TODAY IN OVEREXPOSED WOMEN’S SPORTS

Let’s just dive right in, shall we?

• To the surprise of absolutely no one and the notice of a very few, alumnae of the University of Connecticut dominated the women’s basketball roster for this year’s Olympics (The Olympics are coming! The Olympics are coming!). The Geno Auriemma-coached squad reportedly declined to be fitted for official Team USA jerseys, opting instead to “just stick with the colors that got us here,” according to the unapologetically stately-haired Auriemma.
• Jersey abandoner, 6-pack aficionado and all-around gal’s gal Brandi Chastain traded in her shin guards for a sand wedge at this past weekend’s Michael Jordan Celebrity Invitational. She and partner John Smoltz (Ret. P-Atlanta Braves) defeated other notable weekend-golfers such as former NBA Inside Stuff Main Man Ahmad Rashad, “The Office” (US Version) cast member Brian Baumgartner, and hockey wife and mother of five, Janet Jones-Gretzky. “It’s not about beating Michael,” Chastain said. Poppycock. Of course it’s about beating Michael! This is the sort of stuff great obituaries are made of. You go, girl.

Chastain, with shirt buckled in, defeats MJ at golf.

• According to her Twitter feed, Venus Williams had to write a paper. And it was hard. And apparently about math.

I'd rather be tennising.

• And as if winning fancy golf tournaments and writing on a deadline wasn’t enough for them, it appears that females are ruining sports, in general.(Though you probably already knew that.) Thanks to the allegedly questionable fashion choices on the part of some lady journos, Major League Baseball announced at the end of last year that they will be instigating and enforcing a new dress code policy for media members, presumably set to kick in with the start of the 2012-2013 season. The new guidelines are the result of a pow-wow held by MLB officials in response to a September 2010 incident regarding a) The New York Jets and 2) a Mexican TV reporter. According to one, good-for-nothing girl writer, things have gotten “a little too casual” out at the ol’ ball game. So if any of you were hoping to spy an errant bra-strap or a little extra leg during post-game interviews, well you can just forget it. Better luck watching NFL or NBA coverage, because, let’s face it: anything goes in those two dens of vipers.

So now you know what the ladies have been up to. Check back next week for some more pillow talk and your weekly dose of sports as social commentary (hint: it will probably have something to do with some old broad whose color palette may or may not include “Masters Green”).

REPORTERS AGREE: SPRING TRAINING IS MEANINGLESS

It's like a hot high school girlfriend: looks nice, but in eventually won't matter

After a few weeks of intense reporting, speculation and scrutiny, the baseball media has agreed spring training is meaningless.  Rumors swirled earlier last off-season that spring training statistics and performance meant absolutely nothing with regards to a players’ in-season performance; but only recently has it been confirmed.  “We are stunned to believe the new results that spring training statistics and games are meaningless,” said Spring Traning Coordinator Newt Hammimngs.*  “We’re willing to appeal this decision and have our good name and reputation returned.”

*Not a type, this fictional man’s last name has three M’s in it.  

All the major media outlets have hordes of journalists working round the clock in Florida or Arizona to get catch and analyze every last useless detail.  It was SBNation editor Jeff Sullivan who discovered the void of meaning.  “It doesn’t really matter. So… talking about it is… a waste of time?”

Many are contending the results that their hard work, money, hotel rooms, constant typing could be in vain.  In fact, they all wrote 2,000 articles about it.  Lot of words.  About spring training.  And why it is… HAHAHA ANGRY BIRDS!!!

Spring Training contended the spring stats proving a breakout season for Brent Morel.  Yeah.  Sure Brent Morel.  Sure Spring Training.

MEDIA DUSTS OFF NOSTALGIC BASEBALL PHOTOS

Suns rise over the ballparks.

Lucky mitts are dusted off.

Pitchers and catchers report.

Familiar emotion-manipulating articles about the majesty of baseball begins.

Yes... a simpler time where crime never happened....

Baseball spring training is here and the players are not the only ones getting a head start this year.  Members of the mainstream media are frantically dusting off their old, nostalgic photos of baseball; many featuring silhouettes of legendary players leaning on bats, of an obscure team favorite laughing, a child’s first ballpark visit or, most popular, an unknown groundskeeper watering the field.

The start of the baseball season is an exciting time for those owning tear jerking photographs of the past.  “This is definitely our busy season,” said old photographer Mort Charlock.  “People don’t want expensively framed photos of an umpire ejecting Casey Stengel with the caption ‘heave ho, umpire!’  Nut now some old journalists who needs to write about baseball despite their being literally nothing to say will rehash an old article, find a familiar picture and maybe force in a tenuous connection with a memory he has of his father.”

Look as they wipe away the sin for a new generation of people who never do wrong things

More importantly, since this is the most popular time of the year for these photos, old-timey caption writers are working round the clock in their small, wooden shacks that has always been in the family, to write appropriate captions such as:

Spring Training

Doesn’t matter if you win or lose, but how you play the game…

Heaven

Here we are boys!

Of course there are always the mavericks of the group.  Alaister McCullough frequently writes racy captions such as: “Let’s play hard fellows!”

Intense.

But we can all agree: every journalist wrote an article about the beauty surrounding spring training fifteen years ago and has been subbing out team names in the same article ever since.  Kind of like this one time my dad took me to my first ball game…

PARALYZED, BRAIN DAMAGED STAR THINKS TODAY’S PLAYERS ARE WUSSES

Paralyzed, brain damaged former NFL star Byron Jones thinks today’s players are wusses.  After hearing about Sidney Crosby‘s continued absence from the Pneguins lineup, Twins first baseman Justin Morneau still suffering from concussion symptoms nearly two years after the event and the NFL eliminating two-a-day practices in accordance with the new collective bargaining agreement, Jones thinks sports have gone soft. “Nom nom men hit nommynom,” mumbled and slurred Jones through his feeding tube. “In our day we… I think… WHO ARE YOU?”

Multiple analysts agree: “players are not tough like they used to be,” said 180 pound 50 year old Skip Bayless.  “Players should never think about their future, their lives.  How can they keep their head in the game when they are worried about ‘life after the game?’  Bradshaw never worried about what a mockery and laughingstock he’d be years after his playing days.”

Indeed.

Thank goodness for guys like Byron Jones.  And thank goodness back in the day medical professionals did not know better than to stand in his glory seeking ways, agents and managers did not remind him of his next contract when they knew Dallas was coming up this week, and coaches and fellow players knew real injuries mean you could not walk.

Thanks to the former players, the greats, the legends who are willing to speak up about players not being as tough as they used to be.  It is always good to know that when some player beats a hallowed record, it is because the entire league is not as good as it once was, so said record is not nearly as impressive.

And thanks to the fans, analysts and armchair quarterbacks of the world for knowing exactly what they would do if they were in that situation.  Without their insight and ability to fairly judge their own actions in situations they may never be in, we would never be able to find out who is a quitter, a faker, a wuss, a complainer and a goat.  If we can learn one thing from Byron Jones’ nomming, it is nothing ever bad happens to heroes running full speed, head first into 250 behemoths for our entertainment.

If it did then Skip Bayless would just be talking nonsense.

OCCUPY SPORTS

Anchor Ethan Rosenberg gives us an update on the chaos in the streets.

Do you side with bloggers or leagues?  Leave comments below!

A TALE OF SPORTS AND LOVE: CHUBBY LITTLE LEAGUER REWARDED WITH ICE CREAM, VICARIOUS DREAMS

The look of a killer....

Andy Rodriguez, despite his obviously Hispanic name, never had dreams of being a baseball legend. And I know what you’re thinking. But no, he didn’t have dreams of being a soccer legend either. He had simple dreams. Mostly of monsters and pools full of pudding. He is eleven after all.*

Andy’s mom and dad signed him up for after school baseball to introduce healthy exercise into their growing son’s life, which at the time revolved around pizza rolls covered with ranch dressing and his second hand Nintendo.** His father, who played baseball all through high school, dreamed of the days when he’d be able to teach his son to play his favorite sport. But Andy was never interested in going out and throwing the ball around with dad. It’s cold outside without a jacket and a lot of Andy’s jackets don’t really fit anymore.

Andy lives by one philosophy, which he carries not only for sports, but for life.  “I don’t run unless something is chasing me.”  And that is exactly what he told his coach seven weeks ago at the beginning of the school’s season. As of last weekend, Andy struck out every time at the plate, except two, when he was forced to jog to first base after being hit with a pitch, sore and winded.

Andy's preferred routine

This past weekend things changed for Andy forever.  Knowing Andy’s aversion to effort, the other team put in their bench pitcher, whose asthma had been acting up literally all season.  Try as he might, asthma kid just couldn’t focus, and Andy walked. And immediately after, the awkwardly tall kid who bats after Andy walked too. Tears gathered in Andy’s father’s eyes as he proudly looked upon his son drawing pictures in the dirt with his feet at second base. And that’s when it happened. A fly, which Andy mistook for a bee, buzzed right by Andy’s ear, forcing him into a full sprint toward and around third base. He circled third three or four times before actually hitting the base, but the other team was so put off by his high pitched scream, they forgot to throw the ball.

After the game, Andy’s father took him out for ice cream. On the car ride home he had the idea to use all of Andy’s college saving to create an in-home, state of the art training center for his son. Andy nodded in agreement, knowing full well he hadn’t been listening to his father. His legs hurt from running, and his ice cream wasn’t going to eat itself…

Heaven?

– Karin Graham

*Heaven?

**Heaven??

PRE GAME WARM UPS

BRAVES EXCITED / FURIOUS THEIR COLLAPSE GOT LESS COVERAGE

Give these pathetic men some damn respect already!

As more and more dirt comes out about the Boston Red Sox collapse and their possible involvement in the Holocaust, there is one team none too happy: the Atlanta Braves. “We collapsed just as badly, if not worse than those boys and what do we get? Nothing!” yelled an irate Tim Hudson. “It’s all regional bias,” claims Derek Lowe. “When I was with Boston and the Dodgers, our collapses were stuff of legends. Down here? No one cares. And that’s not good for the game.”

Many agree: former Red Sox manager Terry Francona thinks it is time for the media to relax on Boston sports. “They accused me of being addicted to pills. I. WAS. NOT. EVEN. ON. THE. FIELD.”

If anything, the Braves provided an even worse scenario; they lost to Tony LaRussa‘s Cardinals. LaRussa will surely use this as proof to defend his constant over-managing and inability to use less than four pitchers an inning. “They did not lose, we won,” said LaRussa. When a This Is The Sports reporter reminded him those mean the exact same thing, LaRussa snarled, clawed then retracted into his cave.

Yup. They lost to a team managed by Sloth from Goonies

The Braves will be haunted by the nation’s passive reaction to their pathetic September display. But also are worried for 2012. “The Mets look horrible,” said second baseman Dan Uggla. “Knowing them, we could blow a ten game lead in a week and people will still talk about how s***ty they are.”

The small market teams have to bite the bullet yet again.

– Mike Sweeney

NEW YORK METS ONE UPPED, ACCEPT CHALLENGE

A day after two of the greatest collapses in Major League Baseball history were solidified within an hour and a half of each other, the New York Mets, the Michaelengelos of the choke job, laughed off the notion that they now had company.

The Mets: Crashing and Burning Even Before They Came Into Existence

“Blowing a 10 game lead with a month left?  Please, I won’t be impressed until they do it again next year,” said first base coach Mookie Wilson.  Relief pitcher Manny Acosta went on to say that his team could double down on Bostonand Atlanta’s “bet” by blowing a 22 game lead next year.  Catcher Ronny Paulino said that next season’s team would make the 07 and 08 Mets look like “a group of competent f***s.”   He ensured reporters that the Mets would win zero games next September.

Measures are already being taken to ensure this historic collapse: businessman Omar Minaya is looking to buy a majority holding in the Madoff crippled organization, Moises Alou has been hired as equipment manager, and Julio Franco will be brought in to bat cleanup.  It is unclear what role Miguel Cairo will play, but it is reported to be “significant.”

Not one member of the team mentioned how they planned to put the team in a position to initiate their collapse.*

– Chris Bacarella

*Classic Mets, everyone stays mum but we all know it’s coming.

ROID RAGE

Suspected steroid users are to be thrown off cliffs starting in 2012 according to a new rule in the MLB collective bargaining agreement. “We’ve had it up to here with performance enhancing drugs,” says commissioner Bud Selig. “Time to end the witchhunt and get some cold, hard answers.”

"Death to the liars!"

Players suspected of drug use by members of the media will be forced off a cliff into a river with an anchor tied to their feet. If said player flies away or hits more than 28 home runs, he used steroids. If not? “Then our hands are clean,” says Selig.

Players can be suspected if members of the media use the terms: “I’m not saying, I’m just saying” or “In the post-steroid era, what can we believe?”

Players will be given the option of Seppuku once suspected as a way to go with honor.

– Mike Sweeney