Bearded man robs St. Louis-area bank, shouts ‘Go Cards!’ on way out

ST. LOUIS — Even criminals get World Series fever. A man walked into a bank about 20 miles south of Busch Stadium on Friday afternoon, passed a note to a teller demanding cash and walked out with money. But not without also voicing his support for the local Major League Baseball team playing Game 5 of the NLCS.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that a "bearded bandit" showed some community spirit at the First Bank branch in Arnold, Mo. as he robbed it:

And have McGruff Fred McGriff take a bite out of crime while you're at it. This bearded fellow yelling "Go Cards" as he walked out reminds me of the movie "Point Break" when the Richard Nixon-mask wearing robber yells, "I'm not a crook!" The guy in Missouri was doing it for the money, and probably the juice, but also for the theater.

Also, it's worth noting he wasn't wearing any Cards merchandise, at least not obviously. Not even a cap. He would have blended into the community wearing it around. Big getaway mistake. And how can we call him something like "The Baseball Bandit" — which we must — without a Cardinals cap being involved?

On that note, it always was the fear of my favorite local talk-radio DJs that one of their fans would commit a crime and be arrested while wearing a "Steve and Garry" T-shirt and the footage would appear on the 10 o'clock news. Embarrassing.

That's probably how the St. Louis Cardinals feel about this guy. Especially because he wore a beard, or a fake beard. The Cardinals rely on beards heavily, including starting pitchers Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright, along with closer Jason Motte, reliever Brandon Boggs and right-hander Lance Lynn, who started against the San Francisco Giants in Game 5. Rookie Matt Carpenter and Daniel Descalso beard up too. And others. It's like a thing.

And the thing about the surveillance footage here — the quality is terrible, as it often is. Shouldn't we expect better bank video surveillance technology in this day and age? We can pretend to put a man on the moon, but we can't give banks HDTV? It's like we're looking at a clip that belongs in the Gerry Todd show.

Also: How many of the Cardinals have an alibi for about 1:15 p.m. Central Time on Friday?

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