Hit and Run: Time Flies Edition

Since the Cardinals played the Opening Night game on ESPN this year, on actual Opening Day I had my pick of games on MLB.tv.  By the time I got home from work, the Indians and Blue Jays were tied in the 9th inning. “Oh, I’ll just watch this quick dramatic conclusion,” I thought.  Then it turned out to be the longest Opening Day game ever played.  It went on so long, in fact, that the benches for both teams saw a lot of work.  Which brought in Omar Vizquel. Who yesterday turned 45.

A longtime Indian now with Toronto, Vizquel got a warm round of applause from the Cleveland fans both when he was first inserted as a defensive replacement, and later when the game went on long enough to give him an at bat.  In an MLB where players my age are now considered on the far side of their prime, and where many of his contemporaries are now mangers, Vizquel’s longevity is both remarkable and jarring.  (Related: Chipper Jones turned 40 the same day. Chipper. Jones. is 40.)

Other sports news properly introduced with “it seems like only yesterday….”

NCAA Tourney, Day 1: The Non-Upset Upset

Today’s zen meditation: when the only upset 3/4 of the way through the first day of play is the one upset everyone was predicting, is it really an upset? (Not to mention that at least one 12 seed has won a game in 23 of the last 24 tournaments, so statistics were even on VCU’s side.)

I delayed and delayed and delayed putting up the post in hopes that March Madness would break out, but despite some close games (and one burgeoning conspiracy theory involving Syracuse), the surprise of this tournament has been the lack of surprise.

Five For Friday: Don’t Let The Door Hit Your Arse Edition

Why am I so happy when my NHL team is in 12th place? That picture should give you a hint. Five for Friday after the jump, y’all…

Cute wool hats, floating heads and stupid Tebow: Your NFL Wild Card Weekend Preview

I'm just relieved this isn't an animated gif in which the outer floating heads rotate around Boomer. (Image source: ESPN)

It’s NFL WILD CARD WEEKEND! And I know this because ESPN sent me the most frightening email yesterday to remind me. I’m normally all for floating heads, but I live in fear of falling asleep and having the floating head of Keyshawn Johnson bellow “C’MON MANNNN!” in my dreams. Also, what the hell is with the green glow? The Countdown Crew are aliens, I tell you.

Meet me after the jump for a quick look at Wild Card Weekend. I have to go find my tinfoil hat first…

Random Things I’ve Learned By Listening to Playoff Baseball on the Radio

As I may have mentioned once or twice before, I don’t have cable, and though my boyfriend has been happy (or at least pretends he’s happy) to let me watch the Cardinals games on his TV, for many of the other games I’ve been listening to the radio feeds through MLB.com.  It’s been quite some time since I’ve listened to baseball on the radio on a regular basis, and even longer since I listened to any baseball on the radio that involved non-Cardinals announcers.  It’s quite instructive. Some things I’ve learned:

Hit and Run: I Really Gotta Run Edition

What with the liveblogging early this week, and an unexpected trip out of town this weekend, I’ve barely had time to catch my breath.  Here’s a couple of quick, fun pictures before I get up and resume packing.

Boris Struebel/Getty Images

The US Women are in the World Cup final, and Abby Wambach has another beautiful header goal. The Final is Sunday right when I’ll be heading back from my trip, but I’ll be with them in spirit.

Hit And Run: (Mostly) Celebrity Edition

As excited as the Ladies get for baseball’s All-Star festivities, we tend to ignore the Celebrity Softball game.  I may have to at least DVR it, however, now that Chris Pratt (Parks and Rec, Everwood) has been announced as one of the celebrities. Chris is in the Moneyball movie as one of the A’s prospects, so he’s presumably had at least some movie prep coaching.  If he brings MouseRat to sing the national anthem, I’ll even watch it live.

Also on the celeb roster:

Tweets from ‘letes

I’ll admit that I’m not very big in to Twitter – I’m not sure why, but it either feels like homework, or I end up feeling like I’m a little too self absorbed to really believe that my 61 followers truly care how I felt about that pizza sliceor what the weather is like in Manhattan from the window near my cubicle.  After being reminded a few dozen times that today was apparently the 5th birthday of the little blue bird who started it all, I decided to pay closer attention to what’s out there and who’s tweeting.  Newsflash, did you know that nearly everyone tweets? Jeez! Even if I did follow it, how do you sift through the crap  and find some damn information?

I did, however, find a few nuggets of gold in this river of 140-character-or-less overflow, and do you know where I found them coming from? Athletes! Not only are athletes on Twitter, but they’re often freaking hilarious! This gave me an idea for something new that I’d like to try, and I definitely need reader feedback. Introducing the first ever edition of the Ladies…Tweets from ‘letes!

Hit and Run: 3 Useless Things

Having a little trouble catching up from the holiday week, so I decided to do a bit of a Hit and Run filled with useless, yet very interesting facts (at least I found them to be).  More after the jump – hope everyone had a delightful football-filled turkey day!

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).

Your Monday Morning Nightmare

NHL Hotness Preview Numero Trois will be along later this evening. In the meantime…did you catch Sunday Night Football last night? I had my head down working on my NHL post, so I assume they were doing a segment on Favre (well, OBVIOUSLY!) when they started flashing Photoshopped stills of sports legends wearing unis of their respective team’s arch rivals. Bird. Jordan. Elway.

Derek Jeter.

There is not enough wine in the world to erase this horrible, horrible image from my memory.

(via @bubbaprog via @amandarykoff. Really, you guys. You shouldn’t have.)

So, about that espnW thing…

ESPN, for women. We’d be remiss as Ladies… if we didn’t weigh in on this ridiculous idea that’s apparently a real thing, and not an Onion article.

Click for source...made by Miss Minda

Miss Minda: Apparently we aren’t smart enough to understand the real ESPN, because it belongs to our dads, our boyfriends, and that cute guy at work we’re always trying to impress.

Games Mistress: What’s kind of worrying me is

MLB All-Star Game Shoe Porn

Apparently Mr. Ronaldo was the first futbol player to sport the orange cleats that littered the World Cup this summer. He debuted them back in October of 2009, if my sources are correct.

Shoes seem to be such a hot topic these days.  First, we had the whole orange shoe craze at the World Cup, now the flashy shoes have infiltrated the MLB All-Star Game.  Everyone’s favorite announcers, Chris Berman and Joe Morgan, were all abuzz about David Ortiz’s shoes that they forgot to talk about all the home runs he was hitting.

So join me after the jump, where we take a look at some All-Star Game foot fashion. Forget the long ball, chicks dig the shoes.

Five Words.

Dick. Move. Hall. Of. Fame.

Okay, look. I’ve devoted a lot of time and energy into hating the ever-loving hell out of Brett Favre for the monumental screw-job he handed Green Bay fans by first doing the ‘I MAY RETIRE OR I MAY NOT WOULDN’T YOU LIKE TO KNOW’ dance and then the ‘LOLOLOLOL I AM SIGNING WITH YOUR RIVAL’ swan song. I really, really thought there couldn’t possibly be a bigger dick in organized sports than Brett Favre. I mean, the man singlehandedly held up football in Green Bay for a solid three years, and I’m pretty sure Aaron Rodgers still has Favre voodoo dolls in every room of his house.

That said? I’ve never seen an athlete so tone-deaf as to think that a nationally televised hour-long special to announce his free-agency decision smacked of anything beyond rampant egotism. That was horrifying in and of itself.

But a nationally televised hour-long special to break up with his hometown team in the most public manner possible? That’s an unprecedented level of douchebag.

Congratulations, LeBron James. You’re 2010′s entry into the Dick Move Hall of Fame. Good thing I don’t care about basketball.

On Sale Now!!!

It’s time once again for the annual NBA Free Agent Sale — and this year our deals are hotter than ever! Yes, you too, for a contract totaling only slightly more than the gross national product of Kiribati, can own your very own NBA Superstar Free Agent! We have so many great models to choose from, like this 2010 Hungry Franchise Savior:

We Wait With Bated Breath

I’m sorry – the National’s game is SOLD OUT???  Did Ted Williams come back from the freezer to don a Nat’s jersey?

Seriously, if you’ve ever been to a Nat’s game, it’s a veritable ghost town – which is fine by me, I hate waiting in line for a beer!

Twitter Theater: Mets-Cardinals, April 17, 2010

Cards' beat writer Derrick Goold snapped this picture of his scorecard after the game. (Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

I’m sort of new to Twitter (I don’t actually have an account, I just follow people through Feedly), and the handful of people I follow right now are a)Cardinals fans or b)Ladies.  Which made a glance at my selected Twitter feeds during Saturday’s Mets-Cardinals marathon most entertaining. And now, without further interruption, Ladies…Twitter Theater presents: The Twenty Inning Game

Hit and Run: A weekend of bananas!

Ok, well perhaps not LITERALLY. But c’mon, anyone that watched really any sport (including boxing) knows that this weekend was off-the-charts-bananas! Franchise record with a no-hitter, 20 inning scoreless standoff, NHL and NBA playoffs, drunk drivers…
Here’s a Hit & Run recap of the weekend’s events after the jump.

Tell Me What Ya Want, What Ya Really Really Want

Cristiano is begging you to help the Ladies out!

Ok Ladies… readers, this post is for you.

We ladies are looking to revamp the site.  We’ve been brainstorming on some new features we want to introduce to you, the reader.  My fellow Ladies and I want to hear from our readers because we realize that you are the reason we keep this blog going.  So what do you want?

What features do you like and want more of?  What features could you do without?  What features should we do that we aren’t right now?  Are we missing something that you think we should be covering?  Is there an old feature we did in the past that you would like to see make an appearance again?  You get the picture.

Tell us what you think in the comments.  Don’t be afraid.  We need some constructive criticism and, most importantly, your input on what we can do to make this place better.

And no worries…we’re still going to bring you hot athletes on a daily basis! ;-)

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

This moment is the reason I live for deadlines. Feds GWG against the Rangers in Game 7.

If you read this site, you know that I’m a hockey addict.  That is why today is one of my favorite days of the year: NHL Trade Deadline Day!  With all the new technology available, Deadline Days have become even more fun.  Text message alerts? Check.  Twitter updates? Check. Live Blogs? Check.  Trade Trackers? Check.

If you, like me, enjoy a fun day of speculation and mind-blowing trades, then take a trip with me down the rabbit hole…

Johnny Weir tonight! Not that NBC mentioned him…

A strange NBC promo made NO mention of the Fabulousity That Is Johnny Weir. As fans of La Weir, the Ladies will not stand for this snub.

Check out the promo, then vote in the poll below.

Leaving Weir out of Olympics promo:
(polls)

In Honor of Valentine’s Day… The Best Sports Bromances

H/T to Your Nation's Capital over at Japer's Rink for the image. She put all the pretty hearts around my two favorite Russians: Alex Ovechkin and Alex Semin!

Sometimes there is one person that can make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.  It could be a spouse or significant other.  Sometimes it’s a crush or a close friend…and sometimes it’s a teammate.  So in honor of Valentine’s Day and teammate love, I bring you some of the best sports bromances!

Follow me after the jump to see if your favorite duo made the cut!

Opening Ceremonies Bingo: Now With More Ski Jumping!

Four years later, this low tech illusion from Torino is still one of my favorite Olympic opening ceremonies segments ever:

After this last week, a good portion of North America is going to need some snowed-in activities this weekend. So in honor of the Vancouver Games’ impending opening on Friday, I give you an updated version of Olympic Opening Ceremonies Bingo!

Who Dat? And while we’re on it, what was up with those ads??

Riding out the Ladies… Super Bowl excitement further, I’d like to extend my congratulations to Drew, Coach Peyton, and the city of New Orleans on winning the 44th Super Bowl!!!  And call it my nature, blame it on where my interests lie, but I found it only fitting to include this awesome video for K. Gates’ “Who Dat”, along with my own analysis and recap of the (incredibly disappointing) Super Bowl ads.

I have to do this eventually, I might as well do it now.

Well.

It was supposed to be the Yankees.

It wasn’t.

I’m going to miss you, you know. I’m going to miss that little sliver of hope that the rest of the team would play as well as they’d need to in order to deserve you, and I’m going to miss having someone to believe in every fifth day (or really, every day), and I’m going to miss everything about the way you affected the team and the city and the fans. Hell, I’m not just ‘going to’, I already do.

I’m not saying the Jays have nothing to play for anymore – just that it’s going to feel that way for a while.

So I’ll see you around, I guess.

I don’t know when I’ll be ready to say goodbye.

Insert (caption) Here…

By now you’ve seen the picture but I couldn’t resist having our readers chime in.  I love my boys, but they make it so damn easy to rip on!

Trash Talking With Twitter

It’s no secret that athletes love Twitter. And fans love that so many athletes are a part of Twitter. I’m sure for many people Ochocinco’s Twitter is a daily source of entertainment. Athletes use Twitter for anything and everything; most of the time it is all in good fun. But it seems that some are using their Twitter account to rant and do a little trash talk. Now, I’m not uptight and have no problem with a little bit of trash talk before a game. However, I do have a problem when it is so incredibly corny or just straight up wrong. I think that if any athlete is going to use their Twitter to talk a little smack about their opponent, they should really do a better job than these people.

Child Pleeez! Athletes and the Interwebs

While this photo is quite cheezy, I'm not gonna lie - it was my wallpaper for a hot minute!

Three things led me to this week’s post topic.

 1)      My favorite athlete, Mike Green, launched his own website.

2)      I had a chance encounter with the New York Yankees.

3)      The NFL’s ruling on Twitter & Facebook.

 Since we are living in the Internet Age, it’s only natural to go to the ‘net for everything we need.  Athletes are no different.  We are all guilty of googling our favorite athletes at one time or another, and I’m sure we weren’t just looking for stats.  We were looking for personal information.  Think about how much of your personal info is available to anyone online. Now double, triple or quadruple that, and that’s about how much info you could possibly find on any given athlete or celebrity. And sometimes, those same people are putting that info out there for us to find.

Follow me after the jump where we talk about Twitter, Facebook, and blogs. Oh, and I’m sure you all want to hear about my run-in with the boys in pinstripes. ;-)

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programmiOH MY GOD JIM THOME JIM THOME JI JIM THOME

In case you haven’t noticed, the Dodgers just traded a PTBNL and cash for Jim Thome.

That’s right, the one and only

JI

JIM THOME.

They say he’ll be a bat off the bench, but I say they should just put him at first base and let him play. But that’s not even the point. The point is, THE HERO OF THE DUGOUT IS COMING TO MY TOWN. HE WILL SMASH TATERS THAT WILL GO LIKE THIS:

OFF THE BAT, OFF AN AIRPLANE, AIRPLANE EXPLODES, PASSENGER CLINGS TO BALL AS IT FALLS, PASSENGER FALLS TO DOOM, OUT OF THE STADIUM.

Or maybe even like this:

OFF THE BAT, THE BALL DISINTEGRATES, THE ATOMIC RESIDUE TRAVELS FAR FROM THIS MORTAL PLANE, REFORMS IN HEAVEN, OFF THE FACE OF OUR LORD, OUT OF THE STADIUM.

Suddenly, I care about the Dodgers again.

IAAF World Championships in Athletics: Oh, Stop Being Snooty and call it Track and Field

In one of my earliest posts here at Ladies…, I confessed my deep and abiding love for track and field.  (Also, holy crap — that was a year ago?)  Well, I have once again proven my track nerd bonafides by not only watching last weekend’s coverage of the World Championships in Berlin (such as it was, since I don’t get Versus and had to make do with the two hours a day NBC could tear away from the “Dew Tour”) but getting into a giddy text message exchange with my brother immediately after watching Usain Bolt’s smashing of his own 100m world record.  (My brother, by the way, believes Usain can break 9.4 before he retires.)