So THAT happened.

I don’t even know if this should be an Advent Calendar of Hotness post or what. I’m a Phillies fan and I still don’t know what just happened. All I know is that Cliff Lee turned down a whole shit-ton of money, and I know that the rotation is absolutely disgusting and I DON’T UNDERSTAND THIS.

I went to my first baseball game in 1993 when the Phillies played the Rockies. Back then, the Phillies literally gave away tickets to games in packages of hot dogs. Seriously, I remember 14 year old Maggie negotiating with her dad that if we bought TWO packages of hot dogs, my siblings could come to the game, and if we bought THREE, Mom could come too.

Halladay.
Hamels.
Oswalt.

…And Lee?

I can’t even.

Look, I know the world hates the Phillies and everything because they’re the new Red Sox or Yankees or Patriots or whatever, but this is…mindblowing.

Ladies and Gentlemen…

…Roy Halladay. Do I even need to say anything else?

HI EVERYONE ROY HALLADAY THREW A NO HITTER IN HIS FIRST POSTSEASON APPEARANCE AND I HAVE LOST THE ABILITY TO USE PUNCTUATION

PS IT WAS ONLY THE SECOND ONE IN A LITTLE THING WE LIKE TO CALL HISTORY

PS NUMBAH TWO: OH AND HE THREW A PERFECT GAME THIS YEAR ALREADY.

For real, I kind of think my husband would be okay if I left him for Roy. Actually, I kind of think he might leave me for Roy. I’m not sure I blame him.

So THAT happened, which was nice.

OKAY, LOOK. It’s been a weird couple of weeks to be a Phillies fan. And by weird, I pretty much mean unutterably nerve-wracking. First Chase Utley needs surgery on his thumb and then Jimmy Rollins hurts himself and may-or-may-not have showed up in the clubhouse on crutches, so we all think the season is done and then Domonic Brown shows up all ‘Your Major League Pitching, I Laugh at You’ and THEN they go and trade for Roy Oswalt which means a Halladay-Hamels-Oswalt-and-those-other-guys rotation and THEN they go and win a game in hideously ugly extra innings BECAUSE THE BULLPEN SUCKS, even if it means the longest winning streak at Citizen’s Bank Park EVER.

I’m sorry, did you just get whiplash from that last paragraph? TRY LIVING THROUGH IT.

One of these days, baseball might actually kill me. Is the trade deadline over yet?

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.

This post brought to you by the letter ‘E.’

As in, Group E. Oh, yes. It’s time for another installment of ‘Seriously, there’s a reason folks the world over love the World Cup, and it ain’t all about the footwork.’

But before we start with the glorious, glorious eye candy, we just have to ask, since this is going live before the (unholy early) 7 AM EST Korea Republic v. Greece match: Does anyone feel like, you know, winning a World Cup match? Just saying. Ties are like kissing your sister. Or, well, brother, in our case.

Anyway, the hotness.

The Netherlands own Robin Van Persie.

It’s almost here!

The rosters have been set. The teams have played their friendlies before making the trek to South Africa. Heck, we’ve even made it through Eurovision. (Congratulations, Germany.)

A week from now? It’s finally time. The group stage of the World Cup kicks off, and even America cares about soccer for at least five minutes. Me? I’ll be eating, sleeping and breathing international soccer until the very last second runs down.

Yes, I love soccer, but there’s just something about International play (and the World Cup in particular) that elevates the game. It turns the already rabid soccer fanbase into a bunch of flag-and-bunting-bedecked lunatics. I challenge anyone who doesn’t like or understand soccer to start watching the World Cup from the beginning. Trust me, you’ll come out at the other end swearing at the Abruzzi for being a bunch of diving whiners or being amazed at just how fast Portugal can move (Damn you, Ronaldo. Damn you to hell.) or harboring a secret love for the Orange.

And you know what else is great about the World Cup? International Eye candy. Above? Spain’s Fernando Torres.

More hotness after the jump.

We interrupt this hiatus for…uh, wrestling.

Okay, we know we’re on vacation and everything, but sometimes something so unspeakably awesome happens that we just have to say something.

Today? Mick Foley happened.

Let’s catch up on Mick Foley, shall we? He’s gone by ‘Mankind’ and ‘Cactus Jack’ and ‘Dude Love’. He’s wrestled using a baseball bat covered in barbed wire and once lost two thirds of his ear in the ropes. Oh, and his finisher before he retired from the WWE was Mr. Socko: a dirty sweatsock shoved into the mouths of his opponents. We are not making that up.

But that’s Mick Foley the performer. Mick Foley the wrestler. Mick Foley the showman.

Mick Foley the person?

Is donating the ENTIRETY of his latest book’s profits to Children’s Fund International (benefiting rape victims in the Sierra Leone) and RAINN, the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network.

Oh, and he’s volunteering his time to work as an online counselor for RAINN’s support line.

We ladies may ogle, and we may joke, but in the end, we are a bunch of women writing about sports. We’re women.

We may not ever write about wrestling ever again, but we’re women. And as women, we salute Mick Foley.

And now we’re back on vacation.

Oh, look! Another lesson in how to train your girlfriend-bot!

So on my commute home, I decided to play around on Twitter, where I stumbled across this gem. How to Get Your Girlfriend Into Sports.

Now, leaving aside that the obvious answer to this time-honored problem of being a sports nut partnered with someone who doesn’t enjoy the old athletic display is to just date someone who likes sports. God, men (and women) of the world, if sports are important enough that you have to condition your partner into liking them, FIND SOMEONE WHO ALREADY LIKES SPORTS. Your partner is not a puppy. Don’t train them like one. God.

Let’s address this nonsense point by point, shall we?

Send in the clowns.

So if you’re following me on Twitter, you’ve discovered that I have a bit of an unhealthy obsession with figure skating. (Okay, okay, that’s like saying John Mayer has an obsession with saying spectacularly stupid things in public.)

Given that I hate most girly aspects of sports (pink anything and everything, Ladies Nights, and the existence of Alyssa Milano’s Touch line, to start) like burning, some of the other Ladies…were mildly confused when I started shrieking about toe loops and salchows. I mean, it’s figure skating, right? I should like manly things, like the biathlon and moguls. I should frown on feathers and sequins and Dick Button.

But here’s the thing. I love figure skating. I loooooooove figure skating.

An exercise in drawing cartoon hearts.

So by now, you may have seen this profile of Saints linebacker Scott Fujita.

If you’re me, you’ve now spent the last twenty minutes drawing hearts around his name while daydreaming about skipping through New Orleans hand-in hand and dispensing bon mots about social justice and equality.

Then again, if you’re a normal person, you thought ‘Huh, cool.’ and went on with your daily life.

Let’s just jot down the reasons why Scott Fujita is my new boyfriend who just doesn’t know it yet, shall we?

“Ten years from now, this conversation will be pointless.”

In 1997, Brian Sims helped lead his high school (and, in the interest of full disclosure, mine) to the Pennsylvania State AAAA football Championship. In 2000, he was named an All-American defensive lineman and helped lead Bloomsburg University to its first ever national championship game.

Somewhere along the way, he became the first openly gay college football team captain.

Brian’s since graduated from law school and has become a practicing lawyer in Philadelphia who serves on the Board of Directors for Gay and Lesbian Lawyers of Philadelphia. Since first telling the story of playing football as an openly gay man to OutSports.com, Brian’s received thousands of emails from both out and closeted athletes, all wanting to talk about the terrifying concept of not only coming out, but doing so in arguably the most macho setting possible.

And really, it’s hard to downplay how intimidating and downright discouraging it must be for a gay athlete to even contemplate coming out to their teammates. For every Brendan Ayanbadejo (a vocal supporter of gay marriage equality) there’s Larry Johnson. For every survey that finds that nearly 3/4 of professional baseball players would have no problem with a gay teammate, there’s bigoted assclowns like Todd Jones. (Seriously. Ugh.)

So how did Brian Sims’ teammates handle it? By not giving a damn.

It’s Cliff Lee’s world, and we’re just living in it.

Look, we know Pedro’s pitching in a half an hour and Game 2 of the World Series is coming up, but we can’t help it.

We’re watching this approximately for the approximately 11,849th time today.

Oh, Cliff Lee. I would hate you so much if you weren’t pitching for my team.

Fail.

Whatever Rhoden is smoking, he’s welcome to share.

Still, what Major League Baseball needs is a great World Series, a Series for the ages. And with all due respect to those two other potential matchups, it’s a Yankees-Dodgers World Series that could take the game back to its roots at a time when baseball desperately needs to recover a portion of the trust, if not the innocence, that it has lost in the steroid era.

Really.

Huh.

Interesting.

Very.

Look, we’re not naive. We know someone on every team, if not most uber-successful players, at least dabbled in PEDs. Ramirez was dumb enough to get caught, and Rodriguez was dumb enough to think that because MLB promised to destroy the 2004 test results they actually meant it. Ramirez served his time, and Rodriguez got to eat crow in front of the whole nation. It’s over.

But baseball needs to be saved from itself and the whole steroids mess with…a World Series featuring players who featured in two of the biggest steroid-related stories of the last twelve months? That makes the kind of sense that’s not.

You know what would save baseball from itself and the whole steroids debacle? A steroids testing and punishment program with teeth. A great series between teams who have figured out how to play small ball and long ball. Hell, just give me some good baseball.

But this? Laughable example of head-up-your-ass New York homerism at best, whitewashing the serious offenses of the steroid era at best.

Write your own caption, you want one so damn much.

Winning the NL East three years running? Smoking hot.

Write your own caption, you want one so damn much.

We’re watching football, so this is what you get.

We Dey, so STAY DOWN.

Write your own caption, or we’re sending Troy Polamalu after you. And he’s cranky.

Are you ready for some football?

Earlier this week, The Ladies…held their fantasy football league draft. I couldn’t make it, as I was busy shoveling fondue into my face at dinner with my lovely husband. I let the drafting system autodraft my team, and…let’s just say that I don’t suggest doing that. Somehow I have six quarterbacks (if you can call Kyle Orton a quarterback at this point, which I don’t) and one defense. The fact that said defense is Miami is making me consider spending the entirety of the season drinking heavily, because I am so screwed.

Lesson learned: Draft your fantasy football team first. Then celebrate your wedding anniversary.

Anyway, we here at The Ladies… wouldn’t be The Ladies… if we didn’t bring you a little objectfication along with your football. We decided to pick the hottest members of our own teams, and to bring some lovely photographic evidence to you. You know, because we care. Abs, sweat, and football hotness after the jump.

Thank you, Ted Kennedy, from the Ladies of Ladies…

We here at Ladies…don’t like getting into politics. The love of sports is supposed to bring people together. Politics, it seems, always drives people apart. We’re stepping away from that policy today for one reason and for one reason only. You see, we here at Ladies…are, well, ladies. We’re ladies who grew up after Title IX passed, and we have, in no small part, Sen. Ted Kennedy to thank for that.

Whether we competed as high school athletes or not (I ran track until the track season started running headlong into the school musical season, and who can resist greasepaint and the roar of the crowd?), it doesn’t matter. We like sports, and we like watching sports, and like knowing that women can excel at sports. Without Title IX, could we have watched Brandi Chastain tear off her shirt after the women’s World Cup championship in ecstatic glee? Without Title IX, could we have watched Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh dominate in two straight Olympic Games? Without Title IX, would we be able to see Venus and Serena mop up the court, match after match? Maybe. Probably not.

Frankly, it’s interesting that most people think of Title IX in terms only of athletics. (Understandably, since most of the challenges under the law have come in the field of athletics.) That’s not all Title IX did, though. In fact, the original statute never even mentioned athletics. It reads “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” It has been used to ensure equal access to education, and to prevent discrimination against either sex in the classroom. It applies to every aspect of academic life, from your college dorm to your ability to get care at the student health clinic. And ‘you’ means all of you, not just us ladies.

So thank you, Ted Kennedy. We may or may not have agreed with your stances on the issues. We may have voted for you, or we may have campaigned against you. But all of us grew up under Title IX, and for that, as ladies, we thank you.

A tale of two teams.

In the immortal words of Song #2: WOO HOO!

Let me ask you something.

Team A won their 11th Premiere League title just last season. (The second, mind you, in a row.) They’ve been essentially unstoppable for years, and you can always depend on them to be at the top of the standings every year. They’re the Yankees of the Prem League, in essence.

Team B hasn’t played a home game in the Prem in 33 years. In fact, the team that last defeated them, leading to Team B’s loooooooooong slog in relegated hell? Team A. In fact, Team B hasn’t managed to win one single solitary game against Team A in 41 years. (And I bitch when the Sox lose four in a row to the Yankees.) Oh, sure, Team B wasn’t in the Prem for 33 of those 41 years, but that’s still eight years of getting their asses handed to them over and over again. Team B was so terrible they almost left the Football League entirely ten years ago. (The post-Bond Pittsburgh Pirates of the Prem League, as it were.)

Anyway, Team B is finally promoted. They’re going to get to play with the big boys again. What do the scheduling Gods do to them? Naturally, schedule them to start against Team A.

Who wins the game?

And while we’re talking about Philly…

Ugh.

I’d like to thank the Philadelphia Eagles for taking that one last step necessary to make this town a baseball town. Because no, we’re not okay with this, and we don’t understand.

Seriously, Mike Vick? Mike VICK? Mike ‘I am the scum of the earth and should rot’ Vick? And we’re supposed to be pleased about this? I just watched the local broadcast team try to justify this by saying that he’s going to bring a lot of athleticism to the offense and they can run the wildcat formation now, and no. Just no. In fact, I hate Hugh Douglas a little right now for trying to make me okay with this.

And the thing is, it doesn’t even make sense from a FOOTBALL perspective. Donovan falls apart the moment he even SNIFFS competition. Not that Vick’s much competition, because he’s been away from the game for what seems like forever. WHY? WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS?

My husband’s been a die-hard Eagles fan his entire sporting life. The man bleeds green and white. For the last decade, my entire social life on Sundays has revolved around making sure he’s in front of a TV with beef jerky and a bottle of Yuengling by the time the Eagles kick off. We have no social life during football season, because ‘But the game’s on’ is a valid excuse to get out of just about everything. He just turned to me, ashen-faced, and said ‘I don’t think I can root for the Eagles any more.’

Yeah, it’s like that. Me? I’m just pissed that Mike Vick gets to play in the same town as Chase Utley, who actually SAVES puppies.

Okay, we’re asking.

That's a waste of a perfectly good $7.50.

Say this happened in Philadelphia. How much time would everyone spend bitching and moaning about how awful Philadelphia fans are? I mean, we’d go from this to booing Santa Claus in like, six seconds flat, right? And everyone could shake their head and cluck their tongue against their teeth and feel that their fan base is just so much better than a city full of hooligans?

Sorry, but this is a pet peeve. Sure, we have (and had) our share of drunken idiots whose drunken exploits made us all look bad. Doesn’t every city? You’re trying to tell me that Philadelphia is the only city where folks get drunk and run with some hairbrained ideas? Someone ask William Ligue, Jr. about that, or the idiot who decided to see if the netting in Old Yankee Stadium could hold his weight. So why is it that Philadelphia is consistently singled out as being full of violent and destructive goons?

Look, I’ll give you the 700 level in Veteran’s Stadium. I’ve done some pretty stupid and cocky things (like sitting with the Creatures at a Sox/Yanks game in Yankee Stadium while wearing full-on Sox regalia) and even I never had the guts to go anywhere near those lunatics. But because one group of guys in one level of a defunct stadium were crazy people once upon a time, we tar the whole city with that brush? Doesn’t that seem a little ridiculous to you?

Whatever. It’s over, it’s done with, Shane filed a formal complaint, and the idiot who made all baseball fans look bad has turned himself in.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go see what creative things the Linc crowd can come up with to howl at Tom Brady. (GO PATS.)

So that happened.

One sentence. That’s all it took. Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz, the sluggers who propelled the Boston Red Sox to end an 86-year World Series championship drought and to capture another title three years later, were among the roughly 100 Major League Baseball players to test positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003, according to lawyers with knowledge of the results.

Who cares about Manny Ramirez? Everybody already knows he’s a cheater and a prima donna manchild who will dog it on his own teammates to get his way. But David Ortiz? Big Papi? Say it ain’t so.

Oh, sure, the evidence was there. Anyone who watched him hit in Minnesota and then watched his complete turnaround as a hitter in Boston had to wonder. Was it enough to point to how much he’d drastically altered his swing once starting for Boston? Was it enough to chuckle when he told us that the only drugs he ever took were beans and rice? Was it worth it to ignore just how massive he was in Boston, how he became the ‘Big’ part of ‘Big Papi’? Could we just pretend all that wasn’t there because he seemed like everything that was right about a player- that he was a guy who’d put the whole city on his back with a twinkle in his eye, a gleaming smile and a swing like thunder? Well, yes. Yes, it was. Papi couldn’t be that kind of guy. He’s Papi, for God’s sake.

Well. We were wrong. And whether you believe his story that he had no idea he’d ever tested positive and doesn’t know how he could (even if you buy his cover that he may have bought some energy products from the Dominican in his youth) have tested positive for anything, or whether you so desperately want to believe this couldn’t be true, it is. Sure, nobody knows what he tested positive for yet. Sure, it was six years ago and there wasn’t a policy and accidents happen (just ask JC Romero) and blah blah blah excuses excuses. You know who else tested positive in 2003? Barry Bonds. Alex Rodriguez. Sammy Sosa. Manny Ramirez. Jason Grimsley. Not exactly innocent company.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the US Men’s National Team.

I love the smell of nationalism in the morning.

I want to paint you a little picture, readers. You see, for the last eight years or so, I’ve spent Saturday mornings waking up, rolling downstairs, and flipping on Fox Soccer to watch the day’s matches while my husband made snide comments about soccer being lame and boring.

Tonight? My husband not only voluntarily turned on the Gold Cup SemiFinals, but I’m a little concerned he may actually lose his voice screaming in support of the US Men’s National Team in the CONCACAF Gold Cup Finals on Sunday. My victory is nearly complete. As soon as he picks a Premiere League team to root for (please, Jesus, not Chelsea), I can start openly celebrating his utter conversion.

That’s beside the point, dear readers. The point is that after many, many years and many, many attempts, soccer may just be on the verge of arriving in the US. Oh, sure, it’s because the men’s team is playing incredibly well right now, but I’ll take it.

I think it’s high time the Ladies… met the US Men’s National Team. Join me, after the jump, won’t you?

It’s good news/infuriating news day here in Phillies country.

Well, it’s all over, including the shouting. Voting in the Final Vote contest has ended and the results have been tabulated. This year’s All Stars, after days of furious campaigning (more on that later) are Philadelphia center fielder Shane Victorino (and his million kilowatt smile) and Detroit Third Baseman Brandon Inge. (This lady is convinced that Inge is actually thirteen years old and potentially ineligible to work, much less in the Majors, but that is neither here nor there.)

Victorino finished with the greatest amount of votes for any single player in the history of the Final Vote campaign with 15.6 million. (The previous record holder was Evan Longoria with nine million. Once again, the Phillies roll to victory over the Rays. Suck it, Tampa.)

Happy Fourth of July from the Ladies…

It’s that time of years, folks, when we celebrate the birth of America by stuffing our faces full of barbecue and ogling explosions in the sky.

We here at Ladies…have our own hot date with some marching bands and sparklers. (Not at the same time, kids. Practice safe parading.) As such, we’re taking a bit of a break to celebrate America, apple pie, moms and baseball.

And good looking men doing delightful things involving sports.

Happy Birthday, America. Here, have Mike Rowe singing the National Anthem at a Bowie BaySox game.

I love New York. I hate the Yankees.

It’s rivalry week here at Chez Sox. I’ve had the Sox v. Yanks games on, and have been alternately shouting and laughing at my TV. Everything that could possibly be picked up and thrown has been taken away from me, and the husband has been banished to his computer to listen to his big rivalry games, the Phils and the Mets. Suck it, New York, more or less.

I was going to write this big, magnanimous post about rivalries and how they’re good for the sport and good for the fanbase because a rivalry gives even the most casual fan something to talk about. I was going to be the bigger person and say that my mom is right (and not completely insane) when she says that she kind of likes the Yankees, because Sox/Yanks games are just bigger than the other 144 games for those of us who list our home address firmly in Red Sox Nation.

I was going to do all of that bigger person-type stuff, but the idea of saying anything nice about the Yankees fills me with utter, utter revulsion. I don’t have it in me. I can’t do it.

Someone call the waaaaambulance.

We here at Ladies…love Twitter. There’s something kind of twisted and voyeuristic and slightly stalkerish about it that we just adore. (There’s also something to be said about the ability to roll our eyes at Ashton Kutcher in real time. Oh, admit it. You follow him, too. There are two million of us.)

Of course,there’s a downside to being a celebrity on Twitter. For one thing, everything you say can be turned around and announced in the mainstream media. (Newt Gingrich’s Tweet calling Judge Sonia Sotomayor a racist went from ill-advised tweet to conservative nutjob talking point almost immediately. Gossip sites ran with the announcement that John Mayer had *gasp* announced his breakup with Jennifer Aniston on Twitter.) There’s no privacy.

But then, there are the impostors. Ohhhhhh, there are impostors. For some ungodly reason, people amuse themselves by making up fake Twitter accounts and pretending to be celebrities. We don’t quite understand it, but some people will do anything for attention. (Just look at Spencer Pratt. Don’t worry, we hate ourselves for making that joke, and for knowing who he is in the first place.) Usually, a celebrity will catch wind of one of these accounts, sign up with their own account and declare that the impostors are fake. No harm done, takes about five minutes, everyone moves on, right?

Tony LaRussa? Not so much.

All Star Shenanigans.

Internet, we need to talk about something very serious. I’m going to paint you a picture of two ballplayers.

Player One is batting .339 with 17 home runs, 44 RBI, an OBP of .402 and a slugging percentage of .707. He’s one of the best clutch hitters in baseball and has effortlessly replaced a fan favorite in a notoriously difficult town.

Player Two has been suspended since May 7 for using a banned substance.

Which player do YOU think is ranked higher in the National League All-Star Game outfielder voting totals?

Take Us Out to the Ball Game: The Ladies…do Nationals Park.

You may have noticed that your Ladies…have a bit of a baseball problem. It’s a sickness. We’re sad, strange people incapable of planning a road trip without checking the baseball schedule in our destination city. This summer alone, the Ladies…will be visiting ballparks all over this great nation (and possibly Canada!) and you get to reap the rewards. Planning a visit to new Yankee Stadium? We’ve got you covered. Wondering what you should eat at Miller Park? We’re on it. Need to know where not to sit at Fenway? We’re there.

This week, we take on baseball in our nation’s capitol. That’s right. A Phillies/Nationals game at brand-spanking new Nationals Park. Or, frankly, Citizen’s Bank Park South.

Another entry in the ‘Dick Move’ Hall of Fame.

So. That happened.

I’ll be up front about this. I’ve been a vocal Favre hater for more than a decade now. I rolled my eyes when Madden waxed rhapsodic about Favre’s status as a gunslinger. I groaned inwardly every time someone told me that he was a ‘man’s man.’ I hated the entire city of Green Bay for unleashing him on the world.

I hated him because he (and the Green Bay Packers) stomped all my beloved New England Patriots in Super Bowl XXXI, leaving college freshman Maggie slumped on her bed wearing an expression that looked…kind of like the expression in that picture, actually. I’m bitter, I have a long memory and I learned how to hold an old-fashioned Irish grudge at my Grandma’s knee.

I tell you this only so I can explain to you, Green Bay fans, that I understand how you’re feeling right now, or how you’re going to feel if he goes through with this and suits up for the Vikings. That white hot, fiery hatred? That urge to punch that picture at the top of this post repeatedly because you can’t get the real thing in your hot little hands? The indignant, righteous and strangely helpless fury? I’m with you. I’ve been there. Hell, I’m upset on your behalf.

See, I’ve long suspected that Favre was going to end up with a plaque in the ‘Dick Move’ Hall of Fame. (The man took a dive for Michael Strahan, for God’s sake. He did the ‘I’m going to maaaaaaaybe retire, maybe not, let’s talk about me some more’ dance so many times I think Peter King performs the steps in his sleep. The writing was on the wall, people.)

The question, though, is just who he’ll be joining in the semi-hallowed, but mostly tarnished ‘Dick Move’ Hall of Fame. Come for the self-indulgence, stay for the money-grubbing.

Get your own stuff!

I was all set to write my first post as a love letter to Josh Beckett’s fastball. (Look, if it was possible to make out with a pitch, I would do so with that one, happily, and without regard for leaving lipstick prints on the leather.) But then my cousin sent me a text message from her seats at Citi Field last week. “Maggie,’ she wrote. ‘They’re doing it again.’

The ‘it’ in question? Playing ‘Sweet Caroline’ in the eighth inning.