So it’s no surprise that the Tennessee Lady Vols basketball coach is as determined and forthright off the court, announcing her diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease at the start of the new school year — and only telling her players as soon as she knew the remaining two were off the court in China and back in Knoxville.

Summitt, 59, learned that she had Alzheimer’s disease after many tests at the Mayo Clinic in May. She said that troubling issues with her memory last season that caused her to lose her confidence and concerned her enough that she wouldn’t meet with players individually, motivated her to seek answers. The tests that can clinically diagnose Alzheimer’s disease and its related dementia indicated that Summitt had the “mild, early-onset” variety of the disease.

Denial ruled the summer, Summitt said, but as it wore on, she realized that she needed to talk to her players and her Tennessee administration. More importantly for her, she says that she came to a certain kind of terms with her condition that allowed her to move forward with her life.

The upshot out of Tennessee this week: Summitt will continue to work. She will remain at the helm of the Lady Vols, with the tactical and personal support of a team of assistants who have been at her side for decades. She will remain the coach of the University of Tennessee Lady Vols basketball team, and she will take care of herself as best as she can.

Summitt’s close friend Sally Jenkins wrote a lovely, understated, and quietly sad piece about her in the Washington Post, that left me thinking that as much as I don’t think I’d have the strength to write such a story about my best friend, at the same time I’d like to be the only one to do it, and I can only hope I’d find the strength and the grace at the appointed time. Jenkins said that talking about the situation had been a good, if painful thing, for everyone involved:

Over the last few days, with the clarity of her diagnosis and decision to go public, Summitt has recovered her confidence. More often than not, it is she who comforts others, as usual. Her staff have grief-stretched looks around their eyes, and seem quietly destroyed under their skins. Every so often you find one of them has ducked into her laundry room to weep. It’s Summitt who puts her arms around them and talks quietly into their ear. “I don’t want you worrying about me,” she says. Strong has always been her natural, preferred state.

Alzheimer’s disease is a demon. It’s a brain plaque from hell that erodes valleys in the cerebral cortex, kills neurons, disrupts synapses, and therefore robs individuals of their intellectual capacity. It steals likewise from families and friends, causing the person they love to change before their eyes (sometimes slowly, sometimes not.) I worked with people with dementia and their families for six years, when I was a very young, very green counselor, right out of graduate school. I went into their homes, heard their stories, absorbed their fears and profound need for answers, and in return I gave them the best advice I had about how to navigate this often-terrifying period in their lives. I immersed myself in Alzheimer’s, learned all that I could, knowing even then that I’d never have enough information, no matter how many research studies I memorized (and I memorized a lot.)

I also spent countless hours with people with Alzheimer’s, of all stages.They told me their fears, they told me I was full of shit and that it was really 1946, so shut the hell up. They revolted against the artificial schedule of long-term care, and wondered after their (sometimes dead) parents, siblings, and much-younger spouses. During this time I worked with a relative handful of early-onset patients, as obscure as Summitt as prominent, and their spouses, kids, and even sometimes parents. They were the roughest cases. These were people usually in the prime of their lives, ready to transition to golden years after decades of working and raising families, when their brains revolted and got them lost coming home from work or unable to complete a crossword puzzle. One of my clients was an elementary school teacher who, like Summitt, did brain puzzles and complicated step aerobic routines during the day while her husband was at work, to work her brain and try to stave off the deterioration the doctors said was imminent.

I told her she was working too hard. I told her that it wasn’t her fault, not any of this, and she did it anyway. She was a brilliant badass, and I always, inappropriately, unprofessionally, wanted to hold her in my arms. I can say the same about Pat Summitt.

What I’m taking away from this more than a decade after my own experience, and knowing what I know about the continuing stigma against Alzheimer’s, the fear and confusion that it causes, is Pat Summitt’s utter courage in speaking this aloud, not just with her loved ones or with her employers, but in the public sphere. She, quite frankly, could have worked a deal. Early stage Alzheimer’s (as best as it can be understood in terms of timeframe) can last for years — frequently not as long in early-onset, where it has seemed in my very limited experience to take hold and move more quicky, but still, years. She could have shown up courtside for at least another season and not disclosed this very personal information. She chose to be open, to approach this differently. And this sports writer thinks that’s pretty cool.

The Lady Vols don’t open until November 1. I’m marking it on my calendar now. Best of luck for a great year, Coach Summitt.

An article published in The Journal of the American College of Sports Medicine earlier this month shows research that seems to support the theory that athletes excel not only at sports, but at every day tasks. We all know that athletes are more likely to be in excellent physical shape than someone like me. Sure, I exercise and occasionally play a game of softball or basketball, but I am a writer. I spend most of my time sitting in front of my computer. While I expect a soccer player to be able to run faster than me or to have more physical endurance, I like to think that I am mentally agile.

Perhaps I am just special (again, I find myself in need of the sarcasm font) but researchers at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have proven that the athletes made quicker decisions than the non-athletes in a study that tested how quickly and safely students could cross a trafficked road.

From Gretchen Reynolds in the New York Times:

The student athletes completed more successful crossings than the nonathletes, by a significant margin, a result that might be expected of those in peak physical condition. But what was surprising — and thought-provoking — was that their success was not a result of their being quicker or more athletic. They walked no faster than the other students. They didn’t dash or weave gracefully between cars. What they did do was glance along the street a few more times than the nonathletes, each time gathering slightly more data and processing it more speedily and accurately than the other students.

“They didn’t move faster,” said Art Kramer, the director of the Beckman Institute and a leader in the study of exercise and cognition, who oversaw the research. “But it looks like they thought faster.”

That is fascinating.

I am a musician. I’ve seen tons of studies that show music is good for the mind. We know music is math based and kids who can read music tend to do better in school. The stereotypical child who takes orchestra in school usually gets pretty good grades. (Yes, I realize that the parent that encourages their child to play the a stringed instrument is also likely to be concerned with academics, but let’s just roll with the stereotype for now.) But we rarely think of the jock — the wrestler, the basketball star, or a football player — as being a straight A student, or even all that bright in the first place. I am not saying that the perception is fair; I am talking about societal archetypes — think The Breakfast Club.

Sure, we all know the wide receiver who was valedictorian, or the girl on the soccer team who got a full academic scholarship to an Ivy League school, but it isn’t necessarily the first thing you think of when you think of an athlete.

But maybe it should be. You’ve heard of “the zone,” right?

Sports emphasize the importance of mental conditioning for athletes in order to yield success on and off the field.

When an athlete is “in the zone,” the synchronization of mind and body allows the individual to excel beyond mental and physical challenges; the results of the revelatory study performed at the Beckman Institute show exciting new evidence that skills conditioned by athletes may impact their mental dexterity and the way they think entirely.

- Jessica Rutledge, The Informer

Sports offer physical and mental conditioning. This might just be what is giving our athletes the edge on processing information. It seems to hold true for both individual and team sports.

It is fascinating research and it makes me very happy that I signed my kids up for t-ball. Now I just have to up my own game. Mind, body and spirit right? Well that and I don’t want my kids thinking faster than me. That is how a person ends up buying a pony.

Originally written for and posted on BlogHer.com

[photo: Adensw]

When I clicked the link to the article in the New York Times and the title of the article was “Should You Watch Football?” I thought: Is this a trick question?

Should I watch football? Does that question mean to point out that shouldn’t I be doing laundry or writing that article that is due next week? Shouldn’t I be out building habitats for humanity? Yeah, probably, but that isn’t what Michael Sokolove was asking.

Sokolove is asking if we are irresponsible for supporting a sport that is so violent.

Let me back up for a second. This is kind of weird, but I am going to quote myself. This was from a post I wrote a week and a half ago when the NFL announced it was changing some of its rules.

After the brutality of week 5 – James Harrison knocked out two Browns, Dunta Robinson lead with his head and knocked himself out and he took DeSean Jackson out with him, and Brian Meriweather knocked the crap out of Todd Heap – the NFL decided that this cannot go on. It is too dangerous.

The word on the street (and by “the street” I mean ESPN) is that tomorrow the NFL will announce that effective immediately, even first-time offenders face suspension for “devastating hits” and “head shots,” or so says Ray Anderson, the league’s executive vice president of football operations.

That week was bad. Beside the incidents I mentioned above, a college football player was paralyzed form the neck down when he was making a tackle. Nobody wants that, and the NFL is making huge strides to make the game safer.

Football is a dangerous game. There is no avoiding that fact. Knocking people down is part of every single play. Critics think that people should just stop playing football – that it is too dangerous. Concussions can cause brain damage, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, and depression. Spinal injuries can cause paralysis. These same critics are opposed to boxing.

I understand that. I guess. The thing is, football and boxing are voluntary. Nobody has to play football. Every man in the NFL knows the risks.

The critics don’t like it at all. But what about the fans?

Momma Rollett has this all worked out:

There seem to be three basic positions on the issue:

1. Those who feel that the violence IS the game, and that any attempt to make the game safer (or “wussify” it, as some would have it) changes its basic character in an unacceptable manner;

2. Those that don’t want to see the game toned down, but don’t like to see head hits; and

3. Those who think that avoiding head injuries is more important than preserving the “historical character” of the game.

I think I fall somewhere between 2 and 3. I want people to be safe, but part of the reason I like football so much is the physicality of it. It taps into something primal in me.

I’ve been watching football for a long time, and I think the NFL is doing an admirable job trying to keep their players as safe as possible. Almost every season there are new rules implemented that are intended to protect the athletes. I applaud the new guidelines.

Should we stop watching football because it is too violent? Not if we are going to keep watching Oliver Stone films and the 5:00 news.

Do you think Brett got laid that night? I mean, do you think he was just so in love (with the girl he never talked to) that he was just pining over Sterger, and rather than call the list of girls in every town who are willing to blow Brett Favre, he hung out in his hotel room, stroking his manhood, thinking about Jenn? Well, he probably did that, too.

Sterger is contemplating whether or not to talk to the NFL.  Phil Reese, her manager, has said she is “seriously considering it.”  Whatever. I really don’t care.

Sure, sexual harassment and the such, which is bad and I’m not discounting it, but GIVE ME A BREAK, NFL. Women in the NFL are used like Hooters waitresses.  I have no facts to back this statement up, but how many less-than-hot ‘hostesses’ are there? Cheerleaders? The girls who launch t-shirts out of cannons?

Women in male sports are used as eye candy and many of the women who gravitate around it are interested in dating athletes. Wow. Crazy, right?  In fact, think about all the movies where the head cheerleader and the qb were practically married. When basketball players were lured  into a pool by the cheerleaders with the promise of a Roman-style orgy, then those evil, evil women stole their bathing suits (Porky’s…1? 2? They were both wonderful).  It’s just how it works in our fucked up heads. Or is it just in our heads?

The NFL is an elite club where they play hard and they play even harder. Not one man who lives it doesn’t understand its underbelly which, from time to time, exposes itself to us all.  Something that even we like to pretend doesn’t exist, but is well-known to us all. All I can say is, “whatever”.

The NFL and male sports have a long way to go. From cheerleaders to ring girls, they’re pretty unnecessary. No one goes to a football game to watch cheerleaders, and the ones who do scare the living hell out of me and should be on a list.

Brett Favre has denied nothing (and there are other claims by other women of similar behavior, duh), so if we assume this is true, there are a couple of things that need to happen.

1. The woman should be compensated. When a powerful man focuses his creepy attention on you, and it clearly makes you uncomfortable, and you do your best to ignore him (because that’s pretty much what you need to do to keep your job, in your mind), then you deserve some sort of compensation. It’s the very definition of “sexual harassment”. Not that Brett could hire or fire, but the power he wields within any organization is, well, duh.  For months, entire teams have waited on Brett to decide what he wants, from the owner to the waterboy.

2. Brett Favre (and those like him) needs to learn when a woman says “no”, she fucking means it and it doesn’t mean, “I need more convincing. How about a picture of your cock?”  Fortunately, I think he’s getting the hint.

Funny thing, guys. Women aren’t nearly as interested in pictures of your penis as you are in pictures of their vaginas.  Now, some girls might be enticed by, you know, the kind of johnson we wish we all had, but that’s not Brett’s.

The writers here recently had a discussion about this, and this is where I learned most women are only interested in what your junk is doing for them at the time and if you send a picture of yours, you might as well be texting them a picture of a ’97 Ford Taurus.  The reaction will be exactly the same.

Brett Favre should be punished, because there is a victim here. More than one, actually. But the league has a much larger problem to address, and that’s the NFL (and professional sports, in general) being a breeding ground that cultivates and literally nurtures this behavior.

However, after 3 interceptions in a gut-wrenching loss to Green Bay at Lambeau on Sunday night, you get the feeling this is the end. Bad ankle, bad tendinitis, league hot on his trail, 2-4 with the Patriots on deck… and the argument can now easily be made that he is the problem. So, does a man who has already proven he can’t walk away, walk away? Or does the coach have to make him? If I had to take a wild stab at what Childress was thinking about last night when he rested his head on his pillow, I’d say he was counting Bret Favre interceptions with dances of sugar-plum Tavaris Jacksons in his head, knowing he has to have a serious and hard talk with someone about his very immediate future. I’m also guessing the last conversation Childress wants to have is where he forces Brett to end his streak, his career.

Walk away, Brett. Just walk away. Do your coach a favor.

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ESPN has announced plans to launch a new brand aimed at a female demographic — epsnW.

Before you get too excited, it looks like it is just going to be a website and a Facebook page. In fact, as far as I can tell so far, it is just a Facebook page, a twitter account and a splash page. It seems as if there is a possibility of it becoming a television network in the future, but it is not currently in the works.

Well, huh.

From what I’ve been seeing around the Internet, there are basically three schools of thought:

1. Hooray! ESPN finally noticed that women care about sports. Did this happen when the study was done revealing that 44% of football fans and 45% of baseball fans are women? It is about time we had our own network! Megan from Women Talk Sports has a great post about the upside of a women’s brand of ESPN and there is a really interesting discussion in the comments over there.

2. Pandering — girls like pink and flowers and figure skating. Let’s give them their forum so we can run more pictures of Danica Patrick in a bikini on the main website. You ladies look over there. Awww, women’s basketball, isn’t that precious? This is how Cubbiejulie sees it.

Women already HAVE an ESPN. It’s called ESPN. The idea that women need a “girlier” version of sports programming insulting. This is the same idea that has caused sports marketing geniuses to try to sell baseball to women, who already comprise more than 40% of the fan base, by creating sparkly pink hats and bedazzled t-shirts. The idea that sports need to somehow be feminized to attract women is completely off-base. Like the Jennie Finches, Julie Foudys, and Lindsay Vonns of the world, women today are the daughters of Title IX. We grew up playing sports, just like the guys, and we still love sports, just like the guys. We don’t need pink jerseys to buy sports merchandise and we don’t need espnW to cajole us into watching sports programming.

3. Why do we need our own network? If they just showed women’s sporting events on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN360, EPSNU, ESPNews, and ESPN Classic or ran features on women’s sports there we wouldn’t need this. Are you telling us that we are separate but equal? That doesn’t really fly here. Dana Wagner at the Edge of Brooklyn‘s thoughtful post details why women should be included — as spenders of 80 perecnt of all sports apparel dollars AND 34 percent of ESPN’s adult viewing audience, per SheConomy. We don’t need to be separated in espnW-land. We need to be included, and equal, in the ESPN that already exists.

Me? I don’t know where I stand. Should I be excited? Should I be outraged? Should I apply for a job? I don’t know.

EspnW Vice President Laura Gentile has been quoted as saying that “storytelling is important to women.” While I think that is true, I don’t think it is especially fair to men. I’ve read some pretty good books by them too.

Still, I think I am willing to give espnW a fair chance. Let’s see what they do with it.

Michael Vick is unquestionably one of the most talented quarterbacks in the National Football League.  He might be the best. I’m bad at gauging that kind of thing.

Anyway.

Michael Vick also, unfortunately, arranged, condoned and participated in not only the forced violent fighting of pit bulls that often led to the death of these animals, but he also signed off on the nauseating strangling and electrocution of others who maybe didn’t make the cut or got too messed up in fights to go on.

The disgusting fruits of Michael Vick’s labors haunt me worse than eleventy billion Sarah McLachlan pet rescue videos, y’all, and I can’t even watch those all the way through. I don’t give a damn about Michael Vick’s incarceration, redemption, team spirit, contribution to the National Football League or prowess as a quarterback.

I.

Don’t.

Care.

Michael Vick got caught carrying on with some outrageous behavior that caused the suffering and death of living beings, dogs who get a bad rap in large part due to jerks like him and his friends. He was convicted of this disgusting dog ring nonsense. He served some time in prison. He got out, and super shortly thereafter got snapped up by a team who was willing to deal with his baggage.

So, he gets out of prison. He gets to make more than a million dollars. He gets to do what he loves. He gets the adulation of a city that wants a Super Bowl more than it cares or stops to analyze the reason why the potential catalyst is there. He even gets awards for teamwork, first year out.

Oh, and he will tell you time and time again how much he’s suffered, yes he will:

I’ve overcome a lot, more than probably one single individual can handle or bear. You ask certain people to walk through my shoes, they probably couldn’t do. Probably 95 percent of the people in this world because nobody had to endure what I’ve been through, situations I’ve been put in, situations I put myself in and decisions I have made, whether they have been good or bad.

Last Sunday, after the Eagles’ stupid ass loss to the Washington Redskins, a Facebook friend went off about how people should LEAVE Mike Vick alone, and he’d DONE his time, and BLAH and BLAH and BLAH and everyone shut up.

It irritated me, and the only thing I’d said was a random comment on my cousin’s Facebook — in response to something she said — about how what I heard when he got hurt was the sound of a hundred pit bulls lauging their asses off.

Yes, I knew he got injured in the game against the home team around here. No, I wasn’t especially sad that he was hurt. But that was that. I didn’t take to my Facebook or Twitter account to tell anyone else how to feel or what to say about Michael Vick. Because guess why?

I feel how I feel about him, and I move on. I don’t care how you feel about Michael Vick, or you or you or you. I’m neither going to “leave him alone” nor boycott the Eagles because they hired him. I listen to my co-worker talk about the Eagles and I don’t roll my eyes at him or ask him how he can bear to still support his lifelong home team.

Because it’s none of my business. And I don’t want him spouting anything off at me about how I need to let my feelings about this guy go, because how I feel about him is none of his business either.

I fail to see what kind of problems face Michael Vick. Sure, he went to jail. I’m sure that was upsetting. A lot of athletes go to jail for various infractions large and small. But my feelings lie with my belief that not only did he do what he did, since he got out he has been more or less an apologist for animal abuse. The way people talk and write about it, it’s just something you have to go to jail for awhile for doing, and sure, your operation is shut down and that’s awesome for the dogs who won’t be strangled and electrocuted on your watch. But people who condemned him, who dare to say anything negative or dare whisper “think of the PUPPIES” are painted as  unforgiving PETA-freaks who don’t understand that he has done his time.

His time that he earned.

He came out of jail to the tune of millions of dollars, back to a job and a public that, by and large, will not see him as a convict first.

So I think he’s going to be fine whether I root for him or not. And yes, I’ll cop to some minor satisfaction during reports today of how he wouldn’t be playing this week and probably next although he desperately wants to go back to Atlanta and face his former team. It’s just that I’m saving my cheers for people who to my knowledge would never have been capable of doing the stuff he did in the first place. I believe in redemption to a point, but not just because someone tells me that jail and a spanking new seven- figure salary helped a quarterback to heal himself. How anyone else feels about it is her business.

FOOTBALL! PRESEASON FOOTBALL!

I buy beer. I make chicken wings. (Fine. I ask Gabe to make wings for me.)

This year I made both children wear Bucs jerseys.

We all sat at the living room table to watch FOOTBALL. It was so exciting.

Ten minutes later we were all bored out of our minds. Preseason football is boring. I don’t know these players. The commentators suck. There are always problems with the satellite feeds.

I know this. My husband tells me this before we watch the game. It is true every single year. Every year, every week of preseason it is the same. The games are torture. There are thousands of yards of penalties. The commercials are all for used car dealerships or local bars – not local bars here, but local bars in Kansas City or Jacksonville.

I think – this year I am going to watch all of the preseason games and I will kick ass at fantasy football!

But I can’t. I couldn’t even sit through the first half of the Bucs/Dolphins game.

On one hand, hooray! Football!

On the other hand, it is sort of like watching a little league flag football game except these guys don’t look as cute in helmets, it isn’t funny when they knock each other down and people really get hurt.

Oh, and it is so depressing when the guys get injured in preseason.

Don’t get me wrong – I’ll be watching the games this week. I just know that I will hate them.

Obsession isn’t supposed to make sense.

[photo: ColorPlay Fibers]

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported that Favre sent “This is it” text messages to teammates.

In my most perfect world, these teammates sent text messages to Favre asking “If this is it, please let me know,” but I’m somehow doubting many or any of those guys are Huey Lewis and the News fans.

Yes. I’m digressing and shamefully resorting to changing the subject to mid-list 80s pop songs to make this marginally more interesting for all of us.

I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. YES. Brett Favre is said to be retiring, which would, as retirement is generally understood, make last season his final season in the NFL.

To be clear, Brett Favre please pay attention, this means that you Brett Favre will not play professional football or discuss playing professional football  or change your mind about playing professional football for an extended period of time, possibly forever.

Right? This is what retirement means.

This is what is supposedly happening, today. We’ll see. Favre told the Vikings he wasn’t coming back before camp last year and changed his mind. He bailed on the Packers to go the Jets. He bailed on the Jets for the Vikings, and yeah, last season went pretty well.

It’s just that when it finally happens for real, who’s going to want to throw him a party?

This story is undoubtedly developing, and we’ll keep an eye on it around here so we can be among the first to discuss it when Brett finally drops the hammer. But there is one thing to hang your hat on, one cliche that mostly comes true, and an assurance that Brett will always, in some form or fashion, be with us on Sundays:

Football legends never really retire — they just get microphones and nice sportcoats.

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Now, I don’t know how well you know me, but I can tell you this right now: I know what a triple double is, I know where LeBron James will be playing next year, I know who the coach of the Denver Broncos is, and I can speak intelligently about the problems with the BCS. Even if I couldn’t, even if I didn’t know what DH stood for in baseball, I would still be able to dress appropriately for an outdoor game.

Contrary to popular opinion, mothers and bloggers do leave the house every once in a while.

You know what else? Just because I have a vagina doesn’t mean that I only want to know where Ovechkin plays to impress my boyfriend. I watch ESPN when I am the only one home. My husband is the one that changes the channel to the Food Network because he can only stand to watch SportsCenter one time through, while I am content to watch it on a continual loop all day long.

When I open up the newspaper, I go to the sports section first, and it isn’t so the guys at work don’t think I’m a silly girl. The reality is that I need to know who is injured so I know who to start on my fantasy team.

These pitches (and yeah, they are pitches, just like in baseball) from the PR people, who think my readers need me to tell them to read this book so that they can figure out when the line will be shortest for the bathroom, don’t understand that my readers aren’t stupid. Sure, you might not all be able to explain the wild cat offense, but if I tried to pander and tell you not to wear a leather jacket to a baseball game in Florida in August, you would probably Google my address, come to my house, and beat the crap out of me with the hockey stick that you own because GIRLS LIKE SPORTS TOO!

I don’t mean to be a jerk or a know it all, but can somebody please explain to me why dressing for a baseball game is any different from dressing for a soccer match or a football game? Outside is outside. You know where you live. I assume we have all been outside before. Summer = hot, winter = cold. Unless you are in Florida, and then outside = hot.

My only thought for the focus on baseball is that weather plays a big factor. Day games in the middle of the summer can be brutal. So flip flops, shorts and tank top will be everywhere. But night games in northern climates can get chilly, so jeans and a light sweater may be necessary.

This latest PR pitch also contains this:

[author] interviewed fashion editors from across the country to see what
people will be wearing in your city.

Okay, so let’s say, for the sake of argument that I need fashion advice to go out in public. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and say that I am completely clueless about what people wear where I live. IF YOU ARE TALKING TO FASHION EDITORS THIS ADVICE IS ONLY GOOD FOR ONE SEASON. Fashion is constantly changing. A book is static.

I’ve got some baseball fashion advice — wear something to support your team. The players like that. It makes them feel loved.

Other advice my latest pitch offers:

• When to leave seats. Most people will leave to go get food, drinks or use the restroom when their team is in the field so that they won’t miss the action. For the shortest lines, leave when your team is at bat. You may miss a great home run but you will be back in a jiffy.
• Hard-to-pronounce names are spelled out phonetically.
• Conversation starters and commonly overheard terms.

Ahem. Yes, let’s miss the most exciting part of a baseball game so that we don’t have to stand in line to get a beer. Don’t worry, ladies, you will be home in time to iron your husband’s shirts. I can’t speak for all stadiums, but the six major league ball parks I have been to all have people walking around in the stands selling popcorn and cotton candy and beer and water. I’m not sure what it is like for Yankee or Red Sox fans, but where I live, unless Strasburg is pitching, there aren’t very long lines for anything. (No offense, Nats, you know I love you.)

I am just so tired of society thinking that people with ovaries are ignorant when it comes to sports. Maybe June Cleaver needs this book, but I am Sarah and I live in 2010 and I am offended.

Except for that pronunciation of tricky names part. That would actually be helpful.

This was originally written for and posted on BlogHer.com by Sarah.

Capriati is known for her tennis career that began in 1988 with her holding the record for the youngest French Open Junior winner at 13 years, 2 months. Yet, she’s also known for her repeated brushes with the law, including arrests for shoplifting and marijuana possession beginning in 1993. She has been quoted by the New York Daily News as saying “If I don’t have [tennis] who am I? What am I?”

And in researching other articles for this story, I accidentally came across the supposed reason for her accidental overdose: her maybe-ex-boyfriend Dale DaBone (yes, you heard me right) is going back to porn.

Seriously? Who says “I’m so overwrought that DaBone is going to (da) bone several someones on film that I think I’ll take a handful of this crap.”?

Accidentally or on purpose? You decide, because I may never recover from the knowledge that there is actually a movie being made with the title “Batman XXX: A Porn Parody”

Kendra was shocked at the twists of this story. Kinda. But not really.

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