. Louis. Unless, of course, you're trying to catch the Rams game. Then you should head to any of the city's sports-bar staples — like Tom's, Lester's or Sports Zone. At the Arms, football means soccer, and the crowd that... More >>