Sidney Crosby and a few other Pittsburgh Penguins took batting practice at PNC Park yesterday. I like to think it was a try-out. Any scouts in attendance were not disappointed.

ClumberKim still thinks it’s a great day for hockey.

I have written before about conversations with my baseball-obsessed son regarding his favorite players making bad choices. In his five year old world conversations about making bad choices should involve regular vs chocolate milk or whether kicking his sister is a good idea. They should not include performance enhancing drugs or fighting.

Nyger Morgan, formerly of the Pittsburgh Pirates, is one of my son’s favorite non-Pirates. He’s had a few issues of late, culminating in a brawl he started last night. Go read what the Washington Post has to say about the incident.  I’ll wait.

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There are so many things wrong here and so many people, grown up people who should know better,  I don’t know where to begin.

• Umpires The WaPo makes no mention of the umpires issuing a warning to the pitcher or benches after Morgan was hit. Umpire teams work a whole series so they had to know the hit was retaliatory. It’s their job to keep the kids grownups playing nice, warning and ejecting as necessary. Fail.
• Managers The manager of the Nationals got himself quoted saying he was willing to order a payback hit. What??? A manager, an authority figure, is willing to order his pitcher to hit an opposing player with a ball traveling at 90 miles per hour. Has everyone forgotten Tony Conigliaro? He’s the reason batting helmets have that handy ear flap. Fail.
• Players There’s plenty of blame on both sides here. WaPo sure makes Nyjer look rosy in this piece but he still charged the mound and escalated the situation. I don’t think he forgot he wasn’t playing hockey anymore. He got clotheslined but he started the fight. As for the Marlins, if a guy steals two bases on you it probably means your fielding sucks. If it was revenge, at least it was non-violent. Get over yourselves and grow up.

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ClumberKim usually confines her ranting to her own blog.

In case you haven’t been introduced, this is Aroldis Chapman.  He took the Cincinnati Reds from scoreless after six innings, to a 6-1 win against Milwaukee last night.

He may as well have rode in on a horse and worn a cowboy hat.  He was clearly looking for a showdown and his 1-2-3 pitches in the seventh inning looked as if they were flying as fast as bullets.  Four of his eight pitches were over 100 mph.  The batters barely had time to swing.

It’s not often that we tell our daughter to “quit reading and watch TV”, but we did last night.  There was something about watching the 22 year old Chapman make his big league debut that made us take notice.  Maybe it was his 86 mph slider.

The Reds are in first place in the NL Central and they’re playing better than they have for a long time, but at this point in the season I sure like having Aroldis Chapman on the team.  Without his perfect inning last night, the Reds would have likely lost and I have seen them make that downhill slide one too many times.

One loss leads to another, and come mid-September, the fans have to start looking to next year.  Not this time.  Now we have hope.  Now we have Aroldis.

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My 5.5-month old son is helping me write this. His favorite sport is the 8-finger keyboard mash, particularly when it results in an alert beep from the PC speaker. I have to watch him though because he’s all over the control and alt keys and frequently brings up previously unknown keyboard shortcut dialogs. “Are you sure you would like to self-destruct your computer?” He and clippy would have been the best of friends.

Hockey is a couple of months away, both NHL and rec style. I have a good feeling I’m going pro this year though!  Keep your fingers crossed.  I have it on good authority that the pros are looking for a lot of 34-year-old rookies.  They just watched and were inspired by that Dennis Quaid movie.

And everything else is kind of blah.  Things are so slow that the Bengals have gone the whole day without an arrest (last check 2 p.m.)!  Talk about a dull sports day!

Oh well, I guess I’ll go back to killing my lawn.  aj[[[ pofeisu 98gea – Oh, and Lincoln says goodbye.

The Washington Nationals are so screwed. Young pitching phenom, Stephen Strasburg is out for the year.

At least.

The Nationals announced today that Strasburg “has a significant tear in his ulnar collateral ligament and will likely require Tommy John surgery“.

As a local all I can say is fuckity, fuck, fuck, fuck.

Redskins? I’m not holding my breath.

Wizards? lol

Come on hockey season! Let’s Go Caps!

I’ve got Fantasy Baseball Fatigue, and the prognosis is not good.

It started with the World Cup. I was too obsessed with the multiple heart-stopping games and that German booger-eating coach to spend any time following MLB. Then came the All-Star break. I got out of the habit of checking my three teams daily while no one was playing. Then I went out of town a few times, we got a puppy, blah, blah, blah. Excuses are like assholes. For the record, the same thing happened with my garden. The weeds continue to be out of control. But that’s for another blog.

I can see why people eschew fantasy baseball in favor of fantasy football. It’s so. Much. More. Time. Not only do you have daily lineups to set in fantasy baseball, but even if you set them ahead of time, other than starting pitchers, you never know who might play on a given day. You have to watch who goes on the disabled list. You have to watch who’s starting and who’s not. You have to gauge slumps and decide if and when to bench or trade players who aren’t performing. You have to follow which pitchers settle into closer roles on successful teams. It’s a lot of interwebs clicking. Unlike last season, I’m not working at a job where I actively seek out opportunities for time theft and had ample opportunities daily to sift through pages of statistics, reports, and lineups. Fantasy football, on the other hand, is Showtime Rotisserie of fantasy sports: you just set it and forget it.

I’m almost scared to log into Yahoo! Sports. I’ve become the girl who can’t hang with the boys. The question remains: do I attempt to salvage this season and make a last-ditch attempt at a playoffs run, or just scrap my dreams of virtual baseball trophies and start prepping for football season?

Maybe if I get some meds, I can do both.

Well, well, well, it seems that the  Major League Baseball association is trying to clean up it’s act. Or at least trying to prevent more embarrassing messes in the future.

How? No, they aren’t going to be breaking out the cleanser, though it would probably need a little lye to really clean those hard to reach spots. Instead commissioner Bud Selig just announced the MLB is going to start testing minor league players for human growth hormones.

“The implementation of blood testing in the Minor Leagues represents a significant step in the detection of the illegal use of human growth hormone. The Minor League Program employs state of the art testing procedures and the addition of HGH testing provides an example for all of our drug policies in the future.”

This isn’t your average pee test. The players will be submitted to random blood testing that will take place after games and the blood will be taken from the players non-dominant arms.

This makes me sad.

Why the heck do these athletes think they need to juice up? I hate it!

My dad was a baseball player all his life and could have gone pro, but my mom got knocked up in high school, so my dad married her and had to get a job to provide for his new family. He never would have used steroids, if just out of principle.

The fact that these guys think they have to use something to amp up their game is so disappointing.

Hopefully this type of testing will weed out the idiots and we’ll be able to get back to watching a game in which every player gives his all to the team. You know, they would actually use skill and finesse, play a little small ball and not just use power to hit the ball out of the park every at bat.

I hope this works, if only for the sake of our national pastime. It’s so sullied these days that it’s not the sport that parents want their kids to play anymore. That’s just sad.

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Photo Source- Patricia Honea

True to Denver’s nickname, a portion of the stadium is at a mile above sea level. You have to hike a little, (the 20th row of the upper deck) but the views are spectacular. And yes I mean the views of the field and the mountains.

Like most stadiums these days, the food and drink choices are seemingly endless, as long as your wallet is. All kinds of beers, (not just Coors products,) cocktails, margaritas, xtreme dogs, tornadough, pizza, and grilled foods are available, and that’s just on the upper deck.

Tip: The kind people at Coors field allow you to bring in your own water bottles and snacks so if you’re on a budget, take advantage. We didn’t and ended up spending a small fortune on water. (What college tuition? Sorry Headless Girl; we were thirsty.) Some of the folks around us brought everything from sandwiches, to nuts, to fruit and didn’t spend a penny inside the park. Forgot to bring your water? That’s ok, independent vendors walking outside the stadium will sell you a bottle for a dollar. That’s less than a third of what you’ll pay inside the park, and well worth it in Denver, where the humidity levels are usually extremely low.

One of the coolest things about Coors Field is the close access to the players and the field. Before many of the games they schedule players (usually four) to sign autographs for fans. We spent time in the gift shop and I was worried that we wouldn’t get down to get one, but I shouldn’t have worried. The aisles are wide and the staff are well-trained to move people through the line efficiently.

Tip: Go early if you want all four players’ autographs. Game time was at 1:10 on this day, and we got in line at about 11:45. They cut the line off right after we got our autographs, around 12:00. (Rogers actually got in the game the day we were there, which was super cool for my boys.)

A Note About the Weather: The weather in Denver can be unpredictable. (Understatement. Really.) We left for the stadium in freezing cold conditions, for July anyway, and by the time we got to the stadium it was blazing hot. (Relatively, anyway, for what we were wearing.) Later, as you can see, the weather turned a little dicey. Tornado watch, lightning, rain.

Tip: Be sure to wear/carry layers for the quickly changing weather conditions.

Don’t forget to watch for these great architectural details, too:

And if you’re lucky, you’ll get to see this at the end of your visit to Coors Field:

Kendra would like to attend more sports events in Denver. Problem is, she lives in LA.

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All pictures are courtesy of The Adventures of the Headless Family.

• Pittsburgh closer Octavio Dotel has 19 saves on the season, and could possibly head to either Colorado or the Mets. If he goes, look to pick up Evan Meek, who, while still relatively inexperienced, is a damn good reliever and has a low ERA (1.05). Meek was the only Pirate named to the All-Star team, although he didn’t see action.
• The Nationals don’t want to get rid of Matt Capps, but they might have to use him after he picked up a win at the All-Star game as he is garnering serious interest. Risk-taking fantasy managers could pick up his replacement in (more likely) Drew Storen (2-1, 2.21 ERA) or (less likely) Tyler Clippard (8-6, 59 Ks) and see a big payoff if they go on to pick up several saves.
• Despite sending him to the DL with a finger blister, Cleveland is trying to make Kerry Wood (1-4,  8 saves) look attractive to clubs since he is slated to return to the active roster before the trade deadline. Wood may not be throwing like he used to, but he’s still got a wealth of experience and talent to offer a club given the right opportunity. In Wood’s current absence, Chris Perez has stepped into the closer role and is totally worth picking up if he’s available in your league.
• Toronto’s Kevin Gregg (39 K’s, 21 saves) has garnered interest from the Dodgers, and the Rockies, and the Blue Jays have made him available. However, LHP Scott Downs has drawn trade interest of his own, but could step in as the closer if Gregg is the one traded. Jason Frasor or Shawn Camp both have an outside chance of getting the closer nod.

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Steinbrenner is well known for being the temperamental owner of the New York Yankees. He is also famous for making the Yankees one of the most lucrative and successful teams of the last 40 years.

Steinbrenner used free agency to make the Yankees a dynasty. George Steinbrenner showed major league baseball you get what you pay for by awarding huge salaries to great players. This formula had massive success. “The Boss” led The New York Yankees to 11 pennants and helped them win seven World’s Series. That is a lot of World Series wins. They are few other sports franchise owners that are so well known to the general public. “Steinbrenner” was even a recurring character on “Seinfeld”.

He will be missed and mourned by millions of New York Yankee fans and friends all over the globe. I think even Yankee haters will be saddened by the death of a MLB icon.

Our thoughts are with the Steinbrenners today.

Cross-posted on BlogHer.com