Friday Fellow: John Daly

We haven’t done a Friday Fellow in quite some time, so I thought I’d post someone really awesome today: John Daly.

Yes, really. I know baseball season just started, and college basketball is wrapping up, but it just seems right to feature him today.

What’s not to like?  He lives his life in the fast lane, and is not afraid to compete in outfits most people wouldn’t dare wear out in public. I find that sort of sartorial bravery incredibly attractive.  So let’s explore the many hot angles of John Daly …

Your March Madness Visual Reference Guide

I would be happy to see more of this from Singler, but YMMV.

I’m jumping my usual post day by about twelve hours just so I can remind you that you can still sign up for the Ladies… Bracket Brawl right up until tipoff Thursday (12:15 EST).  Just click the link and enter the password: ladiesdotdotdot.

In the meantime, here’s a quick visual guide to some of the teams and storylines that will be occupying your TV over the next four days (at least).

Uh, that’s Duke over there.  I miss that period when they flamed out in the early rounds every year. Kyle Singler (#12) is the latest in the Duke mold of Awesome Collegiate Players With No Real Chance At A Pro Career.

Take Us Out to the (Basket)Ball Game: The Ladies… Do Madison Square Garden

I almost didn’t make it to Wednesday’s Knicks-Hornets game.  First, I had it down on my calendar for Thursday.  Then there was the massive sinus attack that had me spending most of Wednesday afternoon lying flat on my back to keep my head from spinning. At 5:30, I was convinced my immune system had betrayed me. Luckily, the decongestant finally kicked in about half an hour later and I began to feel, if not perfectly healthy, at least capable of sitting upright and watching basketball for a few hours.

It was definitely worth it.  I had been to Madison Square Garden before, but never for a basketball game.  And particularly not a basketball game featuring Amare (over there on the left), Chris Paul, the newly arrived Carmelo, and a surprise mystery guest.  More pictures and details after the jump!

Craft Like A Champion: The 9th Inning

Our inaugural Craft Like a Champion Challenge is just days away from concluding, and we’re still just a handful of caps away from our 32 cap goal.  But there’s one good weekend left (Save the Children asks that the caps be in the mail by this coming Monday), and you’d be amazed what one good day of knitting can do.

Craft Like A Champion Week 4: A Numerical Trivia Challenge

Not sure what all this is about?  Click here, or follow the link in the sidebar!

Something strange happened when I started pulling together this week’s Craft Like A Champion post.  I was looking for athletes who could be a visual representation of the number of hats we’ve so far completed.  Now, there are some very famous retired athletes associated with this number, but I wanted pictures of current athletes with their current teams.  I did find some good candidates, but I also found not one, not two, but four fairly high profile athletes who used to wear this number but, because they’ve switched teams this off-season, now have new numbers.

I was going to just tell you who they were, but then I thought, why not do a reverse of our old Theme Thursdays game: I’ll tell you the theme, and you tell me the athletes.

For your first hint, here’s the number I was looking for as modeled by a few football players:

Why There Was No Craft Like A Champion Post This Week

There’s still time to finish your cap(s) for Craft Like a Champion and get them mailed before the February 28 deadline — and don’t forget many of you have a three day weekend coming up.  (Click here if you have no idea what I’m talking about.)

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to do a full roundup post this week, in large part because of computer problems (I can not WAIT until my new laptop comes in)  but also because I’m stuck in a feedback loop of feelings about my beloved Albert Pujols (click to enlarge).

Nerdy, I know, but it made me feel better than that stupid countdown clock.

The regular Craft Like a Champion roundup will resume next week — don’t forget to email us your cap photos!

Craft Like a Champion Week 3: We’re Listening

Not sure what this is all about?  Click here, or follow the Craft Like a Champion link in the sidebar.

We’re almost to the end of our Super Bowl dead period, but plenty of you are still snowbound, and maybe you’ve exhausted your DVRs and Netflix queues by now.  I find that I knit even faster when I’m just listening to something instead of watching TV, so why not try a podcast.  With help from Minda and Bee, I’ve pulled together a short list of sports podcast for the erstwhile Champion Crafter.

Craft Like a Champion Week 2: The Green and Gold Lays Down the Gauntlet

Now that we have entered the pre-Super Bowl waiting period in earnest — and if you live in a city that has just had 19 inches of snow dumped on it overnight — you may have a little time on your hands.  Wouldn’t you like to use some of that time knitting a hat for a newborn in a developing country?  You don’t even have to stop watching TV to knit — I often use working on a knitted gift as an excuse to spend the whole day watching random British sitcoms on my Netflix instant account.

Missed last week’s kickoff?  Click here, or follow the link in the sidebar.

Of course, some of our lovely readers are not the procrastinating type.  Some of you have already finished not just one hat …

The Ladies… Craft Like A Champion Challenge

We are fast approaching one of the notorious Dead Zones of the sports calendar: the two week period leading up to the Super Bowl.  The NHL and NBA are not yet at mid-season, college basketball is still a week or two away from beginning its crescendo to the tourney, and Spring Training is almost a month away.  For a vast majority of us, it’s even too cold to go outside. What’s a sports loving gal to do with all that time on her hands?

How about making a hat for a needy newborn as part of the Ladies… Craft Like A Champion Challenge?

Settling Conference Scores…Who Y’a Got?

Hailing a cab to Pittsburgh, it's Mark Sanchez! (Getty Images)

Only a little part of me will be glad to have my Sunday nights back (that means I might actually file my posts on time!) I mean, really, has the football not been superb these last two weekends?

Saturday’s NFL Divisional matchups saw the Steelers topple the Ravens 31-24, while Green Bay annihilated the Falcons 48-21.

Then came Sunday. We figured the Seahawks wouldn’t stand a chance against the Bears, and while they put up a fight the end result was as predicted: Chicago over Seattle 35-24.

But did you think for a minute…that the Patriots would fall to Rex Ryan’s Jets? Oh, the drama, the vitriol, the stupid hair, the gentle musings of one Bart Scott (please do yourself a favour and watch the video clip!)

Get’cha popcorn ready for Sunday and join me, Games Mistress and CuteSports after the jump for our NFL Conference Showdown predictions…plus a chance for you to vote for your NFL Conference Championship picks.

Hit and Run: Waiting for Those Other Shoes

 

NOT these shoes. Or these socks, for that matter.

The wait for the BCS Championship game (seriously, January 10? and a playoff would take too much time?) may be over, but the waiting for a lot of other sports news is just getting started.  I delayed this post as long as possible hoping a couple of these things might actually go ahead and happen, but apparently the sports world does not exist to satisfy my needs as a blogger. Still, here’s a brief run down of pending news just in case you don’t want to refresh ESPN every five minutes.

Advent Calendar of Hotness – Day 21

Please allow me a moment of celebration for my favorite Jet this season, Mr. Brad Smith.

Advent Calendar of Hotness – Day 16

We had our first big NBA trade this week, so since cutie Sasha Vujacic has to give up the Lakers and sunny LA for moribund (and currently freezing) New Jersey, I thought I’d give him the consolation prize of being ACoH.

Advent Calendar of Hotness – Day 12

After winning the Heisman Trophy last night, and the Davey O’Brien (best QB) and Maxwell (best overall player that isn’t as snooty as the Heisman) on Thursday, Cam Newton adds to his awards haul by being today’s ACoH.

Advent Calendar of Hotness – Day 11 (Plus Bonus Makeup Guy!)

So we (ok me, mostly) got a little confused with our ACoH numbers this week and once we had it all sorted out we realized we’d missed a couple of days.  So in an attempt to give you, our beloved readers, the full 25 hot guys you deserve in your advent calendar, today’s ACoH is actually a pair: Aaron Rodgers and Greg Jennings of the Green Bay Packers.

Advent Calendar of Hotness- Day 9

Note: This really was supposed to be yesterday’s post (which is actually day 9, not day 7, but GM is having calendar amnesia this week).

In a first for the ACoH, today’s designee never actually played professional sports, but I know I’m not the only Lady who enjoys spotting him on the sidelines…

Advent Calendar of Hotness – Day 8

I am just going to make the “day 8″ part of this, so it’s a good thing today’s ACoH selection has become very familiar to all of us over the last two months.  Ladies (and gentlemen, if you are so inclined), please enjoy the following views of NL Rookie of the Year Buster Posey:

Advent Calendar of Hotness – Day 4*

*late because I was a little too busy celebrating last night.

With apologies to Minda and Auburn fans, there was one particular college football player who earned ACoH honors for Day 4 by helping his team win the Big XII Championship: Oklahoma’s Travis Lewis.

Advent Calendar of Hotness – Day 2

Y’all, I think Kevin Durant’s game is not the only thing that matured over the summer. 

And Now, A Few Words About the NBA

 

It’s only our irrational fear of asbestos contamination that has kept us from blogging about the NBA. Really

We here at Ladies… are not the most dutiful of bloggers when it comes to the NBA, particularly at the beginning of the season.  Hey, if you start your season at the same time as the start of hockey season, the World Series, and peak college and NFL football action, you’re going to have to really stick out to get us to pay attention.  Still, now that we are roughly 10 games in, there are a few things you might want to know about if you were too busy cyber-stalking Buster Posey to flip on TNT.

In Which the Ladies Join In To The “Farewell Joe Morgan” Blog Circus

If you read this blog, you probably read many other sports blogs or internet sports related media, and you know that Tuesday, ESPN announced it was not renewing the contracts of its Sunday Night Baseball team, which meant to Twitter and Facebook enabled baseball fans everywhere, that Joe Morgan finally got fired.   And even if we here at Ladies were a bit too preoccupied with the jobs we actually still have this week to put up an instant response, we still couldn’t let an event sports fans have been waiting for for at least half a decade go by without comment.  Our thoughts below (and yours, hopefully, below that).

7 Things I Learned Before the Seventh Inning Stretch of Game 1

1. Cliff Lee is not invincible. Which seems kind of obvious, but didn’t it sort of seem like he was for a few weeks, there? It appears the baseball gods do not take kindly to media designated storylines such as  ”The Year of the Pitcher.”

2. Fox seems to have abandoned the  ”solemn and momentous occasion” theme they’ve used for both the All-Star Game and the World Series the last few years in favor of their standard blaring trumpet sports theme.  So they’ve obviously been reading our All-Star liveblogs.

And Then There Were Four

Why yes, that is a picture of Placido Polanco stuffing Raul Ibanez’s glove down his pants.  Thanks for noticing!

Enough goofing around: the league pennants are upon us, Fox has to start acting like the MLB playoffs aren’t something that just gets in the way of its football coverage (although to be fair they have a truly awesome NLCS promo which I can not find on the web but which prominently features a couple great Cardinal playoff moments plus Bartman), and fans whose teams win this series can buy shirts that don’t look kind of pathetic. (Unless you are a Rangers fan — you’re allowed to buy a Divisional Series Champs shirt if your team has never won a playoff series before.)  Two teams swept their way in, one team needed all 5 games, and one would have swept if it were not for the heroics of one Rick Ankiel (it is, apparently, a good post season for Cardinals nostalgia).  Anyway, here’s who we have left:

The Ladies… Slightly Tardy MLB Playoff Predictions

 

Maybe we aren’t late. Maybe we just wanted to wait for Roy to be awesome.

Yes, three of the four divisional playoff series played their first games yesterday, and yes, Roy Halladay threw a no-hitter against the Reds and totally ruined any chance I had of writing a “but it’s only Game 1 so it hasn’t got really exciting yet” lead in to this post, but some of us Ladies have once again decided to make fools of ourselves by predicting the MLB playoffs. But at least now the post will be illustrated by photos of actual 2010 playoff action, so that’s a bonus.

Rhinestones are the New Pink Jersey: The NFL’s New “Fit For You” Clothing Campaign

If I had to choose between this and a man sized jersey, I'd pick the one without the sparkles and frilly sleeves.

This week the NFL launched a new line of women’s clothing and accessories, and also a major advertising campaign.  While most of the press releases are touting that the days of “shrink it and pink it” for women’s NFL apparel are over, is the new Fit For You campaign really any better? Well, yes and no.

Hit & Run: Fantasy Football Disasters Edition

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Guess who writes for a sports blog and has Reggie Bush on both her fantasy teams, including one that is in such bad shape as far as running backs go that she is resorting to starting Fred Taylor and 3 WRs for week 3?  Yeah.  So.  (Though as someone who dates a Saints fan, I must note there’s a certain amount of relief among the NOLA fanbase that Reggie’s leg is “just” broken and he didn’t reinjure his knee.)

Injuries and fantasy football lineups thus being on my mind, I thought I’d take a quick survey of other developing situations around the league that might impact your fantasy choices this week.

Now for a little MORE good news…

With the Cardinals officially eliminating themselves from the MLB playoffs and the Jets managing to embarrass themselves on and off the field, this week has me in something of a funk, sports-wise.  So I took  a cue from Bee’s Steve Nash post, and went hunting for some sports news that’s guaranteed to put a smile on your face:

• First off, let’s congratulate Kevin Durant and the rest of the US team on winning the World Basketball Championship, the country’s first since 1994.  If Kevin Durant smiling doesn’t make you smile, check your pulse.

Kickoff in T-Minus 12, 11, …

Where’s Oswalt?

You may have heard that Roy Oswalt was pressed into duty as a left fielder in the Phillies -Astros 14 inning game Tuesday night.  This was all in a day’s work for Roy, who likes to keep his pitching skills fresh by engaging in a number of varied activities on his off days.  Here’s where you could find Roy this week:

Call-Up Cuties Returns: Welcome to the Show, Boys

It’s not quite September yet, but plenty of baseball teams  have already started calling up fresh faces for their major league debuts — which means even if your team is out of any meaningful chance at the playoffs (or if you’re trying to ignore the fact that your team is giving away the division right after reclaiming first place, sigh) there’s still plenty of good reasons to watch the games.  I mined the MLB transaction ledger to find every first-time call-up since July 31.  You can thank me later.

Ryan Kalish, LF Boston Red Sox