an entire post from someone else’s blog, but kate sullivan wrote about the paul loduca trade in a way that i could never.

and shes a girl.

sometimes women understand sports much better than you give them credit for. and they understand it in a different way that jimmy the greek never could.

the only thing hotter than a chick who writes for Spin, is a chick who cries over a baseball trade and then writes about it on her blog.

Kate Sullivan

Saturday July 31

I can’t handle it. I can’t handle it. We had such a good thing going. We had “It”–the thing that turns mere work into an act of love; that makes success probable, and failure bearable–we had style, we had glamour and fun; we had honesty; we had chemistry.

Now, I just don’t know what. The Dodgers’ bosses took a gorgeous, weird, number-one team, a team of friends who really knew and respected each other, a team anchored by a brilliant catcher, who also happened to be an ace hitter, and they decided the team would be better off losing its single most important player. Its core. Sure, Gagne’s a rock star, but he stands on LoDuca’s shoulders. And LoDuca isn’t only brilliant; he loves Los Angeles.

I don’t know shit about baseball whatsoever; I didn’t even know that they traded players in the middle of the season. What the fuck is up with that? That’s like dumping your girlfriend in the middle of summer or right before Christmas: It’s out-of-sync with the rhythms of nature. You dump your loser jerk boyfriend or girlfriend between New Year’s and June.

And if your boyfriend or girlfriend is a totally kickass genius team-player who helps you to be more happy and fun and successful, you don’t dump them. You marry them. And you ride out the ups and downs of the season together.

I sound like a female Tony Pierce; it’s so weird. I don’t mean to.

This is from the Dodgers’ official corporate website, so I can only imagine how outraged everyone must actually be:

“The trade rocked the clubhouse, where the Dodgers have credited their close-knit chemistry as one factor in their success.

‘There’s a lot of sad faces in here,’ said veteran Jose Lima. ‘I don’t want to create a war, but breaking up a first-place team, wow, that’s something. We accomplished this together. We overcame adversity, people not believing in us. I don’t make the decisions.’

Shawn Green agreed.

‘Right now, it’s hard to fathom,’ he said.”

I didn’t used to like LoDuca because I thought he was just a cocky dope. But I came to understand that he’s salt of the earth: He’s the guy you want as your older brother; and even if he were your little brother, he’d live like your older brother. He’s Johnny on the spot, with a good heart.

“Paul Lo Duca cried and talked openly about the pain of leaving the only organization he has ever known. ‘I always dreamed about being a Dodger for my whole life, having a 20-year career, but I guess it didn’t happen. It’s tough, so many friends I’ve made along the way. The fans in L.A., they treated me so well. It’s tough.'”

I predict after they fire Jim Tracy, Paul LoDuca will be back.

That’s who they really should have traded. Traded him for a funny monkey with a tiny organ that plays “She Bangs.”

kate’s rock blog + science blog + emmanuelle meets tom cruise

thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you

but the new york native was incredibly prolific, being published in a variety of places including the new york times.

her most famous work was a poem she entitled “the new colossus” that was chosen to be enscribed on the statue of liberty.

“The New Colossus”

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

with conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

a mighty woman with a torch

whose flame is imprisoned lightning,

and her name Mother of Exiles.

From her beacon-hand glows

world-wide welcome;

her mild eyes command the air-bridged harbor

that twin cities frame.

“Keep ancient lands your storied pomp!”

cries she with silent lips.

“Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

the most famous lines about the huddled masses was perfect coming from a self-proclaimed “Jewish poet” who was focused on the causes of the oppressed in america.

Born on July 22, 1849, Lazarus was the fourth of Esther (Nathan) and Moses Lazarus’s seven children. She grew up in New York and Newport, Rhode Island, and was educated by private tutors with whom she studied mythology, music, American poetry, European literature, German, French, and Italian.

Her father, who was a successful sugar merchant, supported her writing financially as well as emotionally.

In 1866, when Emma was only seventeen, Moses had Poems and Translations: Written Between the Ages of Fourteen and Sixteen printed “for private circulation.” Daughter Emma dedicated the volume “To My Father.” – Jewish Virtual Library

this public service post is brought to you by the busblog as we celebrate the re-opening of the Statue of Liberty which was closed after 9/11.

like this

spelled backwards

1. WHAT COLOR ARE YOUR BEDROOM WALLS? mustard

2. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW? the dice man by luke rheinhold – it’s twisted and dirty. A-

3. WHAT’S ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? whats that.

4. FAVORITE BOARD GAME? scrabble with my truest.

5. FAVORITE MAGAZINE? maxim

6. FAVORITE SMELL? tie: pot at concerts, incense in church

7. FAVORITE COLOR? midnight blue

8. LEAST FAVORITE COLOR? teal

9. HOW MANY RINGS BEFORE YOUR ANSWERING MACHINE PICKS UP? three.

10. MOST IMPORTANT MATERIAL THING IN MY LIFE? my home computer.

11. FAVORITE FLAVOR OF ICE CREAM? rocky road.

12. DO YOU BREAK THE SPEED LIMIT DAILY? i dont drive. but when i walk, it’s usually very quickly.

13. DO YOU HAVE A STUFFED ANIMAL IN YOUR ROOM SOMEWHERE? yes. ashley gave me a monkey wearing a tshirt that says wanna monkey around?

14. STORMS – COOL OR SCARY? always cool unless im driving.

15. FAVORITE DRINK? bailey’s on ice. double.

16. WHEN IS YOUR BIRTHDAY? october 22. some one asked me if i was a libra the other day. im on the scorpio libra cusp. libra is the fingertip, scorpio is the nail.

17. FAVORITE VEGETABLES? peas.

18. IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY JOB, WHAT WOULD IT BE? blogger.

19. IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY COLOR HAIR, WHAT WOULD IT BE? red.

20. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN LOVE? daily.

21. TOP THREE FAVORITE MOVIES (IN ORDER)? blues brothers, ferris bueller, fast times

22. DO YOU TYPE WITH YOUR FINGERS ON THE RIGHT KEYS? i type as they taught us in typing class. both hands, head up, feet on the floor. quickly.

23. WHAT’S UNDER YOUR BED? suitcase, baseball cards, old shoes, magazines, newspapers, diaries, socks, and lots and lots of dust.

24. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE NUMBER? 666

25. FAVORITE SPORT TO WATCH ON TV & IN PERSON? baseball, hockey

26. WHAT IS YOUR SINGLE BIGGEST FEAR? that anyone considering having sex with me would actually believe any of this.

27. FAVORITE CD OF ALL TIME & RIGHT NOW? All time?!? i’m weird. if i really love something i wont listen to it so that i wont get sick of it. i guess im doing that with the replacements tim. right now my favorite cd is the Lorretta Lynn record that came out this year.

28. FAVORITE TV SHOW OF ALL TIME & RIGHT NOW? all-time: (tie) The Simpsons, The Sopranos

right now: (tie) Big Brother, Pardon the Interruption, The Casino, South Park

29. HAMBURGERS OR HOT DOGS? dogs

30. THE COOLEST PLACES YOU’VE EVER BEEN? wrigley field, matt & emmanuelle’s wedding in france, isla vista 87-92

31. WHAT WALLPAPER AND/OR SCREENSAVER IS ON YOUR COMPUTER RIGHT NOW? the wallpaper is a colored drawing of catwoman from the 50s. screensavers are for girls.

32. DOES MCDONALD’S SKIMP ON YOUR FRIES & DO YOU CARE? my first job was mcdonalds. you actually get way more than youre supposed to. mcdonalds fries are the best, but if they were smart they would make the McFatFry and get people to argue about whether they like the new fries better than the old ones, cuz frankly, the mcdonalds fries are losing their rep.

33. FAVORITE CHAIN RESTAURANT(s)? mcdonalds

34. IF YOU HAVE A BOY (OR HAVE ANOTHER BOY) WHAT WOULD YOU NAME HIM? angus

35. IF YOU COULD LEARN TO PLAY ONE INSTRUMENT OVERNIGHT, WHAT WOULD IT BE? banjo.

36. WHERE DID YOU GET THIS FROM? mr. blonde’s garage

mouthy + fawksy + moxie

but she can jump really high.

currently one of the top high jumpers in the world, she is also one of the flashiest.

back in ’99 instead of wearing the typical spandex outfit, amy sported a gray, furry tube top and black briefs trimmed with faux-fur.

the 6’2″ texan got her BS in Biology at UCLA, and now finds herself on her third US olympic team aiming at winning olympic gold for the first time in her career.

not since the 1988 Seoul Games when Louise Ritter did it, has a US woman won gold in the high jump, which is odd since in ’93 acuff was awarded the national High School Athlete of the Year in track and field during her senior year.

america expected more from her than four measly US outdoor championships (’95, ’97, ’01, ’03).

all we care about is gold, which seemed out of reach when amy got in a car accident right before the olympic trials in 2000 – but she still made the team after a dramatic jump-off.

thank god she made that team though, as you might remember the controversy of April 1999, when acuff, a Cancer, gathered 11 other female track athletes for a hollywood photographer where they posed nude or in body paint for the Omni Lite Millennium Calendar.

when not jumping 6 feet, 4 3/4 inches on average, or making high jumping DVDs amy studies Oriental Medicine in Austin where she hopes to be a doctor of oriental medicine.

if she does bring home the gold, dont look for her parents in the stands. because of security fears, acuff, a distant relative of country singer Roy Acuff, has asked her folks to stay at home.

Amy Acuff is sponsored by Asics and has been seen modeling in Rolling Stone, Sports Illustrated, Maxim, & Vogue.

but sorry fellas, amy is engaged to pole vaulter Tye Harvey, the 2001 World Indoor silver medalist.

they translated my How To Blog into Spanish + Washington > Lincoln > FDR > Kerry? + danielle

or the yankees vs the dodgers or even the dodgers vs the giants

but the cardinals + cubs rivarly is a nice one

maybe a little too nice

and this year hopefully the cubs can break a few hearts (other than the man in the picture to the left who flew for some reason bought airline tickets from boston to minnesota to try to get nomar’s autograph despite the fact that the all star shortstop played for years in boston… until yesterday).

the cubs as you might know are in second place behind st louis in the national league central, ten and a half games out.

the cardinals have the best record in baseball at 67-37.

only one other team in baseball has over 60 wins and its a team with arod jeter sheff matsui rivera mussina v�zquez rivera and now olerud, and even they havent won as many as the redbirds.

and so when i declared this weekend on this very blog that it would not be the cardinals who would end this season in first place in the central, that instead it would be the cubs, i got a little flack from one particular JJ who left not one but four comments (rightfully) questioning my sanity.

“Ok, I did some math. AS I type, The Cards are 67-37, with 58 games remaing. Now, if they merely play .500 ball the rest of the way, 29-29, that puts them at 96-66, a pretty nice record probably good enough for the NL central title. By the same token, if the Cubs were to catch St. Lou, they need to go 39-18 the rest of the way which would be a lofty .684 clip. Possible? I suppose. Probable? Hell no.

Those 39 wins (which they won’t get anyway) are only good, remember, if the Cards play .500 the rest of the way, and they way they’ve been playing, I don’t forsee that happening. The fact is, Nomar is a nice addition, but the Cubs didn’t address their most pressing need, bullpen help. They’re not going to win the 39-45 of the last 57 games they need to win it with this team.”

– JJ

which made me do a little math.

the last time the cubs ended their season near 39-18 was a year when they finished their last 60 games 37-23.

that year happened to be last year.

a stretch in which they didnt have derrick lee, greg maddux, corey patterson, or nomah.

are those four guys the difference between two wins from last years finish? i would believe so.

are the cardinals going to continue this scorching hot streak, outpacing everyone in baseball including the yankees who somehow dont even need jason giambi?

i would believe not.

unlike the first two thirds of the season, the cubs are now relatively healthy. for the exception of mark prior who, when healthy, is virtually unhitable, this last third of the season finds the cubs at almost full strength with a favorable schedule including lots of games versus the mets, pirates, expos, and marlins.

of course the cubs dont have to make up ten games over ten weeks.

but they could.

and if they would do it to anyone, it wouldnt be sweeter than doing it to the cardinals.

who never did really anything bad to the cubs. and sorta, indirectly, gave us harry caray, who i would easilly give lou brock up for.

24 hour revenge therapy + virginia anne + aaron’s baseball blog

from blogging from the dnc convention. hes buying this crud that u2’s beautiful day was a bad choice for kerry to end his speech with.

hey, i don’t care if welch was ten feet from the podium, i was on my couch like most of america and it played better on tv than 98% of his sweaty speech.

welch claims that it’s sometime-pessimistic lyrics contradict what you’d expect for a theme song of sorts.

to which i want to say “what lyrics?”

here’s the lyrics to Beautiful Day, and i am someone who watched a LOT of tv, including mtv and vh1, i saw u2 twice on that tour, the first being the first time me and karisa ever hung out.

“it’s a beautiful day,

la la la la la its a beautiful day

blah blah blah

touch me!

blah blah blah blah

its a beautiful day,

lala lalala…”

i think it’s a great song because it’s ridiculously uplifting. bono has no business writing another classic anthem that will be played forever.

and although springsteen’s “no surrender” is a great tune with some real songwriting, Beautiful Day brings that message of hope to this new century. not only is No Surrender twenty years old, it feels 50 years old compared to u2.

i understand that after the speech, kerry and edwards went to a democrat fundraiser where ll cool j performed.

mamma said knock you out would be a cd i’d rock if i was in charge of the music at the next dozen kerry rallies.

matt is secretly a terrific singer songwriter + twenty-something + bob mould

i know it’s hard to believe. but it’s true.

ive kissed sisters. i’ve had three way kisses. lots of new years eve kisses.

ive kissed some people i probably shouldta, since they had boyfriends, etc. but that goes with the territory… i think.

some of the kisses have been drunken sloppy ones where hands started grabbing all over here-n-there.

some were rolling on the ground dunken ones. some were hey we’re in an elevator lets kiss ones.

a few years ago i was on a weird little streak of trying to only kiss girls in their teens. they ended up kissing a lot like girls who were no longer in their teens.

you cant really predict how good or bad someone is going to kiss. pretty girls arent always pretty kissers, and normal lookin girls sometimes kiss beautifully.

i once fell asleep while kissing a girl, and she wont kiss me any more for unrelated reasons.

sometimes a nice long kiss on the cheek, if you can believe it, is hotter than any other sort of kiss. i dont know how thats possible, but it is. trust me, it is.

with that said i dont know where the best kiss i ever got was or who it was with.

but one time i was skatingboarding in isla vista coming home from a burrito place.

i saw three young women sitting on the curb giggling.

hey tony! they yelled.

yes they were on the popular recreational drug at the time, ecstasy.

they wanted to kiss me. one at a time.

i had a girlfriend at the time so i had to say no.

my girlfriend at the time, however, they reminded me, was cheating on me.

plus it was only a kiss they said.

so i sat on my skateboard and watched them put on some lip gloss

and i kissed the first girl

and i slid down a foot to the next

and then i slid down to the next

and i nearly fell over

and they laughed and laughed until i asked for a do over.

no do overs! they yelled and laughed and i skated home forgetting to make them kiss each other.

ken layne + paige + low culture