OK, she only pitched batting practice.

Justine Siegal, who was already the first woman to coach a professional baseball team (The Brockton (MA) Rox, recently in the news for giving Bill Bucker a job managing, pitched batting practice yesterday for the Indians’ camp.  She confessed to being nervous, called herself an old lady…and still made manager Manny Acta, who also pitches BP on occasion, look bad.

Apparently in her teens, she threw in the upper 70s.  Hey, that’s faster than Tim Wakefield!  She’s scheduled to pitch BP for the Oakland Athletics later in the week, too.

Also, we’re back! Did you miss us?

The ESPYs are ESPN’s award show, and, well, they happened. Drew Brees won a lot. We think the ESPYs are kind of fun, in a highlight reel sort of way, but that’s the issue, too.  Reasons the ESPYs don’t work for us.

1. We saw those plays! All the highlights, interview clips, etc. are things that have already been done, except, we guess, for the “red carpet” type of stuff.  C’mon, SportsCenter gets watched by hundreds of thousands daily.  There’s little new material.

2. The highlight mentality Call us sports purists, but we think that the highlight-heavy clips and such distract from true enjoyment of the game.  So much of baseball, for example, happens between pitches, that you can’t get the full experience of watching–even on TV–if you’re just seeing bits.

3. Also, what about the kids? Kids are seeing athletes rewarded, at the ESPYs, for awesome feats of skill (and luck, and popularity, but leave those aside for now.)  These are their role models.  But what kids SEE is those amazing plays.  Result: they go for that crazy catch, or ridiculous basket…and skip passing, teamwork, and all the things sports are trying to teach them on and off the field.

Not that we’re hating on Drew Brees…

No, this is not about porn.

This is about PhD chicks who kick ass.

Like Rosi Sexton, 5′4″, 121 lbs, with a PhD in theoretical computer science, who stepped into the MMA ring last week.  Now, she got beat, but her competition goes by the stage/fighting name “Warrior Princess,” so we guess we like her too.

Jezebel (one of our fave blogs) makes some interesting points about how these women seem to keep having to assert their femininity outside the ring  just because they kick each other in the face a lot, and that got us thinking: Why?

Fighting is actually as much a female activity as a male one in pop culture today–sure, warriors were male most of the time in ancient cultures, but nowadays a movie is more likely to feature a cat fight than two dudes brawling.  Women-battling-each-other plots have abounded in your multiplex: Bride Wars, anyone?  Whereas the last dudes-fighting movie we can come up with off the top of our heads might be Fight Club, though we’re sure we’re missing some.

Women fighting each other is a cultural trope for better or worse– and MMA is part of the better.  Stand proud, ladies!

She claims to be a Yankees fan, but who knows whether she even knows baseball? What we do know is that she talked her way past security and teased the hell out of a bunch of Yankees players after Friday night’s game, wearing a bikini bottom and unbuttoned jersey and “fondling her chest,” according to ESPN.

Apparently, she’s not banned for her antics–just not allowed in after a loss.  ‘Cause clearly she’s…ahem…distracting.

Now, if she actually sleeps with a Yankees player, we’ll be sad. But for the moment, we think this is hilarious post-feminist awesomeness. What do you think?

The more we think about this, actually, the less we like it.

See, the Twin Cities have this Bike Walk Week thing, where you do less driving and more…not. And that’s fine and dandy, and we were originally excited to see an article devoted to “lady cyclists” who have their own day at the even this year.  Except then, honestly, we got kind of annoyed.  Why do the chicks on bikes need their own day? Why is their participation worthy of note?

We get that everyone’s trying to be all inclusive, but some things don’t need to be divided up by gender.  We’ve been very clear in past that gender in sports is important–we’re not really for total integration all the time, since that’s silly.  Men and women have different bodies that can do different things.  (i.e. childbirth.)

Encouraging women to exercise is great. But do we need a special day? To us that puts forth the idea (albeit implied) that this is the day to do this…and other days things return to the “normal” state of things.

Hmph.

Seven Green Bay Packers players were questioned as part of an investigation of the alleged sexual assault of two women, which took place early Saturday morning at a Wisconsin resort, CNN is reporting.  Six of the men have been released, and are not considered suspects, but one–also released–is still under investigation.  The men were at the resort in the aftermath of a charity golf tournament in which they participated.

ESPN isn’t reporting this, as it happens, at least not that we could find.  Why not? Now, we know sexual misconduct is icky, and sports figures are meant to be role models, and six of them have been cleared anyhow, but we still think this is news. What gives, ESPN.com?

By the way, the cleared players are Matt Flynn, Khalil Jones, Josh Sitton, Korey Hall, Brad Jones and Clay Matthews.  The player who is still a person of interest has not been named, but there is some physical evidence in the case.

Further bulletins as events warrant.

Nobody likes college baseball.

we have no idea what team this is, but DAMN

No, seriously.  Log on to ESPN.com sometime, especially from your cell phone.  There’s no dedicated page. It’s even difficult to find scores, if you’re using one of the score (ha) of iPhone apps.  It’ll update me on NASCAR, WNBA, the Olympics that are happening two years from now…and yet college baseball, even at the highest level, is somewhat off the radar.This just shouldn’t be

Here are the reasons we love college baseball….

1. Cheap: Yep.  This is #1. Call us cynical, but movie tickets now cost almost twice as much as the ticket to a college baseball game, and last only two thirds as long.  Plus, movies might be terrible, and you can’t talk during them.  College baseball is at least entertaining, and you’re allowed to speak.

2. The Hot Dogs are Better. I bet you were expecting something about love of the game, but we’ve tooted that horn enough.  Let’s go with this instead: NOM.  (No, you can’t haz cheezburger.)  But the hot dogs are just as good–and lots less cash–than at major league parks.  At some places, you can even get a beer with that.

3.The Pants. OK, this is a chick blog. We’d be remiss if we didn’t comment on baseball pants on not-yet-huge college butts.   Consider the comment  made.

OK, the real reason, though?

College baseball is a ton of fun to watch.  It’s fast, it’s played at a surprisingly high level, and it’s a great way to get in on the ground floor of the next great superstar.  All over the country this weekend, regionals are taking place that’ll eventually send some of these teams to Omaha for the College World Series.  We can’t make it to Omaha this year, but we’ll be taking in the Austin regional for starters.

So get out to your local park and see what there is to see–you just might be surprised.

UPH has undergone a few changes.  (And so has The Sports Chick), but we’re back and hopefully better than ever…look for us!

The lottery isn’t exactly what we normally associate with baseball, but we sometimes forget that the lottery is actually a charitable endeavor: lots of the money goes to schools and other government services that help us all, including the less fortunate.

When you think of it that way, it actually makes some sense that the Boston Red Sox, who are especially known for their charitable endeavors, would partner with their state lottery.  The Red Sox normal charity is The Jimmy Fund, which focuses on kids with cancer, but individual players also are active in other charities.

The new Sox scratch off ticket will be an instant-win $10 ticket, and is expected to raise more than 14 million dollars for communities in the state.  Along with money, prizes will include Green Monster tickets and memorabilia.

You offer us excitement. You offer u sentertainment.  You offer us a chance to spend hours on the phone waiting for one of your reps because our call is just that important to you.  You offer us a remote with lots of buttons.

You offer usa free preview of MLB Extra Innings.

The great thing? We can watch all the baseball to follow my fantasy team.

The problem? Ditto.

I mean, we wouldn’t really want to watch the Red Sox (after last night’s Papelbon-looking-human issue, the over-under on Daniel Bard closing is something like two months.)  And we don’t want to watch local teams.  So that leaves…

everyone else.,

We’re too busy watching to blog.   Or eat. “Surely this MLB Extra Innings thingy is something we can live without,” we said to ourselves.

Lies.

We’ll be over here, watching some baseball.

Now that baseball season’s coming ’round, the brew-and-hot dog combos are on the brain. Admit it, you know you want one.   Our fave is a Shiner and a dog at an Astros game, but we’re partial to local beers. What’s yours?

See, we couldn’t even be having this conversation if it weren’t for women.  Because, as a recent article alerted us, women invented beer. According to cultural scholars, up until about 200 years ago, beer was considered a food item, and thus would have fallen under the category of woman’s work.

In fact, in Ancient Mesopotamia, only women were allowed to brew or sell beer.

So, on behalf of sports fans everywhere, thanks ladies!

96 teams seems like a lot to us. Here’s why:

1. Bracket-ow-logy:  Too many teams means that those bracket guys will NEVER shut up.  (Though maybe we should listen more…half our final four is gone!) More importantly, though, it means that casual fans will be overwhelmed by sheer numbers, and watch less.

2. Not Helping the Little Guy: Those who like the idea of switching to 96 teams say that it’ll mean more bids for traditional one-bid conferences, but we don’t buy it.  We think what’ll happen is that you’ll get twelve Big East teams in the Dance instead of five…bigger money, bigger name teams, nothing in there helps the little ones.

3. Too Many Days: This might be the biggest one: when March Madness is on a Thursday and Friday, it’s an Event.  Doctors tell you to go get a vasectomy on Wednesday so you can chill Thursday and Friday.  Guys take off work.  College kids skip class.  But if there are two weeks like that, it’s a lot harder to justify.  March Madness is like a holiday, but making it longer wouldn’t help that…it would dilute it.

4. Worse Games: It’s hard to get excited by the idea of a 9-seed versus a 24-seed game. Even if you’re team’s in it.

So, what to do?

We like the idea of adding a few more play-in games.  Perhaps every sixteen seed game should be a play-in?  That would give more teams a shot at the bigtime, add a day of solid basketball (the play-in day, where there’s now only one game), and provide exposure for lots more schools.

What do you think?