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?

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!

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.

It wasn’t her doctor who told her to sit out though–it was her coach.  She’s being benched until a doctor OKs her to play, but we’ve got to call shenanigans on that one.

First off, adults–eve nathletes–get pregnant all the time, and its their job to decide when they want to tell people and which doctors’ adice to take as to when to stop playing.  That’s a family matter, not any of the school’s business.

The other players–despite claiming to be this girl’s friends–are supporting the coach’s decision to sit her, despite the fact that nobody says she can’t play physically…they just need a doctor to tell them what’s already clear.  Basic biology says a healthy seventeen year old should be able to play such a sport at least for the first couple of months of the pregnancy.  That’s what the girl and her parents have both sai  Their suing in Federal court, claiming Title IX has been violated.

We think that’s a bit much, honestly.  Title IX is meant to provide parity for women in sports as opposed to male athletes, and as much as we’re clearly in favor of it, we also recognize that women and men’s bodies do different things.  Like, say, male pattern baldness.  And, in fact, pregnancy.  We don’t see a violation of Title IX in trying to deal with a pregnancy, at least not automatically.  Obviously, you can’t have complete parity here.  After all, men don’t get pregnant, so we can see where the rules would be hazy.

But the coach clearly doesn’t want her to play, or he’d take her parents’ word, have them all sign some lovely release forms, and bump, set, spike away.  THAT’S the real issue here.

The bottom line? Pregnant athletes are still athletes right up until they can’t or don’t want to be.  If her play is affected, the coach has every right to, like coaches everywhere, bench her.  For poor play, whatever the cause.  But her play,by all accounts including his, is not affected as yet.

Not to mention, of course, she’s good enough that she’s competing for scholarships. Not getting to play for scouts right now is damaging her higher educational opportunities.

Let Mackenzie play.  She’s going to have a tough enough row to hoe, between the publicity and–oh, right–the baby.  Let her earn her scholarship if she can, just like any other athlete.

THAT’s called parity.

Ugh, ’scuse us.  We have to go beat ourselves up a little.  But that won’t make it less true.

We’re fans of the game, and the way the game’s played, the New York Yankees were far and away the best at it this year.  They hit the best, pitched the best, gutted games out the best.

Which brings us to another point.  Bandwagon Yankee-hatred is just as bad as bandwagon fandom.  Deciding you hate a team because the people who love and know the game (whatever that game might be) is no more legitimate than jumping on the playoff train.  (Unless it’s your hometown team in a sport you don’t like…then the playoff train is fine, and we hope you’ll go to a few games next year!)

There’s only one October, and it’s finally over: in November.  On to basketball, more football, and the Winter Olympics!

And–gulp–congrats to the Bronx Bombers.

(Sorry, Sox gods. They took this one fair and square.)

The woman, Karen Cunagin Sypher, seems to have slept with Louisville coach Rick Pitino, and he now admits that they did, in fact, have consensual sex.  (She accused him of rape, but the police determined her claims had no merit.)  They did it at a restaurant in 2003 where Pitino says he was drinking.  Two weeks later, she called him, claiming to pregnant.  The married Pitino gave her $3,000 for an abortion (that must be what you pay for the deluxe package).

Six months later, Cunagin was married, saw Pitino at various events, and there was nothing weird behavior-wise between them, until she filed a criminal complaint that included a list of demands including college tuition for her children and a sum of $10 million.

Deadspin has picked up on an interesting angle: everyone’s thinking about the abortion side of this.  Pitino–this is important–is Catholic and has five children, and Sypher has four.

This isn’t one of those things that wouldn’t be a story if it hadn’t happened to an athlete, so we’ll save that rant.  But amid the sordid details is an interesting commentary on choice in America.  Pitino has said he was conflicted, telling Sypher he “didn’t know what to do” about her pregnancy.

So he let her make the choice.  Regardless of his personal feelings, he allowed her to do what she felt best.  Now, this woman may not be the best judge of such things in the world, but Pitino did a responsible–and a brave–thing by allowing her the freedom to choose.

Whether or not we personally, or you, dear reader, would get an abortion in a similar situation or in any other, the story here is the choice.  Sypher chose to have an abortion, but perhaps she also chose to keep her family and Pitino’s intact.  He gave her the option of doing something that might well have ruined his family life forever–not that this scandal might not, but we’re pretty sure a 6th half-sibling wouldn’t have gone over–and then…

he let her choose.

The strangest–and perhaps even most unfortunate–reaction we saw?  Well, one can sum it up as “poor Erin, this must mean PRO SPORTS ARE EVIL!!!“  We know we’re late to the party: Deadspin among other notable blogs have covered this article at length, but we’d like to weigh in with a women’s perspective.

Bonnie Erbe, author of the article, recieved her undergraduate degree from Barnard before going on to Georgetown Law, and has been covering politics on a national scale since 1975.  She’s a widely-syndicated columnist who hosts a long-running show on PBS.  And she’s not usually seen burning her bra–or insert other outdated feminist metaphor of your choice.

First of all, Erbe isn’t making sense.  She says she agrees with another columnist who says that whoever perpetrated the video is sick and childish…and then somehow infers that to fix this, the correct action would be to get rid of pro sports, because it’s the pro sports culture that’s led us to this unfortunate incident. Now Erbe’s correct that this is horrid for Andrews and for women, but her logic isn’t just suspect: it’s really non-existant.

But actually, we have an even more important point to make to Ms. Erbe, if we could: pro sports do a lot for a lot of women.

Leave aside athletes, for the sake of argument.  Think instead of fans like us who get so much enjoyment from the game, and who feel camraderie, not sexism or harrasment, when spending time with male sports fans of their acquantance.  Think of all the women who get the same joy screaming at the TV as their boyfriends, or the girls who go to ballgames with Dad–or Mom–every summer.

Pro sports is a huge part not just of American culture, but of women’s culture.  Whether or not women’s sports in general are mainstream as yet isn’t the issue here.  The issue is that today’s woman doesn’t need to make some pat speech about blaming a male-dominated cultural institution.  We can blame stupid, horrid, sexist and mean behavior on those–men or women, and in this case, Erbe’s a bit guilty herself–who perpetrated it.

And then we can cheer for our team.

There wouldn’t be speculation as to what her advertised GFE at $450/hr entails, from Deadspin.  Nobody would be leaving mocking comments about her (NSFW) listing on this website, which offers a discounted $300/hr rate.  (Or–has UPH got a deal for you!!–2 hours for only $500!)

There’s a downside to media saturation, and UPH is positive this is it. We even admit to being part of it.  But we’re also pretty sure that anyone who made MLB money in the last ten years or so–O’Leary’s best season was in 1997–should have enough money that this shouldn’t have happened.  Especially when he earned 16 million and is currently busy pitching a reality show.

So you’ll have to excuse us. We’re feeling a little disillusioned.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled, suitably snarky Sports Chick writing.

The people with the seats next to us showed up.

There were two of them, and they came glued to late-twenties guys in well-worn team apparel.  Teeny tiny tank tops and cutoffs were the order of the day.  These girls proudly displayed the team logo on their brand-spanking-new, baby pink hats.

“So, who are we playing again?” asked girl #1.  The game progressed,  punctuated by a ton of giggles, a squeal or two about the attractiveness of the flowing-haired center fielder, and a debate as to which guy on the field was the shortstop, anyway.  UPH began to experience a sinking feeling, but we figured it might be these girls’ first game, and we were excited for them.

Until we heard the fateful words.  “Ohmigod, I’m like, the biggest Sox fan ever!  I just love Derek Jeter!”

Now, don’t get us wrong. UPH loves sports-loving women.  There should be more of us in the world. The problem is just that anyone who cares more about the second baseman’s sex life than his slugging percentage is less than likely to be the biggest Sox fan–or any team fan–ever.

There’s a place for the Pink Hat Girls–and enough rhinestone studded logo baby tees at every sporting event to keep their closets happy–but this blog ain’t it.

This is the voice of the rest of the sports chicks: the women who proudly bleed team colors and can spit stats with the best of them.  Read. Comment. Enjoy.

Just leave your pink hat at the door.