The ALDS begins tonight but the real dilemma...what to wear while I watch?

Yes, that's right. In the baseball world today, Terry Francona is supposedly parting ways with the Boston Red Sox, the Yankees have to get out of cruisin' mode and return to fightin' mode against the Detroit Tigers, but my number one concern is that I don't have any cute New York Yankees shirts to wear to support my team tonight.

Welcome to the trials and tribulations of being a female fan.

This is the same dilemma I faced in August when I went to Yankee Stadium to watch the Yanks play the Angels, but the solution to that problem came in the form of a summer shirt, which does me no good in this beautiful fall weather. But last night when I suggested to the boyfriend that we go to a bar to watch the game tonight (yes, it was my suggestion - he had forgotten the playoffs start tonight. I've been known to date some very weird men...), I realized that I have nothing to wear to show off my Yankee pride. The cutest baseball shirt I own is a Joe Mauer one. I hardly think that would go over well with Yankee fans. Or any Tigers fans, either, I suppose. My favorite Yankee t-shirt is one I bought to wear to the 2009 World Series championship parade, but a) I can't find it and b) I don't want to jinx the Yanks by wearing a championship shirt from another year. I'm a sports fan AND Irish - you better believe I'm superstitious like that.

Unfortunately, I'd say the only solution to this most serious problem is to go shopping for something new to wear...life can be so hard sometimes! ::evil smile::

On a serious note, though, tonight is a whole new ballgame, pun intended. The Tigers are no joke, and they can, and have, beat the Yankees, so I hope the team is as ready as I am to get our game on...

Game on!!

Wow! It really ain't over til it's over!!

As late as 11 pm last night, this is not how I thought the Boston Red Sox-Baltimore Oriole game and Tampa Bay Rays-New York Yankees games would go. Boston had led Baltimore 3-2 for the entire freakin' game. The Yanks were crushing the Rays, 7-0. If I had gone to bed, as my tired, weary soul wanted to, I would have been shocked by what I was reading in the sports section this morning.

But I'm a baseball fan. I know better. There are some games that are just over before the seventh inning stretch, one team is so dominant over the other. But both these games were won at the very last, possible moment. Talk about melo-drama! And because of that, today the Red Sox go home and the Rays get to start preparing for the playoffs. My mom always said she couldn't watch baseball because the games were so boring, and half the time, I'll give her that. But not last night. She would have gone to bed while the Yankees were still up by 7. She would have been missing out...

On a completely unrelated note, I went to Dick's Sporting Goods yesterday to look at Jets jerseys, to see if the actual store, unlike the internet, had more options than just Sanchez, Revis, or Burress. They didn't. And to be honest, I'd be perfectly happy with one of those. I just wish my man D'Brickashaw could get some love!

Congrats to the Rays - and look out Detroit. We're comin' for ya!! :)

Ultra rewind...New York Yankees win 1996 World Series

Nowadays as Yankee fans, we're used to seeing them in the playoffs every year and even winning a World Series every now and again. In 1996, they hadn't won a World Series since 1978. Joe Torre had just become their manager. And the team's current manager, Joe Girardi, was the Yankees' catcher. I wasn't even watching baseball in 1996, so they must have made some sort of impression on me that I saved this newspaper issue...



From the Oct. 29, 1996 issue of Newsday



Second verse, same as the first...Yankees do it again in 1999

From the Oct. 4, 1999 issue of Newsday...the Yankees are on the road to their 25th World Series championship...

And two and half weeks later, they've clinched it. In this Oct. 24, 1999 issue of the New York Post, we see a young Mariano Rivera, who was named MVP of the World Series. Twelve years later, he's LITERALLY the best closer in baseball, EVER...

If you want to support your team but you'd rather do it in pink, October is the month to do it...

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, something every woman (and every man who knows and/or loves a woman) should know. Breast cancer awareness is all about the pink ribbon, so at this time of year, you see a lot of pink everywhere. Including sports gear and team apparel.

It's like my own personal, pink heaven.

Anyway, you're a girl, and you want to support your team by wearing a Mets shirt or a Jets jersey, but you just don't look good in blue or orange or green...well I say, get it in pink. Not only do you should team spirit and pride, but you look cute doing it AND you're probably supporting either the Susan G. Komen foundation or National Breast Cancer Foundation.

Just as a specific shout-out, I went to the Dick's Sporting Goods website just now to try to find a New York Jets jersey to buy (Mark Sanchez? Darrelle Revis? Sporting green? Girly sparkles? Too many choices! And where can I find a D'Brickashaw Ferguson jersey so I can show some hometown pride!) and they're doing a whole "the power of pink" promotion during October. You can find more info here.

And it's not just team apparel - if you play a sport, or you run or bike, or whatever, you can find equipment or accessories or whatnot in pink, too. As I mentioned in another one of my posts, the boyfriend bought me a set of pink (breast cancer awareness) golf clubs for my birthday, which just made me love him all the more.

Obviously, you don't have to wear pink if you're a girl who's into sports - personally, I'm totally into the color, but more importantly, breast cancer awareness is very personal to me and a cause close to my heart. So do you - wear your greens and blues and oranges and reds loud and proud! But if you'd rather do it in pink, this is the month!

If you never watch baseball, today is the day to give in...

Excitement abounds with wild card ties in both the American League AND the National League. We have four games featuring four teams vying for two final spots in the postseason - in the AL, the Boston Red Sox will battle the Baltimore Orioles to hold on to the wild card lead they let slip through their fingers this entire month, while the Tampa Bay Rays will try to beat the New York Yankees again to snatch the wild card away from Boston, while in the NL, the Atlanta Braves will have to face the Philadelphia Phillies, an NL East powerhouse, while the St. Louis Cardinals will be playing the Houston Astros, a team you'd think would be much easier to beat than the Phillies, but in baseball, you just never know. Sometimes, the Kansas City Royals will slaughter the Yanks. It's just that kind of game.

Now, if by the end of today either of these races is still a tie, I believe what happens is a one-game playoff. That's what happened in 2009 when the Detroit Tigers and Minnesota Twins ended up in a tie at the end of the regular season, although that was for the AL Central, not the wild card - the Twins ended up winning. It also happened the year before, again with the Twins but against the Chicago White Sox, with Chicago coming out on top that year.

Speaking of the Twins, I've missed Joe Mauer this year; it's too bad they sucked so hard and he had so many health issues. But I'm happy to see that Head & Shoulders shampoo has used Mauer in at least one other commercial besides the one with Troy Polamalu. Mauer is just so adorable. I just want to eat him up with a spoon. Or stick him in my pocket and carry him around with me. I've said it before but I'll say it again - ladies, if you need a reason to watch baseball, Joe Mauer is it.

Since it's almost October, we'll do yet another post about the 1998 Yankees - championship parade edition :)

From the Oct. 24, 1998 issue of Newsday. Yankees pictured are David Cone, Joe Girardi, David Wells, Hideki Irabu, and Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez.

And just because Derek Jeter is so young and cute and excitable in this picture, from USA Today's Baseball Weekly, the week of Oct. 21-27, 1998. Do you think he gets this excited about baseball anymore? I hope so...







Fighting for their lives...AL wild card race continues

I'm not watching either game, but I have MLB.com up on my computer so I can keep checking the scores, and both the Tampa Bay Rays and the Boston Red Sox are really fighting for their lives. Boston is in the third inning against the Baltimore Orioles, up 2-1. The Rays are also in the third inning against my New York Yankees, also up 2-1. This has got to be hell on the players and definitely on their fans, but as a sports aficionado, it's awesome to see two teams who really want that spot that badly. Nothing is more irritating than when the fans want the win more than the team does.

Speaking of giving it your all, I read a headline on, I think CNN.com, today and the author posited that maybe the Yankees wouldn't try in order to allow the Rays to win and to stick it to the Sox. To be honest, I don't see them doing it. I see them maybe not doing as well because they're giving the guys who have just been called up from the minors a chance to show their stuff, but competitors are by nature competitive. And it really doesn't matter who ends up making it to the postseason with the Yankees - whoever it is is still one more team in the way to winning the World Series (see how positive I can be? I just hope I didn't just jinx it...oy!)

Anyway, to all you Boston and Tampa Bay fans out there...I know this is a real nailbiter but if your team fights hard, even if they lose, you can be proud. Good luck to you both! (Yes, even Boston fans...I'm feeling magnanimous tonight!) :)

And...there it is: Super Bowl 2014 host committee logo ACTUALLY revealed

Personally, I like it. I like the symmetry, I like the colors (since blue and green reflect the colors of both the New York Jets and the New York Giants), I really like the snowflake. I do NOT like New Jersey getting equal credit for our New York football teams but whatever.

Just to clarify, though, as I wrote in the headline, this is only the host committee logo, whatever that means. No wonder nobody said that in the initial articles that came out today - who cares about a host committee logo? It is pretty though. As an artist, a New Yorker, and a girl, I can appreciate that. The official Super Bowl 2014 logo will be revealed at a later date.

Rant of the Day: Super Bowl 2014 logo unveiled

The logo and ad campaign for Super Bowl 2014 was apparently unveiled today, and while every news story covering it talks about how there is a snowflake involved in the design (since the game will be played in an open-air stadium in the middle of winter) as well as the George Washington Bridge connecting New York and New Jersey...which I will get to in a minute. First...don't tell me what the logo looks like. Show me! Come on!

Second, the logo featuring the GW Bridge is appropriate, since the football stadium in which the NEW YORK Giants and NEW YORK Jets play is, logically, in...NEW JERSEY. Why? How does that make any sense? How come it can take my friend Suzy, who lives in Jersey, five minutes to get to the Meadowlands but it takes me, a New Yorker, at least an hour? And sometimes more, depending on traffic. And there's always traffic. I get that maybe there's not enough room in Manhattan for a stadium. Or even in Brooklyn or Queens. But how about Westchester? For us downstaters that's borderline upstate and also kind of far and close to also not being a part of (metro) New York  (I know, we're weird), but at least it would be in-state. This has always driven me nuts. And thank you, 2014 Super Bowl logo that I have not even yet seen, for bringing up the crazy once again this fine Tuesday morning!

Yankees want to keep Brian Cashman as GM

A fan of the New York Yankees since 1998, players I have grown up with since those days, such as Jorge Posada and Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera ARE the Yankees to me...but I also lump Brian Cashman, general manager of the Yanks since that very same year, into that group, just the behind-the-scenes version of that iconic group. Have I always agreed with his player trades and decisions? Heck no. Sometimes I wanted to throttle him. But I always got the impression that he wasn't afraid to stand up to George Steinbrenner, which I totally respect, and you have to give him some credit for continuing to put together the pieces of a team that made it to the post season 12 of the 13 years he's been here. Anyway, his contract expires this year, and according to an article in Newsday here, the Yankees want him back. Sounds good to me. And as a behind-the-scenes player, his baseball career has the potential to be much longer than Posada's or Jeter's or even Rivera's...

On a side note, I'm glad for Cashman's success with the Yankees as he is a fellow alum of my college, The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. ... although he graduated 12 years before I did. But I was going to school at CUA when I fell in love with the Yankees...the same year Cashman became their GM! Coincidence? Probably. But I used to look up famous Catholic alum yearbook photos when I was working on the school newspaper, and Cashman was one of them. Now I'm getting ready to attend my 10-year college reunion in a few weeks, and Cashman is still there. I'm a fan of continuity. I might not always agree with his moves, but I hope he sticks around.

The road to victory, World Series 1998 from another perspective

Since I was living in Washington, DC at the time, it was fun to see how that city covered the Yankees' World Series win that year (I always like to look at wins and losses from other cities' perspectives - I usually find their local newspapers online). Anyway, not as much coverage, but it was still a big deal...

From the Oct. 22, 1998 issue of The Washington Post

From the Oct. 22, 1998 issue of The Washington Times

Again, the Oct. 22, 1998 Washington Post

Cowboys vs. Indians...er, Redskins: Monday Night Football y'all!

It's like we're in the Wild West tonight, folks!


As a fan of all teams New York, I can not in good conscious ever root for the Dallas Cowboys. I think it could quite possibly lead to the revocation of my New Yorker card. And I used to live in Washington, DC for awhile, so since I feel an affinity for any team I can find a connection to, as tenuous as that connection might be, I'm rooting for the Redskins to hold on and pull through tonight, even though I couldn't tell you a single player on Washington's team...except for Rex Grossman. And I only know that cuz I looked the game up on NFL.com.

That's right. I don't know everything. (Don't tell my boyfriend - he calls me Mary Google). But when I don't know something, I look it up. Using the actual Google. Cuz that's how you learn. And impress your boyfriend the next time you have a conversation about football, making him think you know everything, at least about sports, and sometimes to some guys, that's as good as actually knowing about everything... :)

Dra-ma! The AL wild card race comes down to the wire...

When I checked the scores earlier this evening, Boston was leading the Baltimore Orioles and the Yankees were on top of the Tampa Bay Rays. Second verse, switch and reverse...just checked the games' final scores and guess what, folks? We have a tie in the wild card race with two games to go.

The Red Sox can't even buy a win at this point. I can't remember the last time I saw a team in such a stomach-turning freefall...the thing is, I can't root for the Rays at this point, either. Because the Rays between the Yankees today, which means if they make it to the post season, they can beat them then, too (although the Rays may have been playing the Yankee second string today...)

In any case, that's the thing about sports in general, and baseball in particular, with so many games in a season - it ain't over till it's over. There are always surprises, twists and turns, right up until the very end...
it's just like a night time soap. It's like "Desperate Housewives" except with bats and rivalries...which, to be fair, might be EXACTLY like "Desperate Housewives"....

Blast from the past - The road to victory, World Series 1998

As this 2011 regular season winds down and the Yankees are once again in the playoffs, I decided to go through some of the old newspaper articles I'd saved from Yankee postseason victories past. When I went away to college in 1997, I was excited about being away from home but I guess I was a little homesick, too, but it was around that time that the Yankees began making it to the postseason every year, which meant that even in Washington, DC, if it was October, I got to watch a team from home. That was when the love affair began, and 14 years later, it is my longest relationship to date. Here is a look back at some of the coverage from the 1998 World Series against the San Diego Padres:

From the Sept. 7, 1998 issue of Newsday - I had this hanging on my dorm room wall at college :)

From the Oct. 18, 1998 issue of Newsday

From the Oct. 22, 1998 issue of Newsday

I should mention here that winning 125 games in an MLB season is pretty much unheard of. Very few teams will hit 100 wins in a season. At this moment, with only about 2-3 games to go in this season, the Yankees are only at 97 wins - the Philadelphia Phillies have the most, with 99. So that 1998 season was pretty amazing. (And for the record, that 125 game record includes the postseason - the team won 114 games during the regular season that year - still, nothing to turn your nose up at. The record for most wins during the regular season is held by both the 1906 Chicago Cubs and the 2001 Seattle Mariners at 116 apiece, but neither team went on to win the World Series in their respective years...

In honor of the upcoming MLB play-offs, a continuation of MLB videos featuring Guys We Love

So, it's sad that there are no more New Era commercials featuring the comedy duo of Krasinski & Baldwin. ::tear::

However, I was watching a show on TBS this past week and while I don't normally watch commercials, this one caught my eye. I didn't even realize it was an MLB playoffs commercial at first but seriously? I will stop fast-forwarding Every. Single. Time. for Jason Bateman. Kudos to whoever at Major League Baseball or TBS came up with this campaign...kudos.


MLB on TBS Postseason Image Campaign feat. Jason Bateman "Tight Spaces" from Turner Sports on Vimeo.

Not as funny as the rest, but I still love me some Krasinski & Baldwin

Gosh, I really wish they were a comedy duo that went by that name. I would watch everything they did...

Anywho, here's the final installment of John Krasinski and Alec Baldwin's Red Sox-Yankees rivalry commercials for New Era. I didn't heart it as much as the others, but I'll take it nonetheless...

Aaand the Yankees are in the playoffs...but there's still drama a'plenty

No drama for the Yanks, though - the Bronx Bombers clinched a playoff spot this afternoon with a come-from-behind win (insert inappropriate but funny gay joke here) to beat the Tampa Bay Rays.

There is still a little over a week to play in the regular season, though, and the drama is whether the Boston Red Sox can hold on to their 2-game lead over the Rays to eke their way into the postseason as the wild card. The boyfriend made an interesting point the other night - that given the New York-Boston rivalry, couldn't Joe Girardi give the Rays a leg up by letting them win a game or two during this series in order to catch up to, and possibly eventually pass, Boston? Boy, I would love to see the BoSox completely collapse. But the boyfriend also had yet another good point, that Yanks-Red Sox rivalry aside, the Rays are a pretty good team (and if you're looking for young, hot, and pretty decent on the field baseball players, look no further than Evan Longoria) and it would suck if the Yanks helped them crush the Red Sox in the regular season only to be crushed by the Rays in the postseason.

So...the drama remains, which is kind of cool because at this point in the season, pretty much every postseason berth is basically decided, which renders most of these games completely meaningless. A team that's out can only hope to help or spoil the chances of another team, if that team has any other team nipping on its heels. Like Boston and the Rays. So if you're watching baseball at all this week, check out a game being played by either of those teams, because those are the games that still have something on the line...but me, I'll just be sitting back enjoying yet another Yankees September! :)

PS Congrats to Mo Rivera for finally getting the numbers to back up what everyone in the whole universe already knows - that he's the best closer in baseball, EVER. He got save 602 earlier this week, but since I spent three straight days sleeping off a fever, I didn't get to comment until now. Better late than never!

Rant of the day: Why is this considered sports news???

Today on MSNBC.com, one of their top 8 sports section headlines is "Cameron Diaz, Alex Rodriguez split."

Really? *That's* one of the top sports stories of the day??

Maybe it's because I'm just not girly in the way of caring which celebrity or athlete is dating which other celebrity or athlete in any which way or form. (I know, I know, it's almost sacrilegious, but if people don't care enough about my relationship with my boyfriend for it to make headlines, I don't really see why I should care about anyone else's! :) ...)

Or maybe it's just cuz I'm not a huge fan of either Cameron Diaz (except for when she was in There's Something About Mary) or A-Rod (except for when he doesn't choke in a high pressure situation on the field). See, because I was actually kind of excited when Nick Swisher and JoAnna Garcia got together and got married - they both just seem so nice and sweet and adorable! (I am determined to make my fairweather Yankee fan boyfriend Swisher's new Number One Fan, but that's a post for another day).

The point is, put A-Rod's personal life in the entertainment section, unless the news is that he and Cameron Diaz broke up while he got an RBI on a base hit with two strikes and two outs, because *that* would be sports-newsworthy!

:)

You win some, you lose some: NFL Week 1

Although the NFL season officially started on Thursday with the high-scoring Saints v. Packers game (looovve Aaron Rodgers!), yesterday was when most of the Week One games happened, and I had an appropriately football-centric Sunday, albeit without wearing one of my Manning jerseys... :(

Oh well. I bill myself a New York Giants fan, but with a father and brother who are HUGE Jets fans and my hometown represented on Gang Green by D'Brickashaw Ferguson, my team loyalty is much more fluid for football than it is for baseball. I'm going to buy a Jets jersey. I just have to decide which player to get.

Anyway, yesterday the boyfriend and I watched both games - Sundays in the fall can get completely sucked up if you really invest in watching more than one game, but the key to not having it be a total waste of a weekend day is to watch it in a social setting - hang out with your friends, go to a bar, spend that time with other people. It's so much more fun! Like I said, I bill myself a Giants fan, but this girl thoroughly enjoyed the Jets' season opener so much more. Much of that had to do with the fact that the Giants lost. To the Redskins. Bleh. And the way they were playing, they deserved to lose. (I sound like my mother when I say things like that, but it's true.) Part of it probably had to do with the fact that we missed at least half the game since we watched it at a friend's house with three shrieking, high energy girls under the age of three and a licking-crazy dog running around. They all loved me, of course, and they were super adorable, but nonetheless distracting.

So there was that. For the Jets game, though, the boyfriend and I transitioned to Hooters. (Yes, unfortunately, every now and then I go to Hooters.) They had great tvs in every corner, and a really amped up crowd of both Jets and Cowboys fans. That game also seemed like it was going to be a wash, and while we hate losing, New York football fans REALLY hate to lose to Dallas. The nailbiting fourth quarter definitely made up for the first three that almost had me lamenting two New York losses in one week. (Plaxico Burress was totally kicking ass as a Jet, BTW!) And especially on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, it was nice to have a New York team win at home.

Of course, one game doesn't mean anything. A first game loss doesn't herald a terrible or lost season. But it sets the tone of a season, definitely, and its your first glimpse of whether a player has improved or gotten worse in the off season, how new teammates and coaches are meshing, and who's got the thirst for a championship. I'd been leaning toward getting a Mark Sanchez Jets jersey, but after his performance in yesterday's game reminded me of just how awesome he is (interception!), I'm totally back on board the Darrelle Revis jersey train...

It's going to be a fun season!

Tonight's Monday Night Football: New England v. Miami at 7 pm, Oakland v. Denver at 10:15 pm

Peyton Manning's 208-game starting streak to end

I'm disappointed for him...I love Peyton Manning. I am a diehard New York fan but while two of my three Manning jerseys are Eli, the third one is Peyton...

From NBC Sports online:

Peyton Manning will not play Week 1 vs. Texans


Posted by Michael David Smith on September 7, 2011, 12:30 PM EDT
Getty ImagesFor the first time since Jim Harbaugh was the starter at the end of the 1997 season, the Indianapolis Colts will have a quarterback other than Peyton Manning at the helm when they open the season against the Houston Texans on Sunday.

Manning has been ruled out for Week 1, Colts Vice Chairman Bill Polian said on ESPN Radio 1050 in New York today.
Sunday will mark the end of Manning’s streak of 208 consecutive starts, the second-longest such streak in NFL history. Peyton’s brother Eli Manning now has the longest active streak, with 103 consecutive starts, and Brett Favre’s all-time record of 297 is safe for many years to come.

The Colts will be a completely different team without Manning, and after nine straight years in the playoffs with Manning at the helm, it’s hard to see them even being competitive without him. Kerry Collins was signed in August when the Colts realized how serious Manning’s condition was, but Collins can’t have the whole offense down pat yet, and even if he did, Collins is no Manning.
There’s no word yet on when Manning might be ready to return, but it’s clear that it’s taking him a lot longer than expected to recover from offseason neck surgery.

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/09/07/peyton-manning-will-not-play-week-1-vs-texans/

More Yanks vs. Red Sox, as enacted by Misters Alec Baldwin and John Krasinski

(John, I still love you even though you root for Boston...)

A note from a concerned NHL non-fan

I don't watch hockey, so I don't know any of these players, but what is up with all these young NHL players just up and dying? You know it's weird when it grabs the attention of an NHL non-fan...third one this summer! :(

Former NHL Enforcer Belak Found Dead in Toronto

Speaking of sports fanatic videos I love...

...was I? Well, I am now. And now, I'll just show you, since appropriately enough, we're in the midst of a Yanks-Red Sox series. Because I might fast forward through commercials like it will literally kill me if I stop, I will watch these every. Single. Time. It reaffirms my love for Alec Baldwin, John Krasinski, great writing, and above all, being a Yankee fan...

:)

Just call me Miss Tiger Woods - embarking on a golf adventure

You're looking for the word "mini" up there in the post title, aren't you? Yes, it has been said that I'm fairly good on the miniature golf course. I can putt wearing only one contact in my eye and still make a hole in one. Windmills and waterfalls ain't got nothin' on me.

But now it's time for the big leagues.

Golf, as a spectator sport, has never seemed anything but dull, dull, dull. When my grandfather would have it on the television in his house, my cousins and I would all run away...until he left the room, and then we'd put on The Simpsons.

But golf as a hobby, golf as a sport, has recently begun to intrigue me. There is no running around from one end of a court or field to the other. There is no tackling or sliding or any other kind of physical contact with others. Golf is physical, yes, what with the walking and the swinging and whatnot, but it is a gentlemen's sport, a ladies' sport.

It's a sport in which I can wear a really cute outfit. Something with argyle. And probably pink.

And so it was with those thoughts in my head that I oohed and aahed over golf clubs - pink, of course - in a Dick's Sporting Goods store recently and the boyfriend took note and bought them for me last week for my birthday.

I love him so much.

I haven't used them yet, but being the good boyfriend that he is, he's going to take me to a driving range one of these days so I can give those bad boys a whirl. I think I'll be good at the whole driving thing. I have a lot of pent up frustration and anger. This could be good, clean, therapeutic fun.

Now all I need are some pink argyle knee socks and a hat with a pom pom and I'm good to go.

:)