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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There are four games on tv tonight, Thursday, August 2, followed by dozens on Saturday, culminating with the Boise St./Virginia Tech. match up on Monday. (List of games can be found here.)

Most of the games are what I call tv games. You know the ones. A big school hosts a little school for the ad revenue? Yeah, I don’t care either. I’m just glad that I will be able to turn on my a/c, pour a cold beer, and scream at the flat screen for a little while.

After checking over the Top 25 overview there are not more than a couple of games that will be interesting, with the possible exception of Boise St./ Virginia Tech. Considering  all games are out of conference and there are only two other games that put two ranked teams on the field together: the #3 and #10 teams had better Bring It.

I’ve gone without college football for way too long and I need my fix.

Kendra is not kidding about her football addiction.

This is almost as stupid as J-Lo insuring her butt.

How does one collect on this? If Troy gets a bad haircut can he collect? Is it only in case of fire? Is Delilah a pressing threat?

I’m thinking that Head & Shoulders just bought itself  $1 million worth of advertising on AM radio talk shows, Sportscenter and blogs like Draft Day Suit.

Very sneaky.

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Holy crap! Troy and I are on the same wavelength. He also referenced Jennifer Lopez’s ass.

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Sarah was also asking with her eyes.

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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!

Long time ago. Snow and things.

But the part you might remember is Vancouver’s Olympics. Hockey. Ryan Miller vs. Roberto Luongo. Overtime.  Sidney Crosby dumping it in the net. And an entire nation going completely insane.

Now, I’m not trying to rub that whole Canada-USA thing in. (Although I totally could.)

But here’s a question: Would you have cared as much if the game was being held at 4 a.m. in Russia instead of prime time in Vancouver?

The NHL is pretending you wouldn’t have. The NHL says it’s too disruptive to shut down for two weeks. The NHL says it’s too hard on their players. The NHL doesn’t want to let their players play anymore.

If you read between the lines, what the millionaires running the NHL are really saying is that they don’t feel like there’s anything in it for them. The pinnacle of sportsmanship, sure, whatever. The real point is, they didn’t get paid enough.  Nobody gave them one red cent to shut down for two weeks with four years’ notice. Nobody gave them a cut on the ticket prices or the merchandise prices or the overpriced concessions. Nobody let them control anything. The nerve.

So the NHL’s stance really is, if you want professional hockey players in the Olympics, if you want the guys we own in the Olympics, then we need to run the show – and you have to pay us for it. Never mind what the players want. You need to line *our* pockets first.  But we don’t want to come right out and say that because that would just be rude.

Instead, the NHL has a brilliant idea:  resurrect the World Cup. Which would take their players out of the NHL for weeks, would be played on the other side of the world, would be hard on the players, and – and this is the crucial part – would allow the NHL to call the shots and reap the profits.   Sure, nobody around the world really cares about the World Cup and viewership for a tournament like this would be lukewarm at best without an entire Olympic juggernaut behind it. This does not matter. We all know Gary Bettman and his penchant for expanding in to areas that have lukewarm support for hockey but great big deep city pockets to build arenas and pay franchise fees. (See: Phoenix). He’d love to charge obscure European cities obscene fees to host World Cup events that will then be played in the middle of the night watched by nearly nobody.

People watch the Olympics. People take time off work for the Olympics. People have Olympic-watching parties with couches and wings and beer. People talk about the Olympics and tune in to games surreptitiously at work. The Olympics is where people watch sports they only watch every four years – hockey included. Yet another tournament isn’t going to give the NHL more exposure.  As much as Bettman would like it to be, hockey isn’t football.  People love the Olympics. And you can guarantee that even if the next Luongo-Miller grudge match is being played at 4 a.m. EST on a frosty Siberian plain, we’ll be tuning in. Because for any athlete anywhere, the Olympics is the pinnacle. The best. If you win there, you win it all. Why steal that from both the fans and the players, just for the sake of profit?

Seriously, Bettman. Go charge another $3 for a bottled water, if you’re that hard up for cash. Leave the Olympics alone.

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.

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He was so close to the Super Bowl last year, he said, he could feel it. And he “owes it” to the Vikings to give it one more try. He’s not promising he can make it through the season, though, the season that he says will be his “last.”

Right, anyway.

I used to like the guy. Respect him, even. Now, the more I hear his name the more I want to pull my ears off with some rusty pliers. Dude, grow a pair and quit trying to relive your youth. I know that you produced last year but realistically how long will that last? I’m guessing one good sack in the regular season and you’re toast, as if your body isn’t already. You’ll be in a wheelchair before your 40s are over, and then where will you be? Counting your millions while someone has to feed you because you can’t lift your right arm isn’t as glamorous as it sounds. I’m also guessing that the millions that you’ve already earned won’t be enough to buy back the missed time with your family or the time you’ll spend rehabbing all of those joints that are going to have to be replaced.

And you know what? I’m not the only one that’s calling shenanigains on you.

Go home to Hattiesberg. Have a mint julep. Relax a little. Sure, let the tv crew in when they’re ready for a little NFL analysis come playoff time, but quit jacking with your team and your body. The shtick is just old.

You can thank me later, but I’d like my share of whatever you’re paying your therapist now, in small bills. And considering that your salary is reported to hit $16.5 million this year from $13.5 million last year, plus incentives reported to jack it up to almost $20 million, I think you can spare the dimes.

Kendra is ready for some football. But not like this.

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It seems that Mr. Stephenson pushed his girlfriend and baby mama down the stairs in their home.

Actually, I noticed a couple of things that seem off about this whole situation.

Why, if he’s only 19, does he have a two-year-old, with his 21-year-old girlfriend?

Also, did he not realize he had everything going for him? He just signed a $700,000 one-year deal, with $500,000 for his second year with the Pacers. That’s $1.2 million for playing ball for two years, something that he loves to do.

Why is young Mr. Stephenson following the example of so many professional athletes?

Silly, stupid boy.

Why is this such a trend with professional athletes? Are we paying them too much money, attention, or adulation? I’m thinking it’s the adulation and the ego that comes from it.

Do athletes need to start taking classes in high school about how to act like contributing members of society? Scratch that, do they need to start in pre-school?

Stephenson is not new to breaking the law. At 17 he was busted for sexually abusing a 17-year-old girl inside his high school, the  same school where he won four city championships and was the leading scorer in New York State history.

He’s such a super-awesome example for our young men to follow.

Maybe if he would have had better examples when he was a young man he would be able to make better decisions now, as he’s starting his professional career.

***Update***

Apparently his girlfriend didn’t answer her phone while on a girls’ night out and he ambushed her when she came home. He didn’t mean to hurt her, it just happened.

DUH she didn’t answer her phone. She’s not supposed to.

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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.