2. Tiger Woods. He had a RIDICULOUS two days at the U.S. Open. Saturday he had an amazing birdie and two amazing eagles to take the lead, then Sunday, after getting off to a rough start, he had a long putt on 18 to force an 18-hole playoff tomorrow. He sunk it, but he didn’t just sink it. It lipped around in the cup and fell. It was so dramatic.

If he hadn’t made that putt, a man named Rocco Mediate, who has never won an Major tournament, would’ve won the Open. And yet… still rooting for Tiger. He’s the Patriots/Yankees (before)/Red Sox (now)/Lakers and/or Celtics of golf. But everybody still wants him to win! It’s ridiculous.

3. Being given the ol’ 1-2. Last week, here was my dressing down:

Okay, I know that you’re a cardinals fan and all and that this is your site and you can do whatever you want with it but when you’re starting to just stop writing things like this for a few weeks just because you don’t want to acknowledge that the cubs are actually a good team, that’s just not fair to your readers.

But honestly, did you realize that you talk more about hating the cubs than loving the cardinals. Maybe it’s just because I’m a fan of baseball, not just certain teams and the fact that I like honest, fair journalism and I know that this site isn’t professional and it’s not trying to be but come on now, love your team more than you love hating the cubs. please.

First off: I didn’t skip the rankings for a few weeks because the Cubs are on top. I was dealing with finals, graduation from law school, and then a class 5 tornado and the worst floods my area has ever seen. I live in Iowa. Surely you’ve heard about it.

Secondly: “honest, fair journalism?” This is a blog that ogles athletes. I am not a reporter. Also, where was I dishonest? And how was I unfair? Do you understand sar-ca-sm?

Thirdly: I love my team more than I love some of my extended family members.

But just for you, Mr. or Ms. Hater (the first name was not gender-specific)…

I LOVE THE CUBS! THEY ARE SCRAPPY UNDERDOGS WHO ARE SO LOVABLE I JUST WANT TO SQUEEZE THEIR COLLECTIVE CHEEKS! WRIGLEY IS AN INTIMATE BALLPARK AND NOT AT ALL POPULATED BY DRUNK HIPSTERS WHO DON’T KNOW SHIT ABOUT BASEBALL! IT IS IN NO WAY FUNNY THAT THEY’VE SPENT SO MUCH MONEY AND SO FAR HAVE NOTHING TO SHOW FOR IT! THIS IS THEIR YEAR!

Seriously, though. The Cubs have the best record in baseball and that’s great for them. It is only June 16th, but they are still playing awesome ball. Also, the NL Gods have decided to test the Cardinals by taking away our ace pitcher, our ace hitter and now our ace catcher. That just doesn’t seem fair. I fully expect there to be some kind of making-it-up-to-me plague to sweep through the Cubs clubhouse in July.

Also, I sincerely hope this is the year we finally get a Cubs/Cardinals NLCS.

SO BACK OFF, MAN/LADY!

Today, we want to sincerely wish a Happy Father’s Day to all the men out there who hold the fort down, who head to the grocery store at 2 am to pick up a box of diapers, who will move heaven and earth to make their kids happy.  Here’s to you…

Specifically, we want to wish a Happy Father’s Day to:

• our own dads.  Without you, we don’t think we’d be here today.  Well, we obviously wouldn’t be here without you, but we mean in this specific place we’re at today.  You guys helped mold us and shape us, and for that we thank you!
• the dads out there who are not with us anymore.  You’re always in our hearts, especially on the day set aside specifically to celebrate you. 
• the blogger dads, who between making us laugh with quips about the latest antics on the field/court and their regular day jobs (yes, some of us have day jobs!), manage to be fabulous dads.  Among them we have Cinnamon Girl’s Weed Against Speed, Dan Shanoff, Big Daddy Drew, and countless others.  Keep up the great work!

In conclusion, I’d like to hand over the mike, so to speak, to one of our favorite dads, Flubby, of Kissing Suzy Kolber:

This is my boy Gus.  As you can see, he is adverse to anthropomorphic dalmatians.The world I see reflected in his eyes is a wondrous place.  Gus helps maintain balance in my life– a gentle reminder that there are things actually more important than determining the proper joke angle on the latest Bengal arrest or combing through YouTube clips of guys taking it in the nuts.   He is the only +1 that really matters.

Dads are one of the reasons why we have sports in the first place though!  We can talk sports with our fathers, despite what Lou Piniella says, who needs hotties when you can focus on the game and share a tray of nachos with dear old dad!  So scroll down and join us as we talk baseball, football, and basketball shoes with our dads!

Happy Father’s Day, Dads!

Dads are one of the reasons why we have sports in the first place though!  We can talk sports with our fathers, despite what Lou Piniella says, who needs hotties when you can focus on the game and share a tray of nachos with dear old dad!  So scroll down and join us as we talk baseball, football, and basketball shoes with our dads!

Happy Father’s Day, Dads!

Dads are one of the reasons why we have sports in the first place though!  We can talk sports with our fathers, despite what Lou Piniella says, who needs hotties when you can focus on the game and share a tray of nachos with dear old dad!  So scroll down and join us as we talk baseball, football, and basketball shoes with our dads!

Happy Father’s Day, Dads!

Much like last time when she asked her mother directly for an answer for her Mother’s Day Potpourri post, Andrea is the only one brave enough to email her father for a story to share on Father’s Day. So here’s to Andrea’s papa, and the two kids, (her brother Adam is in the picture), who love him!

I talked with my dad on the phone in preparation for this post and for Father’s Day. We got to talking about when he was involved in sports back before he was just a supportive spectator for my brother and me at countless basketball tournaments, softball and baseball games, dance team competitions, golf meets, soccer games and volleyball matches. While we were talking, there was one moment that came up because I’d heard the story before and it always made me laugh. Now, you’d probably have to know my dad to fully appreciate the humor, but here it is.

My dad grew up in Allison, Iowa and went to Allison-Bristow High school. (Iowa schools are notorious for combining two or more towns into what we like to call “alphabet” high schools. Allison-Bristow, Waverly-Shell Rock, Rudd-Rockford-Marble Rock. The best is BCLUW and I cannot for the life of me tell you which towns those five letters stand for). Needless to say, even with Allison and Bristow combined, the high school was still small. ABHS had about 40 people per graduating class. Therefore, everybody even remotely athletic played every sport. My dad was a good football and baseball player, but basketball wasn’t really his thing. He said, “I was about 9th man on the team.”

So one year the team had an away game against one of their rivals, Clarksville. For away games, the team had to wear their street clothes on the buses and change into their uniforms in the locker room. Well, the AB guys got to the away site and the best player on the team, Stan Wubena, realized he had forgotten his basketball shoes. All he had were his dress shoes. The coach walked around for awhile, trying to figure out what to do and pretty soon he asked, “Who’s got size 11 shoes?” And nobody said anything.  So he asked again, and started walking around looking at the guys’ shoes. He finally saw that my dad wears size 11 and he barked, “REIHER! Give ‘im your shoes!” and my dad asked, “Well, what am I gonna do?”  and the Coach said, “Go out there in your stocking feet, you don’t play much anyway.”  So, my dad gave Stan his shoes, and rode the pine in his socks that night.

PS: When I called my dad to get the full story, I asked him if he remembered the “best player,” what his name was. And my dad (memory like an elephant) goes, “Oh yeah, that was Stan Wubena. I saw his dad the other day.” Oh, Iowa.

Happy Father’s Day, dad!

As the daughter of a coach, I pretty much had to learn sports or perish- and I definitely chose to learn (and love) them. Some of my earliest memories are of me and my mother sitting in the stands on Friday nights and watching my dad coach in football games and waving my black and gold pompom for Lubbock High.

Daddy also made sure I grew up indoctrinated in the Church of the Texas Longhorns. The lullaby he sang to me as a baby wasn’t the standard “Rock A Bye Baby” tune, it was “The Eyes of Texas”. I’m pretty sure I learned to do the Hook ‘Em Horns handsign before I learned to walk. Our Thanksgivings centered around watching the Horns take on the Aggies, and Coach Darrell Royal was revered as a legend in our house. So even though I couldn’t suit up in the burnt orange, I did the next best thing for a girl– and became a Texas Angel and for four years helped recruit those boys that would take the field for Texas. (I think the lullaby story helped me get the gig.) And, of course, my Pops was there in the stands at UT to watch.

My Dad also gave me the gift of baseball- the love for the game, and all its wonder and beauty. The routine of getting a bag of peanuts, kicking back and relaxing, and watching it all unfold in front of you. He taught me how to score games, and put me up in the booth to keep score for all of my brother’s little league games he coached. Unwisely, he also put me on the mic to call some of those games- and then found it tough to pull the mic away when the game was over.

I am proud to say, however, that although we share a reverence for the twin Texas baseball gods Nolan Ryan and Roger Clemens, I successfully managed to avoid adopting his love for the Yankees. I mean, I love my Daddy- but that’s just craziness.

And I can’t leave golf out of the mix- the one sport that I learned to love almost unwillingly. After a lifetime of golf talk around the dinner table, golf on the TV, going to the driving range or watching my dad (and brother) play 18 holes… I waived the white flag and gave in. This is mostly because Dad lets me drive the golf cart, which gives me an inordinate amount of joy. He didn’t even yell too loud that time when I was a kid, and drove the cart up on to the green… and then promptly reversed it and gunned it backwards off the green and down a hill into a tree. OK, I might have been 18 when that happened.

But my best sports memory with my Dad came last year, when I had the chance to repay him for a lifetime of sports gifts. When Texas beat OU in early October 2005, I gambled and bought 2 tickets to the Rose Bowl national championship game (and airfare, hotel and reserved a car). My gamble paid off when Texas finished the season undefeated- and so I got a dozen orange roses, tied them together with burnt orange ribbon and threaded the tickets through the ribbon– and wrapped it up as a Christmas gift for my Dad. When he opened the box and saw the tickets, he was (for maybe the first time in my life) speechless.

We were together for tailgating outside on the Pasadena grounds for 8 hours before the game (and my Dad perfected the art of getting free food and beer from USC fans); we were together to walk into the first national championship game either of us had ever been to; we were together to watch Vince Young put on the show of a lifetime; and we were together when Texas won its first national championship since 1970- the first in my lifetime. I wouldn’t trade anything for that hug I shared with my Dad in the stands of the Rose Bowl, with confetti raining down and tears running down my face. It’s one of the dearest moments of my life, and one that I’ll hold close to my heart forever.

For all this- and for everything else he’s done for me throughout my life: I love you, Daddy- and Happy Fathers Day!

Before we jump in here dear reader, you must know one very important trait about my father – he is possibly one of the driest people on the planet. He speaks in a slow, measured tone and considers every single word before it leaves his mouth. This isn’t to say that he is cold and distant, because he is a very warm and funny man, but he is just so very, very dry.

I think it’s the engineer in him, because most other engineers I’ve ever met, (including the one engineering professor I dated, and no I don’t have any daddy issues, that man found me in a club and asked me out, thank you very much), seem to have that same thoughtfulness. I think it has something to do with being good at math. Anyway, I just needed to get that out of the way so the next few paragraphs would have a bit more gravitas.

(And here’s the other thing about my dad; he not really sports guy. Sure, he’ll go to a couple of ballgames here and there, but he doesn’t follow sports nor does he quite understand people that take more than a passing interest in the box scores. A couple of years ago he at some sort of reception and some one brought up that the Penguins had recently been on a winning streak, to which my father replied with something along the lines of, “Oh, I really don’t pay attention to that sort thing.” Who did he say this to? One of the minority owners of the Penguins, naturally. This is my father.)

(Two set-ups later and we get to the actually story. Hang in there with me.)

When my sister and I were young, about 9 and 11 years-old respectively, my father called us together in the dining room, for a “talk”. We had both read our fair share of Judy Blume by that age, so we thought this could only mean one thing, “the talk”. The talk that meant we were no longer daddy’s little girls, and that we were on the verge of being little women and he was okay with that, but no, no boys just yet, please. In a rare display of solidarity, we braced ourselves, knowing that nothing was every going to be same after “the talk”. The words that came out of his mouth will forever be seared into my brain.

“Now, I want to show you something so you don’t learn it on the street.”

We sat frozen. What could it be? A doll? Did he have a book? Oh god please, not another textbook, why does everything have to be a lesson in something? And if it is a book, please don’t let there be pictures, this is difficult enough. This is not how the dad in “Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret” acted.  Why does this man take so long to speak?

He pulled out a deck of cards.

“First, you need to know the ranking of the cards. Ace is the highest, but it can also be the lowest.”

Things never were the same again, because that night begat hundreds upon hundreds of family poker nights. 7-card stud, 5-card draw, blackjack, how to count cards in single-deck and four-deck blackjack without looking like you’re counting the cards, Omaha, and everything else between the high and the low was played. To this day, the only natural royal flush I’ve ever had in a 7-card stud game was at that dining room table.

It was playing poker with my father that made me a stronger player. It did not matter how silly or how serious we were in any hand, when it came to cards he was impossible to read. He always used his same voice, his same tone, and his same inflection no matter if he was raising or folding. Dry. Thoughtful. And mindful of the math. It was maddening to play against.

Years later he admitted that one of the reasons he had taught us how to play is that he did not want us to go to college and loose all of our clothes in a game strip poker at a frat house. Frat houses and auto mechanics were the two things my father always wanted us to be ready for once we were on our own. I ended up at college that didn’t have a Greek system while my sister went to a Brainaic U, so it was a lot of worry for nothing.  (Although being able to look under the hood of my car has been very helpful over the years.)

I still play a lot of cards, although the big poker fad of a few years ago has kind of ruined some of the fun of it for me, especially around the home games. Living in Los Angeles means I’m never more than twenty minutes from a casino, and I slip down to the Bike enough that they call and check on me if my player’s card goes unused from time to time. It does not escape me that when I am playing at my best is when I most like him, and that when I am floundering is when I more like, well, me.

So thank you Dad for teaching me how to play cards. I’ve never lost at strip poker, (which really, as an adult makes me feel like a stick in the mud), and I’ve made a fair amount of money along the way.

(I couldn’t find the picture I wanted for this post, so instead I pulled a couple of clips from the 12 volumes of home movies my father has sent me. Now you can see where I get the ‘PROP COMIC AT WORK’ and love of Teddy Bear Picnic videos from, because that is one man who loves time-elapse photography. And if I ever get my own film or TV vanity card, I am totally using that ”A Barf Beer Production” clip.   The making sure there was better quality of some type of video or audio clip? Totally something my father would do to.)

Before we jump in here dear reader, you must know one very important trait about my father – he is possibly one of the driest people on the planet. He speaks in a slow, measured tone and considers every single word before it leaves his mouth. This isn’t to say that he is cold and distant, because he is a very warm and funny man, but he is just so very, very dry.

I think it’s the engineer in him, because most other engineers I’ve ever met, (including the one engineering professor I dated, and no I don’t have any daddy issues, that man found me in a club and asked me out, thank you very much), seem to have that same thoughtfulness. I think it has something to do with being good at math. Anyway, I just needed to get that out of the way so the next few paragraphs would have a bit more gravitas.

(And here’s the other thing about my dad; he not really sports guy. Sure, he’ll go to a couple of ballgames here and there, but he doesn’t follow sports nor does he quite understand people that take more than a passing interest in the box scores. A couple of years ago he at some sort of reception and some one brought up that the Penguins had recently been on a winning streak, to which my father replied with something along the lines of, “Oh, I really don’t pay attention to that sort thing.” Who did he say this to? One of the minority owners of the Penguins, naturally. This is my father.)

(Two set-ups later and we get to the actually story. Hang in there with me.)

When my sister and I were young, about 9 and 11 years-old respectively, my father called us together in the dining room, for a “talk”. We had both read our fair share of Judy Blume by that age, so we thought this could only mean one thing, “the talk”. The talk that meant we were no longer daddy’s little girls, and that we were on the verge of being little women and he was okay with that, but no, no boys just yet, please. In a rare display of solidarity, we braced ourselves, knowing that nothing was every going to be same after “the talk”. The words that came out of his mouth will forever be seared into my brain.

“Now, I want to show you something so you don’t learn it on the street.”

We sat frozen. What could it be? A doll? Did he have a book? Oh god please, not another textbook, why does everything have to be a lesson in something? And if it is a book, please don’t let there be pictures, this is difficult enough. This is not how the dad in “Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret” acted.  Why does this man take so long to speak?

He pulled out a deck of cards.

“First, you need to know the ranking of the cards. Ace is the highest, but it can also be the lowest.”

Things never were the same again, because that night begat hundreds upon hundreds of family poker nights. 7-card stud, 5-card draw, blackjack, how to count cards in single-deck and four-deck blackjack without looking like you’re counting the cards, Omaha, and everything else between the high and the low was played. To this day, the only natural royal flush I’ve ever had in a 7-card stud game was at that dining room table.

It was playing poker with my father that made me a stronger player. It did not matter how silly or how serious we were in any hand, when it came to cards he was impossible to read. He always used his same voice, his same tone, and his same inflection no matter if he was raising or folding. Dry. Thoughtful. And mindful of the math. It was maddening to play against.

Years later he admitted that one of the reasons he had taught us how to play is that he did not want us to go to college and loose all of our clothes in a game strip poker at a frat house. Frat houses and auto mechanics were the two things my father always wanted us to be ready for once we were on our own. I ended up at college that didn’t have a Greek system while my sister went to a Brainaic U, so it was a lot of worry for nothing.  (Although being able to look under the hood of my car has been very helpful over the years.)

I still play a lot of cards, although the big poker fad of a few years ago has kind of ruined some of the fun of it for me, especially around the home games. Living in Los Angeles means I’m never more than twenty minutes from a casino, and I slip down to the Bike enough that they call and check on me if my player’s card goes unused from time to time. It does not escape me that when I am playing at my best is when I most like him, and that when I am floundering is when I more like, well, me.

So thank you Dad for teaching me how to play cards. I’ve never lost at strip poker, (which really, as an adult makes me feel like a stick in the mud), and I’ve made a fair amount of money along the way.

(I couldn’t find the picture I wanted for this post, so instead I pulled a couple of clips from the 12 volumes of home movies my father has sent me. Now you can see where I get the ‘PROP COMIC AT WORK’ and love of Teddy Bear Picnic videos from, because that is one man who loves time-elapse photography. And if I ever get my own film or TV vanity card, I am totally using that ”A Barf Beer Production” clip.   The making sure there was better quality of some type of video or audio clip? Totally something my father would do to.)

2.  Watching the ninth inning of Game 6 of the 1993 NLCS and running out to the car to honk the horn when Mitch Williams made the final out.

3.  Going to a Mariners game at the Kingdome on a vacation of the Pacific Northwest.  My dad bought me a really nice fitted Mariners cap with their then-new compass logo on it.

4.  Having dinner and watching the Phillies in the Diamond Club at the Vet.  I remember whoever pitched that game kept throwing to first and my mom kept getting more and more annoyed. 

5.  Watching him schmooze with the other parents at my Sunday afternoon crew races in high school. 

6.  Blowing off an afternoon of school my senior year and going down to the Phillies ticket sales office to get tickets.  That was special because my parents never, ever let me miss school.

7.  Drinking Sam Adams Light and singing “Fly, Eagles, Fly” and “Skol Vikings” no matter what game we’re watching on Sunday.