I was there: Gold Cup Final

My apologies for taking two plus weeks to get around to posting these pictures – it wouldn’t be too much hyperbole to tell you that it took me that long to recover!

Let’s preface all of this by saying that if you are at all a fan of US Soccer, you should be a member of your local American Outlaws chapter. The Outlaws are a supporters group with chapters in more than 90 cities around the country.

We’re members of the AO group here in Milwaukee and mostly that means we hang out at a local soccer bar together watching games and talking US Soccer. But occasionally it means we get on a bus together and head to Chicago for things like the Gold Cup Final.
Membership is a paltry $20 a year. You get discounts for some soccer websites and travel sites as well as opportunities for advanced purchase of tickets to pretty much all USMNT and USWNT games. We’re so glad to have joined. Our local group has FB and Twitter pages and we love joining the discussion and meeting fellow soccer fans. It’s a great group and I’d advocate everyone joins.

So we bought our Gold Cup Final tickets the day they went on sale. We hedged our bets on the USMNT being there. We know that big international games only come near us (usually Chicago) every could of years. We decided that even if the USMNT didn’t make it, it would be a good time, so we were in no matter what. Using the AO advanced sale, we got our tickets first thing and had 10th row. We were stoked and then just had to sit back and enjoy the ride of the US through the qualifying stages.

We also knew this would be an easy trip for us – we wanted to get WCQ tickets in Columbus or Kansas City, but we also want to go to Europe next year, so we sort of settled on this Gold Cup final instead. In the end, I don’t feel like I settled, though. I’m sure US/Mexico will be bonkers, but I’m glad we did this. It was a good intro into the world of AO and supporters section mania.

So the morning of the game we gathered with other local AO members at our soccer bar and boarded a bus. The price of bus admission included beer, drinks and snacks. Someone did the math – there were 9.5 beers on board for each person. (Let me just say that as much as I love AO, I would have loved AO so much more when I was about 10 years younger!)

The bus trip alone was an experience. The “America playlist” was as varied as you’d imagine and somehow the song that had the most crowd participation was Phil Collins “In the Air Tonight” – there’s nothing like grown men shushing each other in anticipation of “the breakdown” and then playing the drums on the roof of the bus. It was a moment.

Chicago traffic was true to form, despite it being Sunday morning/early afternoon. The Chicago AO chapter as well as any others in town had met at a bar. The plan was to march to Soldier Field past the US Soccer Federation House, where President Sunil Gulati would address us. Thanks to traffic, we missed the bar part and had our bus driver take us straight to the Soccer House. We stood there and listened to the rest of the group march to us, which was awesome. Having got there first means that the Milwaukee chapter is featured prominently in the video of Gulati addressing the crowd (notice the cheesehead and AO Milwaukee scarves).

My pictures seem to have uploaded in all kinds of order and if you’re familiar with WordPress, you know why I’m not going to try to fix that. Sorry. It should be clear which pictures are the march to the stadium and which pictures are of the game and inside the stadium.

Friday Miscellanea

Anthony Recker, for no particular reason.

I’m doing the sportswriter-mailing-it-in impression today and writing a post of snippets about unrelated sports things.  It has been an exhausting week.

• Must read: this graphic essay on The Toast about why sports are awesome. Will be particularly enjoyable for our sizeable hockey fan contingent.
• Also must read: our own Nicole’s article about the WWII Girls Baseball Living History League, which she recently joined. I am really, really bad at playing baseball, but if there was a New York branch of this I’d endure the humiliation of being unable to catch or hit (I can throw semi-okay) to participate.
• Somewhat related to baseball history: Baseball Nation’s been photoshopping photos of new-ish stadiums to look like retro postcards. They did Busch III today, but I think my favorite so far is Citizens Bank Park.
• NYC (along with I think, LA and Dallas?) Time Warner customers are currently enduring a standoff between TW and CBS. CBS is trying to push their luck with ads pointing out that TW customers will be unable to watch the PGA Championship this weekend or their preseason football coverage. Unfortunately for them, it’s hard to threaten “no NFL” coverage when LA has no team and the NYC team in question is the Jets.
• Also, I refuse to watch pro football before Labor Day, as it is prime baseball season. The Cards haven’t had an off day in almost three weeks and I have at least checked in on every single game (which of course means they started losing a bunch). My boyfriend is streaming the Saints game right now and I’m pointedly not looking at the TV. Related: this might be why I’m usually not prepared for the fantasy football draft.
• Peanuts and The Simpsons: both good at baseball math. I appreciate this, as I love both of these cultural whatevers, and the improbability of the football scenes in Friday Night Lights still distracts me from the overall awesomeness of the show.
• Some of you know that I’ve been basically teaching my boyfriend to love baseball during the course of our relationship (for four years as of this weekend – Happy Anniversary, babe!). This week, while watching the Dodgers-Cards series, the instant Jerry Hairston came up to bat, he immediately identified him as “that guy I hate.” While with the Brewers, Jerry’s habit of stepping out of the box after every pitch drew particular ire from my boyfriend (and he saw it a lot, as this occurred during one of the seasons where the Brewers and Cards slugged it out for the division title and then played a playoff series). However, I believe this is the first recorded instance of my boyfriend recognizing a player who was not formerly with St. Louis or New York after he changed teams, without some prompting on my part. Poor Jerry.

Happy Friday!

Manning Brothers Get Us Ready For Football In The Most Hilarious Way Possible

Not that we’re shilling for Direct TV, but you have to give the company props for pulling together this hilarious promotion for NFL Sunday Ticket that has already gathered almost two million hits as of this posting.

We’ve witnessed Peyton’s comedic chops on various occasions, but I have to admit I didn’t know Eli had this in him. Case in point, this line: “It’s like the milk is like football, and your blouse is the PHONE.”

I…I can’t even.

Friday Fellow: Matt Harvey

It’s Friday AND it’s Matt Harvey Day here in New York (well, technically the Mets are in DC but I don’t think the Nats are Harvey-observant), so … I’m not taking much of a risk here.

2013 MLB All Star Game: Shoe Porn Edition

One of my favorite parts of the All Star festivities is the looser uniform restrictions. It reminds me of my days in Catholic school when we had to wear our uniforms on a field trip but could accessorize anyway we chose. Girls would wear crazy earrings and fun shoes with funky socks. We went buckwild, and it’s no different for the boys participating in the All Star Game.

That brings us to this year’s fashion statements. Use your fancy new cleats to jump over the break for some of this year’s best feet accessories.

ESPN’s 9 for IX films about women by women

There are many negatives to say about the WWL, but one of the things they’ve consistently done well are their 30 for 30 films/documentaries. They’ve run the gamut from well-known topics to hidden gems and they’re always so well done. Even the most well-known of stories have been covered in a way that you didn’t feel like the topic was being re-hashed.

So when ESPN announced the 9 for IX series of films about women by women, I was pretty excited. They are touting it as from the producers of 30 for 30 and executive produced by Robin Roberts and Jane Rosenthal.

The first one debuted this week – called “Venus vs.” it was ostensibly about the fight for women’s singles players to earn an equal payout at Wimbeldon.

And I was thoroughly disappointed.

I do not follow tennis. I exist in this world, so I know who Venus Williams is and am aware of her career accomplishments. And so I was bored by this film. It was mostly a re-hash of each of her accomplishments, centered around Wimbeldon. Every so often, a screen would appear to show me that with those Wimbeldon wins, she earned less than the men’s winner. There was a few minutes about a meeting and a letter to the editor that were influential in changing the All England Club’s standards. But really, it was mostly about 45 minutes of Venus highlights. It felt like there was more talk about her hair beads than equal pay.

Again, I don’t follow tennis at all and I learned little to nothing new. And I just felt so sad that this was the intro to this film series. It left me bewildered and beyond concerned about the rest of the series.

Where I was once super-excited about the 1999 Women’s World Cup winning soccer team one, set to air August 20, I can only imagine I could probably write it word for word. And I’m afraid what kind of rhetoric about bras and abs it will include.

Maybe I’m jumping the gun and the films will redeem themselves – but you’d think they’d put one of the strongest ones at the front, to come out of the gate galloping. And if that’s the case, despite the fact that I set my DVR to record all 9 films, I’m imaging my finger will be reaching for the delete button early on.

The films were made in part to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Title IX, but man do they really fail to live up to that legacy. It seems like maybe the idea and the goal was one thing, but the execution and final product was something else altogether. I can’t help but wonder if in the interim, ESPN and it’s executives pulled back on the reins. Because I felt no excitement or empowerment from “Venus vs.”

Did anyone else watch? What was your take?

Blatant Homerism

There’s just something about hearing that a pitcher has a no-hitter in play that makes you shed your team loyalty and cheer like mad. That’s how I felt tonight when I received the alert that Reds pitcher Homer Bailey, he who was separated at birth from Christian Bale, was working on his 2nd career no-no Tuesday night against the Giants.

A single career no-hitter is an amazing feat on its own. But two no-hitters, and you find yourself in the company of the likes of Nolan Ryan.

Bailey was perfect through seven, threw a total of 109 pitches, 74 strikes and struck out nine batters.

I doubt I’ll pay any more attention to Cincinnati from here on out. But for tonight, it was fun to cheer for the pitcher who delivered the first no-hitter of this season (and the last one of last season!)

So What IS the Problem With Women’s Basketball?

A couple weeks ago, the other Ladies and I were groaning over a report suggesting some unorthodox but troubling ways to “fix”  women’s basketball. Playing the Women’s Final Four in China was a suggestion, as was banning tattoos – you know, because women’s sports should have to appeal to people who can only accept women who meet a narrow definition of acceptable female behavior instead of trying to expand it.

Hit and Run: I Was There Edition

I moved and changed jobs almost simultaneously this spring. As a result, I’m off the academic schedule for the first time in over a decade and it’s throwing off my whole concept of summer. So Tuesday night I went to check on the Cardinals score and discovered, to my dismay, that they had just finished one of the two games they are playing in NYC that I could actually attend.  Luckily, they were playing the Mets, which isn’t exactly a tough ticket to get at the last minute these days. So Wednesday night, my boyfriend and I headed out to Citifield, where around the actual game action, my blog post wrote itself.

First off — paper all star ballots!  Nostalgia!  Also, once we had established that I somehow didn’t have a writing implement in my purse, we discovered that the plug end of a pair of headphones is actually the perfect tool for punching the holes out of the ballot.

The hardest part about filling these out was trying to remember who was on the disabled list, particularly in the AL. (That’s not a Yankees joke — entirely.)  Then we put them in the ballot box to be buried under everyone’s 35-per-person internet ballots. I’m still looking forward to the All-Star Game if only because I was out of town when it was at old Yankee the last time, and since both the marathon and Fleet Week were canceled this past year, we’ve been lacking in the crowds-of-people-in-uniforms-descending-on-the-city-to-be-ogled department.

Just before the 7th inning stretch, this happened.  The crowd seemed primarily delighted, with an undercurrent of bemusement.  I certainly think Kidd can handle the in-game/practice side of coaching, but I’m a little unsure how the front office/roster building side is going to go, especially with a front office that can be …mercurial.

The scoreboard proved a great source of entertainment throughout the game.  The consensus in our section was that Matt Holliday has the saddest media photo ever.

My boyfriend’s comment: “That’s totally an ‘I’m going to go 0-4 and we’ll lose by 5,’ face.”  So perhaps he’s not sad, he’s just psychic.

Also appearing on the CitiField board, periodic Stanley Cup Final updates!  I didn’t get a picture, but the updates piqued my interest enough that even though the 2 hour and 40 minute game time got us home well before 11, we then stayed up past 1 watching the 6th longest Stanley Cup game in history.

Happy Friday! Anyone else going to a game this weekend?

What I’m reading this week

So I know there are apps and other ways to handle “clipping” things from Twitter and your mobile phone, but when I am scrolling through and see a link that intrigues me, I just email myself the tweet. There’s no need to remember to check another app or anything like that – I’m in my inbox a hundred times a day. It’s a little old-school and probably a little silly, but it’s my comfort zone and I’m owning it.

Anyway, I realized this week I’d sent myself quite a few links, so I thought I’d pass along some of the stuff I found interesting recently:

This ESPN piece trying to understand Italian soccer, hooligans and racism is just beautifully written. The subject matter is baffling, but this is a read that’s totally worth your time. Long form journalism at it’s finest.

Carlos Gomez is having a heck of a year and he’s played enough places that I think you’ll find this interesting: if you hit a ball to center field in Miller Park, the odds are not in your favor that you’ll actually get a hit. According to ESPN.com, of 35 balls hit to straightaway CF, just one of them resulted in a hit. Carlos Gomez has caught 97% of those balls. The major league average is 78%.

But you already knew Gomez was a plus (plus) defender. This year (and the end of last season) he has also figured out how to hit for power. Turns out, his coaches just didn’t know how to harness all his skills before and were pigeonholing him as a ground-ball hitting speedster. 

Did you watch the USWNT play Canada two weeks ago? I have re-watched this Alex Morgan goal a ton of times and I’m still in awe of her first touch. Also, the first few “not touches” if you know what I mean

If you didn’t read this amazing profile of Britney Griner, you should. Great insight into a ground-breaking woman. I don’t watch basketball, but she will always get a hearty “you go girl” from me .

Deadspin ran this excerpt which tells the tale of meeting and hanging out with Muhammed Ali, which on it’s own is just stupendously cool. But then it led to commentors telling stories of randomly meeting with Ali and then I had many warm fuzzies.

That was my first intro to The Stacks at Deadspin. Talk about a rabbit hole. Do yourself a favor and go for a scroll. So much good reading.
Former Badger Hockey player Hilary Knight is probably my all-time favorite. Hard to explain, but I’m still heart-broken she never won the Patty Kaz, especially because her taking time off to play for the US in the 2010 Olympics likely had something to do with that. In those same Olympics it was said she likely has the best shot in the game – she was a Junior in college at the time. Anyway, she plays in the Canadian Women’s Hockey League and won their inaugural season MVP. Here’s an interview with her.

In the only vaguely sports related department:

There’s a gorgeous old hotel in Downtown Milwaukee that most visiting sports teams stay at. It’s supposedly haunted. The stories are apparently varied and widespread enough that ESPN the Mag did a story about it. Read all about the Pfister.

I’m a Twitter fiend. I’ll admit it. Yet there is only one account I check in on multiple times daily to make sure I haven’t missed anything – @DUPorterhouse.
Porterhouse is the live bulldog mascot of Drake University in Iowa. He’s a rescued bulldog, winner of the Most Beautiful Bulldog Contest at Drake and very, very photogenic. He’s also an advocate to help end puppy mills bc his native state of Iowa has so many of them.
His mom started him a Twitter account and well, she’s just really good at it. There are tons of adorable pictures and cuteness and Porterhouse consistently makes my day better. He goes to their basketball games and leads them onto the court by chasing the ball. He’s just great.
Seriously, though – here’s a pic of him in Shrek Underoos. Tell me that doesn’t make the whole world better.

From the “not at all about sports” filesL

If you’re a Mad Men watcher and haven’t watched Sunday’s episode, this piece contains spoilers, so be warned. But even if you don’t watch Mad Men, this is a spectacular piece from Tom and Lorenzo that gives a very detailed and interesting cultural look at what it was to be a gay man in 1968.

Hump Day Hottie: Detroit Tigers Rotation

I recently realized how hot the Detroit Tigers’ starting rotation is. I know I might be late to the party, but until you see them in person, you just don’t realize how beautiful they are. I’m specifically talking about Justin Verlander, Rick Porcello and Max Scherzer. More so Verlander and Porcello, but Max isn’t too hard on the eyes (that is, if you can get past his weirdly colored ones).

I feel we should honor their hotness with a three-for-one Hump Day Hottie celebration. :)

Mr. Monday: Robbie Rogers

Sporting his national colours

So a little history took place this Memorial Day Weekend. Robbie Rogers, whom you may recall from the 2011 CONCACAF Gold Cup Team, not only came out of retirement to join the L.A. Galaxy, but became the first openly gay male athlete to actively play in a Major League Soccer game.

There’s been some debate about this in light of many recent “firsts”, namely that some sporty media types may have neglected to point out that Andrew Goldstein was the first openly gay male athlete to play in a professional league when he was active in Major League Lacrosse in 2005 (which I didn’t know because lacrosse.) Regardless, golf claps all around as we celebrate another step towards acceptance and focus on the REAL reason for this post:

Robbie Rogers is ADORBS!

Two Short, Unrelated Anecdotes Tangentially Related To Current Sports News

1. A few days ago, Paul Lukas posted about the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s suprisingly robust baseball card collection. I was surprised as many people — even more so because until a month ago, I worked less than 100 yards* from said collection, and my employer had a close working relationship with the Met (though the Burdick collection would have been considered “shiny new toys” by most of my coworkers).  I probably could have even wrangled those connections to get an up close and personal view like Lukas — or at least, get in to see the part of the collection currently on display for free. Ah well. Guess I’ve found a reason to go visit the old neighborhood (especially since the Honus Wagner card is going back on display soon). For now, I’ll just browse the collection online.

2.It was March of 2006, and my entire family was in Memphis for my cousin’s wedding.  It was an evening wedding, so the day of, those of us not in the wedding party did some sight seeing. Naturally, we went to the Peabody Hotel to see the ducks. Just as we started making our way towards the door, my (then college-age, sports journalism major) brother yelped “hey, that’s Bernie Bickerstaff!”  I looked up to see a stream of extremely tall men in Charlotte Bobcats warm ups filing through the door, on their way back from morning shootaround before their game against the Grizzlies that night.  My brother, who still would consider an NBA play by play gig his dream job, named off every player as they came through the door (I only recognized Brevin Knight and Sean May).  As we left the hotel and walked up the street, he was practically bouncing. “Man, that was so cool!” he said. Then he paused. “Too bad it was the Bobcats.”

If that does not sum up the Bobcats era of Charlotte basketball, I don’t know what would.  Here’s hoping reclaiming the Hornets resurrects a bit of their dignity.

*I just spent about 10 minutes trying to think of a good baseball distance analogy and gave up. It is Friday of a three day weekend and I haven’t had even a sick day off work since February. Brain. Fried.

Brooks Laich Melts My Heart

Chris Gordon/Russian Machine Never Breaks

So this happened on Monday. I absolutely love when my sports worlds collide, but I especially love it when my hockey world meets my Baltimore world. Being that my hockey team resides in a different city than my own, I love seeing the Caps doing things in Baltimore.

Who do we love? Kevin Durant, David Robertson and WVU Baseball

First off, we send our love and thoughts and prayers to all affected by the events of the past few days (I say “days” knowing that other states have been reeling from these terrible storms). Knowing that we have team members with close ties to Oklahoma, I cannot begin to imagine how difficult this has been, and as such, I find it hard to post about anything cheerfully sporty under the circumstances. But to paraphrase the great Fred Rogers, when terrible things happen, you look for the helpers. Here’s a few worth mentioning today:

5 Reasons the NBA Playoffs Are Delightful

Apologies if you saw the beginning of this last night – I’m still not sure how touching a post marked “local draft” in the WordPress app made it publish, but here’s the full version.

We have been watching a LOT of NBA Playoffs at my house. It started because we were checking on the Knicks and the Thunder (uh, and the Nets- we have a lot of basketball allegiances) and yet “hey is a game on tonight?” has become a common refrain.  There’s just so many things I find delightful this year. Here are five of them.

How the Brewers alienated their female fans and regressed to 1958 or so…

I thought I posted this last night, so my apologies for being late to get this to you all, but if you follow me on Twitter, you’d have seen me ranting the past two days about an even the Brewers are putting on called Brewed for Her. That event, in and of itself, doesn’t thrill me, but to each her own. Unfortunately for the Brewers, it’s not as simple as that and it made me ranty to the tune of about 3300 words.

Won’t you please come over and check it out?

Brewers Brewed for Her Event: Sexist, Offensive and Just Really Bad Marketing

I had planned to post my diatribe here, but was lucky enough to be able to post out to BrewCrewBall, the SBN Brewers blog I contribute to. While I know I’ve got my target audience of upset female sports fans here, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to try to enlighten a new group of folks. Nor could I pass up the chance that someone in the Brewers Org would see it.

I have been overwhelmed by the support (and lack of negativity) and kind words I’ve received from many corners of the internet since publishing this piece over there yesterday afternoon. I’d love to here from you ladyfolk that put up with this sort of thing on a regular basis, though.

Memories of Royals broadcaster Fred White

The Royals announced on Wednesday that former radio broadcaster Fred White died of complications from melanoma. This came just 24 hours after White announced that he’d be retiring from his post-broadcasting role with the team, which was to help build up and maintain the vast Royals Radio Network.

Fred White. Picture from the Kansas City Star.

I grew up with two parents and three older brothers, so it’s not like I was lacking for childhood presences. But Fred White, along with Denny Mathews, were a profound staple of my childhood summers.

How to Deal

This is how I deal with bad sports: Adam Levine.

Like Lady Bee, I’m still reeling from watching my beloved hockey team, the Washington Capitals, crash and burn on Monday night. It’s so bad, that I can’t even watch hockey. I know, it’s really bad. Since I’m used to this annual heartbreak, I can’t understand why, this year, I’m so depressed about it.

It’s not like the Caps don’t do this to me every single year. This year I was so indifferent about hockey. I was mad about the lockout, but as a season ticket holder, I was excited to get back to Verizon Center and spend time with my hockey family. That was what I looked forward to: happy hours, victory beers, inside hockey jokes, good times with friends and making fun of our players – not so much the hockey.

Game 7 Heartbreak

So how did you feel about last night’s Game 7’s? The above photo would describe how I felt. Have at ‘er in the comments. And pass the Kleenex.

Back on the NHL Wagon

You win, Leafs. I mean, you didn’t last night, but in the battle for winning me back over? I’d say you win.

Jake Gardiner made it fun to be a Leafs fan for a few minutes Monday night.

So remember last fall when I was pissed off with the NHL? And my utter apathy when it returned earlier this year? I truly managed to go an entire (shortened) season without watching a complete game. I ignored favourite hockey blogs. I occasionally snubbed Sportscentre. I shrugged when I heard the Leafs may possibly be in playoff contention. I watched people who swore up and down on social media that they’d never forgive the NHL forgive the NHL and tune in with days of the league’s return. I was teased by my friends. “You’ll be back,” they said.

In Which Our Lovely Readers Get To Help Us Avoid The Facebook Police

So apparently Facebook now considers the three eponymous dots at the end of our group page name “excessive punctuation” (because that’s clearly the aberrant behavior they should be worrying about) and has instructed us to change it. While I still fail to see how something that technically qualifies as a single punctuation mark is “excessive,” goodness knows we would rather daydream about attaching ourselves to Matt Kemp than die on the hill of internet righteousness. That’s where you, lovely readers, come in.

TLDR: Facebook’s making us change our group page name; we want you to help us decide what we change it to.

Hump Day Hottie: 2013 NHL Playoffs

Steckel wants to know who you got in the Stanley Cup Playoffs?

It’s that time of year…finally! We weren’t sure if we would even have the NHL Playoffs this year, but here we are. While other sites try to compile their own lists of the hotties of the NHL, we know our hockey here, so you can trust us.

As an added bonus, we’re even providing a preview of sorts for those who have checked out on the NHL so far. So strap on your skates and don’t ice the puck…

Cosmo Thinks They Know NHL Hotties…AGAIN

Hey Cosmo, Over here! Did you forget about me and my Minnesota Wild teammates?

Dearest Cosmo:

STOP NOW. JUST STOP. First of all, we started these hot guys in sports lists way before you did. Also, we’re actual female sports fans, so we, you know, watch games, monitor players and, for the most part, know who to watch for in a game.

I’m not saying that this new list of “NHL Playoff Hotties” is completely bogus, but you clearly don’t know what you’re doing. Granted, you did manage to include some obvious hotties, i.e. Henrik Lundqvist and Kris Letang, who you somehow forgot to include in your original list that we also called you out on.

Another reason why firsts matter: Jason Collins

I was chatting with the other Ladies… this morning about how I was ready to post tonight on Don Cherry’s Saturday night rant about how women reporters don’t belong in the locker room. Then Jason Collins happened, we all got weepy at our workplaces, and I decided it would be more fun to reflect on the progress of the human race then a loudmouthed former coach defending the likes of Duncan Keith with a patronizing attitude towards women.

(Photo: SI.com)

Ryan Lochte: Reality Star

As most of our readers know, Ryan Lochte has been a sort of a Ladies… mascot over the years. When his star power blew up last summer, it felt like one of our own had finally done good for himself. Obviously, we were pretty excited when it was announced that Ryan would appear in his own reality show on E! (natch). Lochte live in our living room every week? Where do we sign up?

While Ryan is lovely to look at, he’s not that great to listen to. He says really dumb things that make for great television/Internet meme material. So follow me after the jump for the best of What Would Ryan Lochte Do?

Your Friday Happy Place

Your Friday I-REALLY-need-a-distraction-from-the-news conundrum: Would you rather have a kitten in your own pocket, or be the kitten in Nadal’s pocket?

Hump Day Hottie: Adam Scott

Adam Scott has been featured many times on our little blog, but he’s never been given the distinction of being a Hump Day Hottie. WHAT?? I know. I couldn’t believe it, especially since I’ve been in love with him for YEARSSSSS. So with that, I bring you the 2013 Masters champion: Adam Scott.

For the love of Boston

I wanted to write something last night. But I couldn’t. Like many of you, I went through a series of emotions ranging from heartbreak to anger to numbness. Instead, I waited until my kids were in bed, sobbed over the footage on CBC, and then listened to Vin Scully because baseball seemed like the only thing that made sense at that moment. Sports helping us heal: yes, we’ve been here before.

I knew one person who participated in Monday’s Boston Marathon. Some of us with even stronger ties to the city were deeply upset and concerned about family members down there. The person I know is OK. A lot of people are not.

This wasn’t the post about Boston I wanted to write. You see, I had a chance to visit Boston for the very first time last month, thanks to a work-related conference. The city left a lasting impression with me. My disdain for the Red Sox may be well documented here, but in the two nights I stayed in Boston in a quaint hotel on Newbury Street, not far from where Monday’s tragedy took place, I became a huge fan. I love the people, its passion for its sports teams, every grungy alley and gorgeous brownstone. I snagged a terrific seat for the Celtics game that week when the Raptors were in town. 10 rows from courtside. Unbelievable. I have a pile of pictures I’ve been meaning to share on this site, of the game, of Kevin Garnett’s massive frame, of Fenway and the photo of Old Hoss Radbourne I found at this great sports bar on Boylston Street. But life happened, and now this.

I’m not from Massachusetts, not a Red Sox fan, not even American, so I feel a bit like I’m talking out of my ass. But I am a runner, and I am friends with some wonderful Americans (including these Ladies… ), so Monday’s events nevertheless left me shaken and heartbroken. I never once felt uneasy walking through Boston’s downtown core. Maybe it was the friendliness of its people or how it spoke to my Irish heritage, but the city really felt like home. The morning I arrived I took the wrong Green Line train and got lost, but I never once felt uncomfortable. I walked by Copley Square after the basketball game completely confident that nothing bad would happen to me, which I’m sure was the same feeling those runners and spectators and volunteers had yesterday.

So I promise that sometime soon, I will post those pictures. We need to remember why Boston is such a damn fine town, and how it will continue to be. And I will come back to Copley Square, and I’ll bring my kids. And I will continue to run, just like so many did yesterday and today in solidarity. And I will try not to be so angry about what happened, because in a time of need a city wrapped its caring arms around frightened and wounded strangers. You can’t stay angry when there is love.

TGIF: New York is a Basketball Town?

In a year in which New York has not one, but two playoff bound teams (although as I type I’m watching one of those teams blow their thirteen game winning streak), could Madison Square Garden lose its lease?  I’m a Knicks fan, but I’m kind of intrigued by the possibility of a city actually forcing their professional team to move in favor of better infrastructure (even though I’m sure  us taxpayers will probably finance a good chunk of that move, should it come to pass).