Stand By Your Man – Fantasy QB Results: Week 1

Love maybe blind to flaws and shortcomings, but after the Week 1 of the Ladies Fantasy Quarterback League, more of than a few of the Ladies might be wondering if they should lie to their main squeezes and say that they have to go to their grandmother’s house next Sunday while quietly sending their back-up hotties a few text-messages to see if they might be around for a booty call. You know. Just in case.

Holly JimBobCooterGaveMe6	vs	Clare Speckhosen
Peyton Manning 23.52	Starting QB	Rex Grossman 4.80
Did Not Play – Not sweaty David Carr	Backup QB	Jon Kitna 25.26
Donovan McNabb 11.26	“Just a friend”	Matt Schaub 11.90
158.92	Overall team score	163.70

QB Winner – Holly and Peyton Manning
Overall Winner – Clare

In repeat of Super Bowl XLI, Colts’ hottie Peyton Manning had his way with the Bears’ Sexy Rexy who couldn’t find his way end zone against San Diego. Overall though, Team Speckhosen sports Terrell Owens, Plaxico Burress, Joseph Addai,Travis Henry, Antonio Gates, and Mike Vrabel. Which is to say, that girl Clare is stacked! Holly would have been better served if she played the homer card and started the Colts defense and their 20 points that were wasted on the bench, instead of the Dallas D which cost her a valuable point for being -1 at the end of the day.

How bad are the Raiders? Jon “Fuck Lion” Kitna was able to go for 289 yards, 3 TDs, give up 2 INTs, and still walk – Stray Cat Strut? – away with the win.

Ladies Fantasy Quarterback Draft – Stand By Your Man

The quarterback. The team leader. The play maker. The American symbol of all that is intelligent, strong, and virile. And as such, the quarterback is the ultimate fantasy position for the Ladies.

We thought we’d mix up the usual fantasy football draft this year and select just the hottest quarterbacks in the league. QB’s we can cheer for all season, not based on what they do for our team stats, but what they do to stir our passions both on and off the field.

Oh sure, we will have the rest of the team to think about too, but we are only really concerned with our football boyfriends. Our boys will play head-to-head in a two-division league, 14 week season with a three week playoff. Each Lady will select her main squeeze and the man she keeps on the side.

Serpentine draft order: Texas Gal, TheStarterWife, Andrea, Clare, Metschick, Holly, GordonShumway, and SA.

Texas Gal – On the clock –

The Pink Locker Room

COLLEGE FOOTBALL IS HERE! Welcome to a new weekly feature here at Ladies: thoughts on our homer teams from the previous weekend. We’ve got 8 Ladies and 8 colleges, though that is because G-shum wants two and TSW just putters around the Ladies Batcave muttering about Yinzers and some Lawrence Fishburn-lookalike. Lots of great college football this past weekend, so let’s check in with all the Ladies after their teams’ first fall outings…..

Hit and Run: A change was made uptown/And the big man joined the band

Today’s Hit and Run is all about the big dudes, so stock your fridge and don’t be surprised when you find canoe-sized shoes at the foot of your bed.

Ry Ho and Shane share a tender moment.

Let’s start with Ryan Howard’s walk-off two-run opposite field blast to lift the Fightins over the Mets 4-2. (Yes, I know Metsy started with a Phillies item yesterday, but it’s my Hit and Run, I’ll do what I want!) I was there for last night’s game and to say the mood in the CBP was euphoric would be an understatement of the highest degree. I high-fived people I’d never met and I heckled a group of kid Mets fans. It was fabulous.

Before the game, I hung over the bullpen railing and watched Tom Glavine warm up. (I refuse to hear you say I’m a turncoat. How many times in your life do you get to watch a 300-game winner warm up from 15 yards away?) Dude is INTENSE. From where I was sitting, it looked like he p4wned the Phillies over seven strong innings, but according to the NYT’s article about the game, he was gassed: “Glavine scattered eight singles in seven scoreless innings but had thrown 102 stressful pitches, he said, and could not go out to start the eighth.”

Hottie Vision: ONE MORE DAY!

Only one more day before Chutley makes his long-awaited return to the big club! My friend Sue and I will be at tomorrow’s game, and I have a feeling the atmosphere at the CBP will be like Christmas, the Fourth of July and the last time everyone in attendance got laid all rolled into one.

To whet your appetite for tomorrow, here’s an itty-bitty Chase Utley in his Scranton Red Barons days yukking it up with Freddie Mitchell, his teammate from UCLA. The Pop-Up Video aspect of the clip is great, along with the cameos from Marlon Byrd and Brett Myers, to say nothing of FredEx’s guns.

Welcome to the Vajungle

That’s right. The Ladies… are the Deadspin guest editors this weekend.

You’re welcome to join us. Just look with your eyes, not with your hands.

We’re This Many!!

Friends, we can hardly believe it ourselves:
Ladies… celebrates its six month anniversary today.

(Artwork, as ever, courtesy of our incomparable Lady J-Money)

And what a ride. We’ve traveled into enemy territory, back to our alma maters, cross country to spring training, back home for Opening Day, seen legendary parks up close and raced to the bottom of too many pint glasses.

We’ve nursed all manner of inexplicable crushes in hilarious fashion.

We’ve taken to the streets and done a little spokesmodeling (step aside, Danbury Mint, and move over, Milano).

We’ve brought in guest stars from time to time, made ourselves at home elsewhere, and even gotten our parents in on the action.

We’ve seen grandiose plans exceed our highest expectations (this happened, right?) and crash in flames (let us never speak of this again).

And we’ve made it our mission to showcase the finest in baseball ass (and forearms!) from across the land, and to see that excellence is duly rewarded.

If you’re feeling indulgent (and who wouldn’t, after that cupcake?), join us after the jump for a highlight reel:

Love, Sports, and Dating – A peek into the minds of the Ladies

On any given day, we send each other between 50 and 200 emails. (70% sports, 15% website chatter, 7% pillow fighting and baby oil discussion, 4% on how our lives are going, 4% on how much we hate other blogs that shall remain nameless.)

So in the spirit of the CHEEZE DOODLE BACON PANTS post, here is the thread that took place this week in response to Chris Mottram’s post on Mr. Irrelevant about dating women who like the NFL. The conversation runs from dating guys who didn’t like sports, bar fights, holding your tongue as not to show up your sweetie in front of his crew, and eventually to my new favorite word, “douchesnozzle”.

Leading up to this point, we had been talking about Metschick’s new boyfriend…

Hit and Run: And I’ve got issues (yeah)/Like I miss you (yeah)

Yesterday was a pretty lousy day in the sports world — lots of pining for things gone missing — so let’s make this quick.

Kevin Garnett breaks the hearts of T-Wolves fans and becomes a Celtic.

BOTH Phillies right fielders Shane Victorino and Michael Bourn were placed on the DL yesterday. Texas Gal and I will miss their speed on the basepaths.

Sad news out of Phoenix: A police report states that drugs, drug paraphernalia and a loaded handgun were found in Rod Beck’s home on the day he died. Very unfortunate indeed.

Rawlings dumps their sponsorship of the beleaguered Michael Vick. He’ll miss the scrilla.

I leave you with some cute sleeping puppies in order to get the crappy taste out of your mouth.

I’d Buy That For A Dollar: Trade Deadline Hotties

As the trade deadline nears, the Ladies… are forced to contemplate that tough question that crops up this time each year: what will happen to all the hotties?

So we’re stepping into the shoes of Theo Epstein for the day (naturally, since he’s the hottest GM in the major leagues), and assigning a market value to the hottest ballplayers rumored to be up on the block– based solely on just how smokin’ they are. A cadre of the Ladies… (five to be exact, enough to fill a front office for an All-Hot Team) put the candidates through a rigorous evaluation process, and submitted their valuations- in dollar signs- of the hottest possibilities. After some difficult and lengthy calculations, we’re sharing our scouting report ranking their hottie value.

It’s a hot, hot market out there, and we’re not afraid to spend a pretty penny on a pretty boy. But just how much are each of these ballplayers worth?

Hit and Run: I get misty

After countless stories about naughty QBs, naughty refs and naughty baseball players who don’t sign enough autographs, it’s high time for a few happy stories from the sports world, don’t you think?

Let’s start with the cherubic Jon Lester, who won his first start after an abrupt departure from baseball last summer, when he was diagnosed with cancer. I’m no great Red Sox fan (please don’t hurt me, J-Money) but I admit I teared up when everyone in the Red Sox dugout went over to hug and congratulate him after he finished six strong innings, allowing two runs, three walks, and six Ks. I AM NOT MADE OF STONE, PEOPLE.

The Houston Texans’ Ahman Green is a stand-up guy: This week, he made good on a promise to put down the down payment on a home for a single parent in exchange for his jersey number from teammate Jason Simmons. The best part about the story is that the recipient of the down payment, Regina Foster, doesn’t know anything about football, and isn’t a fan of the Texans.

Finally, here’s a cute story from the NASCAR world: Brent Sherman took six years off of racing to serve in the Air Force. Now he’s trying to get back in the driver’s seat in the Busch series. (Please forgive that terrible pun.)

Rocking The Plate

You’re standing in the on-deck circle, taking a few practice cuts and watching your teammate at the plate out of the corner of your eye.

Strike three.
Inhale. Grip tightens. Exhale.

You’re up.

36,000 of your closest friends are on hand to watch. Couple million more at home. And you haven’t made the highlight reel all week.

And there it is – that perfect song is blaring out over the loudspeakers.

Now you’re ready to do battle.

Let’s imagine for a moment that all of the Ladies… are major league baseball players. Yes, I know this would present a difficult quandary regarding whether we would ogle our own asses, forearms and eyeblack on this site (maybe we could spin off a “Gentlemen…” blog?). But the more important question is: What song would each of the Ladies… use as her at-bat music?

This is not a simple question- picking just one track to use as your theme music every single time you step up to the plate is tough. Do you go Classic Rock? Hip-Hop? Metal? I’m sure there are some pretty rockin’ hillbilly beats from Tennessee that Holly could use. (Holly’s note: Oh, you want hillbilly beats? I got your hillbilly beats RIGHT DAMN HERE.)

After some solo deliberation (using whatever criteria she chose), each Lady… submitted to me the piece of music that should play over the P.A. speakers when she stepped out of the on-deck circle and into the batter’s box. The other Ladies… haven’t even seen these yet. Take a gander at the lineup after the jump – and try and tell me this wouldn’t be an intimidating bunch to square off against at the plate.

Hottie Hit and Run: We’re in the money

Hello errbody! Clare here, pinch hitting for TSW on Hit and Run duties.

Mad scrilla yo!

He’s got a lot of what it takes to get along: At 7:25 this morning, psychologist Jerry Yang was crowned braceleted the champion of the 2007 World Series of Poker at the Rio in Las Vegas. He took home the coveted Corum WSOP bracelet and $8.25 million. Not a bad ROI on a $225 satellite tournament buy-in. My dad, The Starter Wife, and just about everyone else in the world knows more about poker than I do, so I’ll let some commentators better versed than me in Bullets, Big Slick, and Dolly Parton tell you what Yang’s victory means for the “sport.”

Not to be outdone, my dad (you might remember him from Father’s Day) cashed in a World Series event this year: He came in 124th at the senior event and won $1300. I’m quite certain that my “good luck today, hope you beat all the other oldsters” text message I sent him the morning the tournament started was what did the trick.

But wait! There’s more!

Better get your tux out of mothballs: The hotties of the Philadelphia Phillies

Together with their manager Charles Fuqua Manuel
The Philadelphia Phillies
cordially invite you to
A Party of Pants
on Saturday, the seventh of July
two thousand and seven
One Citizens Bank Way
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Meet your hosts and R.S.V.P. after the jump.

Becksiest Man Alive: The Ladies… Endorse:

TattoedMess(iah)
“I’d be honored if I were Ladies… endorsed. That’s the gold seal of approval these days.”

Deadspin commenter, musician and all-around funny guy TattooedMess(iah) is our choice for Becksiest Man Alive. TattooedMess is a 19 year-old hunk of burning love hailing from the great state of Florida. His ultimate goal is to be a recording artist and to own his own record label. He has a great blog going on and he also writes his own music. Here at Ladies, we appreciate a good sense of humor, ambition, and nicely defined V muscles, so we’d like to endorse him in the Deadspin Becksiest Man Alive Contest.

MLB All-Star Game Excitement B-I-N-G-O Style

Download Full Page American League Bingo Card PDF Here

Need a little bit more excitement and entertainment for your All-Star game party?

Well we here at Ladies believe that even the most casual of fan should be able to have some fun watching the Midsummer Classic, so we’ve whipped up some All-Star Bingo Cards! No need to try to keep track of pitching changes when you can look for Big Papi to point to the sky, Alyssa Milano in the stands, and players adjusting their junk instead. We’ve got your American League, National League, and Interleague Bingo all here!

Golden Grain Goodness: Hotties of the Milwaukee Brewers

In these steamy, sweltering days of summer, what’s better on a hot day than some baseball and a Brew(er)?

After the jump, a 19-pack of Brewer tallboys.

Soaping Up With Baseball Players

Major league baseball is a constant soap opera- full of heroes and villains, twists and turns, A-Rod and his various women. It was only natural, then, that a group of ballplayers would make an appearance on a honest-to-god soap opera– in this case, several Brewers (J.J. Hardy, Chris Capuano, Bill Hall and Jeff Suppan) appeared on an episode of The Young & the Restless yesterday. There was a four-seam demonstration by Chris, sheepish smiles from Bill and Jeff, and a particularly cheesy line from J.J. (you can see the full video HERE, though it’s not near as entertaining as imagined by The Dugout).

The Brewers’ soap opera debut got me (and a few others) thinking: What if another team was the featured subject of a soap opera? And more than just a cameo. What if a baseball team WAS a soap opera? What exactly would “As The Yankees Turn” or “One Giants Life to Live” consist of? With some help from Clare, Metschick and Peter, here’s an idea what it would be like…

CUBS: The patriarch of the family would be committed to an insane asylum, there would be at least one family brawl per week, Rich Hill would tip his lines, and a fan of the show would lean in from stage right and screw things up.

GIANTS: Every episode focuses on the petulant, but brilliant, son who grew up and yet never left home. All the other cast members and their storylines are ignored- except, on occasion, for an off-hand mention of the dreamboat stud (who came from another show) who has hit the skids.

Father’s Day Aftershave – Clare’s top seven sports memories of her dad

1.  Earliest sports memory of my dad:  Playing wiffle ball at the shore, using the house next door to ours as a backstop.

2.  Watching the ninth inning of Game 6 of the 1993 NLCS and running out to the car to honk the horn when Mitch Williams made the final out.

Blogger Invitational Tournament Championship of Hotness

Despite the very clear directions we laid out for them (ONE PHOTO! ONE LINK!) some of the guys who wanted to be included in the bracket just couldn’t get it right. So we didn’t include them. Ha!

But the weisenheimers who mentioned a hot blogger invitational did give us a good idea for what to do with these fellas. We are nothing if not fickle Ladies, and since the pool of bloggers continues to dwindle, here are three more blogger hotties for your perusal.

Welcome…to The BITCH.

Two Homers Discuss…: Phillies at Mets, 6/7/07

As you’ve probably guessed by now, Ladies… Texas Gal and Clare are quite the Phillies Phans. Unfortunately, they’re separated by 750 miles and a change of time zones. How do they remedy this problem? For what we hope will be the first in a series of Two Homers Discuss… pieces, they fire up their IM programs of choice, chat away and save the results FOR YR LOLZ AND ENJOYMENTZ.

Texas Gal: I’M TIRED OF THESE MOTHER HUBBARD METS IN THIS MOTHER HUBBARD DIVISION
Clare: HI TEX IT’S CL
Clare: CLARE
Texas Gal: WHY DON’T THEY GROW THE FUDGE UP
Texas Gal: PARDON MY FRENCH
Clare: /CHORTLE
Texas Gal: THIS IS WH
Texas Gal: THIS IS WH
Texas Gal: THIS IS WHY I’M HOT

Stuff your ballot box early and often

Since the first returns are in on the 2007 MLB All-Star Game voting, we thought we’d take a look at how well some of our hotties are doing in the balloting, and who could use a bit of the Ladies’ help.

Furrow that B&T brow, D-Wright.

Metschick’s boys are leading the races at shortstop, third base, catcher and in the outfield in the NL voting. Jose Reyes has a commanding lead at shortstop over J.J. Hardy. At third, pretty boy David Wright has more than 100,000 more votes than his closest competition, Larry Wayne Jones Jr. (I refuse to call him Chipper. Chipper was cute when you were 12, but now you’re a grown up, LARRY.) Scotty Ro-Ro needs to pick up the pace if he wants to make it to San Fransisco this July — he’s languishing in fourth.

Mother’s Day Potpourri – Clare’s Mom Hearts: Dan Marino

My mom has never been much of a sports fan. Sports are my father’s domain. She likes the New Orleans Saints for aesthetic reasons (she loves fleur-de-lis), she tolerates the Eagles because they’re only on once a week, and she grinds her teeth when pitchers throw to first to hold a runner on base.

But then there’s Dan Marino.

Hottie Hit and Run: I’m just a boy with a new haircut/And that’s a pretty nice haircut

The B&T eyebrows aren’t quite so noticeable now

Which is the bigger story: Barry Bonds hits No. 745 off Tom Glavine, Glavine still gets win No. 294 in the books, or pretty much everyone on the Mets’ 25-man roster shaves their heads before BP? (Big smooches to Metschick for the tip.) [How will Shaun Green keep his yarmulke on now?]

Vintage hottie alert: Doug Flutie, Ahmad Rashad and Reggie Williams are among this year’s inductees to the College Football Hall of Fame. Joe Paterno (not a hottie) will also receive his induction this year, after skipping last year’s ceremony because of his broken leg. [I predict a run on Flutie Flakes]

Going halfsies

In a brilliant marketing ploy that ranks up there with Dollar Dog night, the Terrible Towel, and everybody’s favorite, the bobblehead promotion, two titans of the tennis world met in Spain yesterday for a gimmick match for the ages.

Dreamy Roger Federer, a four-time winner at Wimbledon is a specialist on grass courts, and his frequently manpris-clad opponent, two-time French Open winner Rafael Nadal, is frequently referred to as the “King of Clay.” They agreed to play an exhibition match on a specially constructed half clay-half grass courtto decide once and for all who is cuter better dressed on the court a better all-around tennis player.

Nadal won in 7-5, 4-6, 7-6 sets. I don’t really know what that means, but I think it was close.

Half and half court weirdness

Hottie Hit and Run: Om shanti, shanti shanti, shanti om

Today, I’m pinch hitting for TheStarterWife on Hit and Run duties. I know I cannot possibly be as cute as him, but I hope I’m as good at pinch hitting as Phillies bench hottie Greg Dobbs is.

Chase Utley’s been taking lessons from Tony LaRussa.

When you’re so amped up your pitching coach has to come to the mound in the second inning to ask you if you’re “on something,” you know you’ve got to dial it back. I don’t know what Ladies… favorite Cole Hamels did to get his head right after getting dinged for three runs in the first inning of last night’s game against the Atlanta Braves — chamomile tea, a little yoga, some Enya in the dugout? Whatever it was, it worked. Phils come out on top, 6 to 4. [Om mani padme om]

Dallas ekes out a W over the Golden State Warriors. Perhaps it was Avery Johnson’s tongue-lashing of Dirk Nowitzki (not like that, you pervs) that snapped him out of his funk? [Mark Cuban's playoff beard gets a few more grays]

Draft Day, Baby!

Thank Football Jesus (there’s a separate one for football), IT’S HERE.

As Draft Day dawns in America (be sure to check the actual picks against our wildly inaccurate but funnier ones over at Awful Announcing’s mock draft), the Ladies… would like to take this moment to kick back and fantasize about whom we’d like to see roaming our sidelines next season. (Of our teams. We meant the sidelines of our teams. Like, on the field where they play football. Naughty.) Join us, won’t you?

Indianapolis Colts – Holly Dallas Cowboys – Texas Gal Pittsburgh Steelers – TheStarterWife New York Jets – Metschick Philadelphia Eagles – Clare Carolina Panthers – SA Chicago Bears – Lady Andrea St. Louis Rams – J-Money

Homer Hottie: Ryan Howard

Sportswriters spilled gallons of ink during the off season about today’s Homer Hottie, Philadelphia Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard.

By now you know all the highlights: In little league, hit a homer over a Red Lobster in the outfield, won last year’s All-Star Game Home Run Derby, led the entire major league with 58 homers last season, only the second player after Cal Ripken Jr. (no slouch himself in the hotness department, in a silver fox kind of way) to win Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable player in consecutive seasons. So let’s just get right to the hotness, yeah?

31 lirpa, Setarip ta Stnaig: Ereht Saw I

Where the hell did this tattoo come from?

Where am I? Why am I awake at 5:30 in the morning on a Saturday? Why do I smell like an ashtray?

There’s a cat nuzzling my face and licking my forehead. That’s strange: I don’t think I own a cat.

Where is the bathroom? I AM GOING TO BE SICK.

Hump Day Hottie: Wall-to-Wall

Just another Wednesday? I don’t think so- not when the Ladies… tag team to bring you an onslaught of hotties. In celebration of… not much of anything, just because we can- we bring you the finest buffet of hotties known to womankind. Mankind, too, for that matter. Wanna know who each of the Ladies… consider to be the hottest man alive? Now you know. TGIW, y’all.

Holly: What’s a day at Ladies… without hate sex?