WOOOOOOOO! Or, a US Open Finals Recap

If I knew how to Googlebomb, I’d make sure this image appeared anytime someone Googled “fierce.”

How excited am I about this year’s US Open champions? Well, I’m posting two days early, for one thing. But I also had to engage in a serious internal debate about whether to post Serena’s picture or Andy’s first. Ultimately, I decided on Serena because …well, look at that picture. That woman had a life-threatening pulmonary embolism last year, and this year she won two Grand Slams and two Olympic gold medals. (Her victory celebration reportedly included a karaoke rendition of “I Will Survive.”)

Olympic Bingo: Third Time’s the Charm

This lovely picture of London Bridge’s Olympic rings was taken by my sister-in-law. Thanks, sis!

It’s hard to believe, but the Olympics are finally only days away, not weeks away, and so it must be time for Olympic Bingo! (Actually, if our search stats are to be believed, a bunch of you think it’s past time for Olympic Bingo.  Hopefully two days is enough prep time for your Opening Ceremonies parties.)

Every. Game. Counts. (A Regular Season Wrap Up and Playoff Preview)

Let’s just put aside the fact that I had an actual rooting interest last night — everything that happened in baseball over the last 24 hours makes my brain scream this song:

As someone who has spent the last two weeks watching the Cardinals wait until the last inning to win or lose what seemed like 95% of their games, one of the most surreal things about last night was that St. Louis was the only team that got their game settled right out of the gate, batting around in the first inning and scoring five runs before recording a single out.  Which left me free to enjoy the one day MLB.tv subscription I paid 3.99 for Tuesday night as a mostly impartial fan (possibly the best 4 bucks I’ve ever spent, even if I couldn’t get the Rays-Yankees because of blackout restrictions, and had to switch to the Phillies-Braves radio feeds for the latter innings because of too much traffic on the video feed (and my crappy bandwidth).  At one point, I had three GTalk conversations going and was on the phone to my parents; 99.5 % of the discussion revolved around baseball (I did manage to discuss Christmas arrangements with my folks.  I’m not totally obsessed.)

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.

Won’t you let your red heart show?

Allow me (again) to bask in a little national pride for a moment.

Canadians spend a lot of time navel gazing and musing over the fact that we don’t wear our hearts on our sleeves much. We’re afraid of coming on a little too strong, and when we do, we apologize profusely.

I’m so glad that for a change, we let our flag wave often and proudly. We sported the red and white. We sang our anthem spontaneously. We celebrated with beer! We even came off as a bit obnoxious.

For once, Canadians need not apologize.

(Exception: the closing ceremonies music. Let me make this clear: most Canadians don’t like Nickelback. Here‘s an example of a band we should have had close the Vancouver games, which also explains the mystery behind the title of this post.)

The Vancouver 2010 Winter Games certainly had its ups and downs and fair share of criticism. There will be plenty of time for analysis in that regard. For now, let’s just bask in the glory of those record 14 gold medals, including one in…mens’ hockey!!

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

Winning the NL East three years running? Smoking hot.

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.

In Which I Point Out That Someone Has Done Something Awesome

If you haven’t already, go read this article from Beyond the Box Score.

IT MAKES STEPS TOWARDS QUANTIFYING CATCHER DEFENSE.

TOO COOL.

Still unquantifiable: Erick Aybar's socks.

Yes, that’s a random photo. But it’s a neat image. So there.

Try to survive the night.

(Aaaaahhhhh someone is quantifying catcher defense!!!)

Oh, and, uh, guys? I promise I’ll say something interesting over the weekend. Just a thought to get you excited for my upcoming angry ramblings and rants: Who do you think is having the best season? Andy LaRoche, Jason Bay, or Manny Ramirez?

All-Star Posts, All-Star Posts, Come And Get Yer All-Star Posts

Good morning. How can you just walk on by without one tear in your eye?

(Incidentally, that song reminds me of this, which I swear only makes me cry because I’m listening to that damn song. Insert “unhealthy obsession” comment here.)

(Yes, I know that you’re getting this post after the afternoon post. It’s still morning in California.)

The current All-MLB RAR leader.

The rest of the All-Star awesomesauce is after the jump, but first: SPOILER ALERT! NO RED SOX OR YANKEES! WHEEEEEEEEEEEEE!.

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.

The Awesomosity of Roy Halladay, Part Deux

Good morning. I think my Los Angeles time zone just kicked your ass. And hey, you can stop making fun of my headline now, because I do actually speak French.

You can also stop making fun of it because you’re going to be too in awe of what inspired it to form coherent sentences. Strap your jaw closed so you don’t drool on your keyboard, and read on past this almost totally unrelated photo of Brett Cecil.

Because I think he's unbelievably pretty and I get a lot of angry comments about not having enough hot photos. Also, I mostly like his mechanics, even though they're awfully quirky.

9 IP, 7 H, 1 BB, 14 SO, .378 WPA, 88-133 pitches-strikes. Observe.

*whimpers, flails about helplessly*

That is all.