two dolla

my first trip to target field!

I’m way behind on cleaning off memory cards and therefore, am just now uploading the pictures from my first trip to Target Field last month. My work has a suite there, which we’re using to entertain clients, and I got my first run at it a couple of weeks ago. It was fantastic. The Twins ended up winning in extra innings, which was all well and good, but I couldn’t stop talking about awesome the stadium is.

I come from a place (Missouri) where all we know is outdoors baseball. And while I loved always knowing that I didn’t have to take a coat to a game at the Metrodome and I knew a game would never be canceled or postponed, there was just something missing when I’d go see a baseball game and have a giant white roof over my head.

I’m supposed to go to another game this week for work, but there’s a chance of rain on Thursday, which may throw off our plans a bit. The General and I have tickets again either later this month or next month with Desi and Becky, where we’ll be sitting in the general seats as opposed to our posh suite, but I can’t really wait to try that out either!

I was wearing my big girl PR shoes, so I didn’t get a chance to take as many pictures as I would have liked, but here are my favorites and the rest are here.

diana taurasi, shut your mouth.

If Diana Taurasi’s Facebook fanpage had a dislike button, I would totally click on it. That’s how much I don’t like her. That’s pretty serious, right?

We went to the Lynx/Mercury game tonight. I wanted to see Taurasi play… even though I can’t stand her. She’s the whiniest player in the WNBA. I’ve never seen her play a game where she hasn’t thrown herself onto the floor in some fashion to try to get the foul call or throw her hands up in disgust when she misses a shot and wants to blame someone else for it.

Last year, when the Phoenix Mercury were in town, I wound up with tickets from work, where I was supposed to be schmoozing a client. As luck would have it, she was a fan of the WNBA (if you know what I mean), so we spent the time heckling Taurasi from five rows from the court.

I don’t know if her ponytail is too tight or her socks pulled up to her knees might somehow be cutting off circulation to the rest of her body, but holy cow, is she cranky! The thing that frustrates me most? She’s SO. DAMN. GOOD. And yet all of her belly-achin’, tantrum-throwin’, stomping around because she’s pissed off at the world tends to distract from that. If a team can manage to make her mad enough to take her out of her zone, they’ll win. And that’s how the sorry team that the Lynx have right now was able to pull out a victory tonight.

I’d like to propose a little plan to keep this crybaby in check. It’s pretty simple. It’s called time out. She’s 27, so according to SuperNanny, she should get a 27 minute timeout. When she’s all said and done, she’s supposed to say she’s sorry for what she’s done. And then gets hugs and kisses, but ain’t nobody in the league dumb enough to do that to this crazybox.

So until I become commissioner of the WNBA or at least head coach of the Phoenix Mercury (I don’t even know who you are, Corey Gaines!), I’ll just continue to do my part in helping Diana reign in her sudden outbursts if jackass behavior. And I’ll do that by yelling her name repeatedly throughout the entire game anytime she’s close enough to hear me.

And I’ll call her a crybaby and laugh really hard when the folks at the Target Center play “Big Girls Don’t Cry” just after she gets called for a technical foul.

where i tell espn to suck it #2

Guys, remember back in February, where I got really pissed off at ESPN for sending me an email telling me that ALL GUYS ? THE MAG? They just done did it again.

Guess what, ESPN? I’m not a dad and I’m not a grad, but I LIKE SPORTS. And, c’mon, Joe Mauer is on the front.  This is your opportunity to cater to the ladies that might be thinking about subscribing to your dumb ol’ magazine.

NEWS FLASH: YOU DON’T HAVE TO HAVE A PENIS TO LIKE THE SPORTS GAMES.

just shy of 18 years ago

Know how there are just certain days that really stick out in your head for one reason or the other?

March 28, 1992

I was fresh from turning 14 years old and was babysitting for a lawyer. The kids were sleeping, I’d already gone through the dad’s Playboy collection (hidden in the kids’ toy room, mind you…), and had no idea when to expect the parents home. It was typical to never know when they’d be home, but I was 14 and liked getting paid three bucks an hour, so I didn’t really care.

I was sitting in their kitchen, watching the 13-inch TV on the counter. It was the only TV I could get to work, aside from the one in their bedroom, but the idea of lounging in the bed just seemed kind of weird. The cable was spotty at best on the TV, but I stumbled across a basketball game.

This basketball game:

That’s when I really, really fell in love with basketball.

And that’s also when I fell in love with Duke and Christian Laettner and Bobby Hurley, but that’s another story.

way to shake it up, wnba

Marion Jones is 34 years old, spent time in prison, used performance-enhancing drugs, had five gold medals stripped from her and had three kids. She was just signed to a one-year contract by the newly-relocated-from-Detroit Tulsa Shock to play basketball this year.

Her bid for a new career comes a decade after she starred at the Sydney Olympics, winning gold in the 100 meters, 200 meters and 1,600-meter relay, and bronze in the long jump and 400-meter relay. She was stripped of all five medals after admitting in 2007 that she was using performance-enhancing drugs — a designer steroid called the “clear” — at the time of the games. (via ESPN)

The Shock’s coach is Nolan Richardson, who previously coached the Arkansas Razorbacks to an NCAA title several years ago, so if anyone can reign her, it’s probably going to be him.

It’s a pretty smart business decision for the WNBA, if you think about it. The Shock just moved from Detroit and Oklahoma isn’t really what I’d call a prime location for WNBA fans, so they’re going to need some kind of a draw. Someone like Marion Jones could definitely do that.

If she ends up making the team and lasting through training camp, the Minnesota Lynx will be opening up the season in Tulsa on May 15th. Jones is 5’10, so she’s going to have to run the point and, holy balls, she’s going to be one hell of a person to catch on a fast break.

My boss mentioned this earlier today and I’d forgotten that I wanted to write about it. I didn’t read about it first on ESPN or see it on the news somewhere. I found out about this new acquisition via the few WNBA players that I follow on Twitter. And they’re excited about it, which makes me excited about it, too!

my only olympic post

The only time I’ve chanted USA! USA! USA! in the last couple of weeks was the other night at the bar when Jenni (USA) was arm wrestling Jumi (CAN). And that was only because I’d had a couple of drinks and well take any chance I can get to yell loudly in a bar. Other than that, my sense for USA pride in the Olympics isn’t really what it used to be.

I don’t know what it is either. Maybe it’s all the doping and anti-doping accusations and rules that have come out in sports as a whole over the past few years. Maybe it’s because I have no idea how the rules in curling play out. Maybe it’s because if I have to hear or read about one more person’s snide commentary on Johnny Weir’s costume choices, I might throwdown. Maybe it’s because the two-man American bobsled team wears unitards that show off the fine details on their man parts. Or maybe it’s because I had no idea there was a sport involving cross country skiing with a gun on your back and stopping periodically to shoot grapefruit size targets. Why don’t those women have boobs, by the way?

So, anyway, while I can really appreciate all those die hard Olympic fans, I’m using your Twitters and your Facebook entries and your blog posts to fill me in on all the highlights.

where i tell espn to suck it

the list could go on forever

Let me tell you a few things that make me uncomfortable to watch.

1. Someone throwing up.

2. Someone making a complete ass of themselves on TV.

3. Dogs humping inanimate objects (or anything for that matter).

4. Digger Phelps (Clemson’s Men’s basketball coach) dancing to a Kelly Clarkson song:

my mind just exploded

Why didn’t someone tell me Brett Favre was just a certifiably inside spaz?

Dude watches American Idol and sings about it after he wins a very important playoff game. I love him a lot. Even if he is 40 years old and blah blah blah.

(via Mashable)

reggie miller: the homewrecker with saucer ears

Between freelancing and reading random articles on Wiki-wiki-wiki-pedia (I say it like that, too), I tend to learn a lot of random crapola that eventually has me following link after link to some random site about something I’ve never even heard about. And this is where I learned about quite possibly one of the funniest things of all time involving Reggie Miller.

Alex Von Furstenberg has this fiancé, right? Somehow Furstenburg finds out that his fiance has sent seXXXXXy (I just like to type it that way) pictures of herself to Reggie Miller. The fiance claims it was to get an athlete’s opinion (right.) on her body. Frustenburg calls BS on this one and rents a plane to fly over Malibu and various other southern California beaches carrying a banner that reads “Reggie Miller stop pursuing married women”. I personally am a big fan of the humiliation attempt here, but if those giant ears of Reggie Miller’s aren’t going to slow him down from hitting on the already committed ladies, I don’t think a little overhead flyby is going to do much either.

There was some good ol’ fashioned text messaging harassment and a restraining order thrown in for good measure, but once an airplane gets involved, I’m pretty sure all that’s null and void.

I’m considering doing the same, except maybe having it say “Reggie Miller: Your sister is better than you.” and seeing how he likes that one.