Why Your "At Bat" Music Sucks Balls

Before we get into the crux of today's blog post, we have a little house keeping for you. We finally have airfare to St. Louis. Holy smokes, sports fans, it's true! We officially have travel arrangements for our stadium tour that's been planned for close to 6 months. Nothing like waiting til' the last minute. Huzzah!

Serena will be traveling up to Boston this weekend to visit Erin and they'll be checking out a game at Fenway (and mayyyyybe a stadium tour, if we can). You'll get a blog post on it, but not until next week. Lisa will decide whether or not you're worthy of a solo blog from her on Sunday, so if you want one, don't piss her off between now and then. Also, it would help if you buttered her up. Just sayin'.

So now for tonight's topic. Have you ever been to a game and noticed that your favorite players have terrible taste in music? Why doesn't someone quality control that shit? If we were in charge of DJ-ing duties at Yankees Stadium or Citi Field, some of that garbage would simply not fly. For example, Brett Gardiner and John Buck have god awful taste in music. It's truly terrible. In fact, at our last Mets game, Serena made a comment about stabbing a screwdriver through her eardrum rather than listen to it. Even TOWSNBN has made poor choices in this arena (and also in his personal life, but we're not going to go there right now). The man comes to the plate to The Luniz's "I Got 5 On It," which is basically about smoking weed. We're willing to ignore the fact that TOWSNBN has obviously embraced smoking weed, but we're not willing to ignore the fact that he's white. When you are as caucasian as TOWSNBN, you should stop pretending that you're a "gangsta" and admit that you listen to AC/DC, Kid Rock...or Dido. Therefore, to combat this never ending issue, we've decided to offer better alternatives to what these idiots think is quality "pump me up" music.

When choosing your "at bat" music, you want to choose a song that not only pumps you up, but us up as well. Because we're selfish. We want to cheer you on and spit foul things at the opposing team on your behalf. When you step up to the plate, listening to The Bieber, it makes us question your sexuality. It does not make us think, "KICK HIS ASS, C-BASS!" Please do not defend these poor decisions with "oh, but I have young girly fans" or "oh, but I have a 5 on my jersey." For starters, you're a child molester if that's your mentality and secondly, just stop. If every player came to the plate to music featuring his jersey number, we'd end up listening to a crap-ton of Sesame Street songs. Also, if you've been coming to the plate to same F*CKING song for the last 4 years, you need to change it up. We're now bored with you. We don't care if your song is super awesome. Stop being a boring lame ass. If you're from New York, you'll no longer be coming to the plate to Jay-Z and/or Alicia Keys' "Empire State of Mind." Enough already. We've had enough. Note: if we cannot understand the lyrics to your "at bat" song, we cannot get motivated to support you. We're not pointing fingers at anyone in particular, but we DO want to point out that we were super excited about disposing of Carlos Beltran and his music catalogue and now we have Ruben Tejada. Interpret that as you will.

Here are examples of acceptable songs to saunter up to the plate to:

• Anything by AC/DC is encouraged. Everyone (or at least 98% of the human population) knows their songs and they're bad ass.
• You can come out to rap music (not you, TOWSNBN, YOU need to stick to a different genre), but it's gotta be a good song! Puff Daddy's "Come with Me," in which he musically raped Led Zeppelin fans everywhere, is NOT acceptable. If you want to rock out to the instrumental hook of that song, just go with the original (aka: "Kashmir"). Why not Eminem's "Til' I Collapse," Tupac's "California Love," Kanye West's "Ni**as in Paris," Biggie's "Hypnotize," or Dr. Dre's "Next Episode?"
• Aerosmith - "Rag Doll" or "Love in an Elevator"
• Guns N Roses "Welcome to the Jungle." If this song doesn't get a person pumped, they're a corpse.
• Metallica's "Sad But True"
• Beastie Boys' "Brass Monkey," "Sabotage," or "So What'cha Want"
• Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger"
• Incubus' "Nice to Know You"
• Disturbed's "Down with the Sickness"
• Ram Jam's "Black Betty"
• Rage Against the Machine's "Killing in the Name"
• Trapt's "Headstrong"
• House of Pain's "Jump Around"
• Finally, if you can't make a decision, your best bet is to just go with a movie theme. Try the Top Gun anthem, Rocky Balboa anthem, the James Bonds theme (let's face it, he gets more ass than a proctologist, so you're safe with him), Batman, The Imperial March, or The A-Team. Just a few examples.

This week's baseball notes:
The Yankees have put Serena's Big Texan on the 15-day DL with a strained left trapezius muscle. For those of you unfamiliar with the inner-workings of your body, that muscle is located in your upper back area. While we suppose that you can strain or pull or tear or whatever ANY muscle in your body, how the hell do you strain the trap muscles? We've never heard of such a thing. We can't even imagine how you go about straining those particular muscles. The man was not practicing advanced yoga asanas on the mound when he sustained this injury, so what the hell? The Big Texan is the 13th player the Yankees have placed on the DL this year. This has prompted a slew of crap about how the Yankees so-called "magic" is going to hold up. Listen here, a-holes. The Yankees do not have "magic." If Harry Potter was currently on the active roster, trust us when we say that we'd already have those jerseys. How do you NOT buy that jersey? You know he's going to be unhittable and an epic offensive player (Yeah, that's right. On his off days, he'd patrol the outfield on his broom and hit massive home runs). He defeated Voldemort for crissakes! Clearly, he can defeat the Boston Red Sox.

Zack Greinke made his first return to MLB action since being activated from the DL on Wednesday night against the Nationals. He threw 5 1/3 innings of 1-run ball over 83 pitches. He even got himself an RBI single. Lookie loo.

There's apparently an internet campaign brewing to give Mariano Rivera the honor of starting his last All Star Game (which is weird), but he politely declined, saying his prefer to close. He's quoted as saying, "It would mess everything up. It would be the first time I've started, I think, since 1995. I don't think it would be right. I'd rather close the game than start the game."

Erin & The Favorite Take Citi Field

We're back together for today's blog post about Erin and Matt's first visit to Citi Field. Thankfully for them, we managed to get tickets to "El Noche de Mexico." Mariaches were plentiful. Thanks to the lesson learned by their late arrival at Yankee Stadium in which they missed all of the cool stuff, we arrived at Citi Field nice and early to guarantee that they missed nothing.

We showed them the base markers of Shea Stadium and the original home run apple...

...And made sure they saw the museum. Matt got his first glimpse of Mr. Met's origins. He was not pleased.

While we waited for Matt to buy his shake ($6.25) at The Shake Shack (we insisted that he make a pit stop here), we decided we'd show them the Kids' Zone. That's a blatant lie. This is really how we ended up in the Kids' Zone:
*gathered around the beer stand, blabbing away about the pros and cons of Matt's strawberry shake*
Lisa: OMG! There's Mr. Met!!!!!! And he's got a different hat on!
Erin: What?
Lisa: Don't you want you picture with him???
Erin: Well...ok. Sure.
Lisa: I'll go get on line!!!! Follow me!
*Lisa runs off faster than we've ever seen her run*

After taking a picture with Mr. Met, we found a little booth where people can chill in comfy leather chairs and play video games. Matt found home. Serena felt tired, so she contemplated sleeping in one of the chairs for the entire game until Lisa informed her that they closed the area once the game started. Shame on you, Mets. Some people need to take a nap once in awhile! Just sayin'!

As we exited the premises, we were accosted by an individual who were charmed by our personalities from afar. He wore an MLB.com badge, which concerned us only a touch. He asked us to participate in this "game show" thingy that MLB.com hosts called, "Bucks on a Pond," which, once the rules were explained to us, sounds like Cash Cab. Now, we don't know when our episode will be aired, but we must stress that he encouraged us to be as ridiculous as possible, so don't judge our the footage when you see it. We certainly did not fail his request. We acted like the biggest pack of ass clowns that you'd ever see. AND we answered all of their questions correctly like game show professionals. We were borderline going to search for trivia contest at a local bar afterwards to see if we could win some extra cash.

After our game show shenanigans, we headed in search of food. Erin got her traditional hot dog, but was pretty pissed off that there was no yellow mustard to be found anywhere.

Serena got a hot dog as well, but covered it with spicy mustard, Cholula, onions in red sauce, and jalapeno peppers.

Lisa went a different route this time out and bought a Mex Burger from Keith's Grill. For $20, she got all of this:

To be clear, that's a burger, tootsie pop, beer, and bag of potato chips. $20. It's no pizza from Grimaldi's or shot of Patron, but still, that's pretty darn good.

This was the view of our Matt Harvey/Hector Santiago matchup:

We scored these tickets at the kindness of Mr. Danny Ryan (no relation to The Favorite). The matchup turned out to be a good one. Matt Harvey carried a perfect game into the 7th, when an infield single by Alex Rios messed everything up. To be honest, Rios would've been thrown out had Ruben Tejada not gotten so damn fancy with his throw. There was no need for him to make a jump throw on that play, and the jump cost him precious seconds. Not everyone is Derek Jeter. Technically, Jeter shouldn't be making that play. It's amazing he's as successful as he is.

If you asked the douche couple sitting in front of us, Harvey's perfect game was ruined by the girl "jinxing" Harvey by talking about it. After the Rios single, the guy could not let it go. We had to listen to him for the rest of the game yelling at her for pure nonsense. We think there was a threat of her sleeping outside with his dogs. Lisa overheard him say, "You're not even a Mets fan! You're a Yankees fan!" Note: she WAS wearing a Mets t-shirt that said, "The NYM <3 2010.="" 99="" a="" and="" asked="" championships="" dialogue="" embarrassment.="" explain="" groaned="" had="" her="" how="" in="" know="" lisa="" lot.="" many="" of="" out="" p="" pink="" relayed="" replied="" serena="" series="" she="" should="" someone="" the="" then="" they="" this="" to="" which="" who="" won="" world="" yankees="">
Harvey pitched 9 innings and had a career-high 12 strikeouts, but received a no decision. Why? Because the Mets couldn't score a run and we headed into extra innings. The sad thing is that the Mets pulled it off with a Mike Baxter pinch hit single that scored Ike Davis from second in the bottom of the 10th!!!! If they had left Harvey in for one more inning, he would've gotten a complete game. But we understand. He had already thrown a lot of pitches. Whomp, whomp.

When Serena, Matt, and Erin got back to Serena's apartment, she conducted the same survey she had done for the Yankee Stadium visit. Both felt like they'd missed nothing on this trip, unlike their trip to Yankee Stadium (to which Serena apologized for...again). Both agreed that their favorite part of the visit was the trivia game for MLB.com, which has nothing to do with the stadium, but Erin did add that she appreciated the Shea Stadium bases and the museum.

Matt felt that Citi Field "didn't really identify itself as a Mets stadium," which bothered him. Erin expanded upon that subject, saying that from our seats in particular, you didn't know we were at a Mets game. From the opposite side of the stadium, it wasn't as bad. Erin rated her hot dog as 6/10 because it was too thin and she couldn't find yellow mustard anywhere (she was very specific on this subject). Matt gave his shake an 8/10.

The big question of the night: How does Citi Field stand up to your other stadiums? Remembering that Matt's scale rating is 1 being shit aka: Oakland and 10 being hand jobs for everyone, this is their assessment:
Matt: 5/10. The stadium is middle of the road.
Erin: 6/10. Parts of it she really liked and parts that were really "blergh."

Happy Mother's Day to all of the mommies out there and especially to OUR mommies: Mamadukes and Mama L.

Erin & The Favorite Take Yankee Stadium!

Special edition blog post today. Holy shit! Can you even handle the excitement?

May 5, 2013
Erin and The Favorite (aka: Matt) came to town this weekend from Boston and like any good hostess, I acquired tickets to both the Yankees and Mets games that were scheduled to take place during their time here in New York. Before getting into their first experience at the new Yankee Stadium, a little background is in order. I met Erin my sophomore year in college playing softball. Matt is Erin's boyfriend. Erin originally hails from the DC area and is an Orioles fan whereas Matt is from the Seattle area and his loyalties belong to the Mariners. Including now retired ballparks, prior to this date, Erin had traveled to 17 ballparks (including the old Yankee Stadium with yours truly back when Barry Zito was still the ace for the A's and Carl Pavano was still effective for the Yankees) whereas Matt had traveled to 9. Of those stadiums, Erin and Matt have joined the Traveling Baseball Babes on tour for 5 of them (Angels, Dodgers, Padres, White Sox, and Cubs). Now that you've got a better handling on our guests, I can proceed with the day at hand.

At the start, I failed them. We arrived at the stadium around 12:30 for a 1:00 start time. Because of this, I had (unbeknownst to them) eliminated the opportunity for Erin and Matt to check out Monument Park and the museum.

Before heading inside to feed, I snapped a photo of them outside:

At each stadium she visits, Erin buys a hot dog and Matt tries to find the park's "signature dish." In this case, Matt went for the Lobel's steak sandwich (at my eager recommendation). I got my typical sausage sandwich and to her hot dog, Erin added yellow mustard (very specific) and ketchup. Remember, prior to this stadium, Erin had experienced 17 different hot dogs, which sounds more perverted than it should. On a scale of 1-10, the Yankee Stadium hot dog earned an 8.5/9, Erin wishing that the dog itself was a bit thicker or beefier ("that's what she said").

Matt rocked his sandwich properly, adding gravy and horseradish. His assessment? "This sandwich is f*cking stupid" and "it's legit." His only negative feedback on it? Too expensive. Totally understood. This is Matt having a food "O" over his sandwich:

The pitching matchup we got was my Big Texan and Oakland's Dan Straily. Erin couldn't have asked for a better Yankee.

As you can see, our seats had a pretty stellar view of all of the on-field action. The downside was the fact that they were exposed to an approximate hot second of sunlight/warmth. Once the sun began to move across the sky, our section became enveloped in shade. Add the strong breeze and we were unseasonably chilled...more like frozen. And under-dressed. Poor Erin wore flip flops. Her toes were borderline purpled from the cold. The unexpected cold definitely took a toll on the crowd as the game progressed. We noticed that gradually, but consistently, the shaded sections of the stadium emptied and the sunnier areas of the stadium (basically the outfield and the roof deck bar) became more congested.

Unfortunately, luck was not on Pettitte's side that afternoon. In the top of the 3rd, Cano overthrew first on a double play ball, causing the run to score and giving the A's a 1-0 lead. In the top of the 4th, Pettitte served up a solo shot to Luke Montz, who had had the pleasure of being called up from the Triple-A on Wednesday, making the score 2-1. Awesome. Talk about something to call home to the folks about. "Hey, ma! Guess what?! I hit my first major league homer off of ANDY PETTITTE! I'm AMAZE-balls!" However, the 4th inning was not all lost. We did learn something very important in that inning: Lyle Overbay has fantastic taste in music, coming to the plate to Nirvana's Breed (whereas Brett Gardiner's taste in music makes me want to shove a screwdriver through my ear drums). Pettitte was removed in the 5th after giving up a 2-run shot to Yoenis Cespedes, making the score 4-1. :(

The Yankees would not go gently into that good night, however. In the bottom of the 6th, Ichiro Suzuki scored Vernon Wells and advanced Travis Hafner to third on a double hit off of Jerry Blevins. With Ichiro's wheels at second, Overbay's (who this time came to the plate to Led Zeppelin's Moby Dick...the man may slowly be becoming my hero) single easily scored Ichiro and Hafner, FINALLY tying up the game!

It was all very exciting until Boone Logan entered the game and gave up another solo home run to Josh Donaldson like a real a-hole. Here's the play by play of the bottom of the 9th as performed by the New York Yankees:

• Grant Balfour - Pitching.
• Chris Nelson & Brennan Boesch - pathetic display of athletic prowess at the plate - 2 outs.
• Gardiner - single! There's still life in the team yet! Best part? The scoreboard flashed Brett "The Hitman" Gardiner. It basically featured Gardy's head Photoshopped onto the WWF wrestler's body. It was amazing. It was reminiscent of my kick ass Photoshopping skills as demonstrated on Tim Lincecum Appreciation Day.
• Speedy Gardy Gonzalez takes second on a pass ball.
• Robinson Cano intentionally walked because Balfour and Derek Norris are a pair of vaginas.
• Balfour and Norris take 40 billion chit-chat breaks to talk about the weather, Miley Cyrus' hair, and the meaning of life.
• We shout curse words and other assorted atrocities down at them on the field for being pansy bitches.
• Wells strikes out swinging. The equivalent of forgetting to tie off a helium-filled balloon and accidentally releasing it. Well, done. Good, sir.

Before leaving the stadium, a lovely A's fan took our photo with the field behind us:

Since this is the Traveling Baseball Babes and we're SUPPOSED to be "assessing" the different MLB stadiums, I felt compelled to survey my guests. Much to my relief, both Erin and Matt gave the stadium a thumbs up. Erin referred to it as a "Hollywood-ized" or more polished version of the original, which makes me happy because to be quite frank, I hate change and would not have been able to emotionally or mentally handle a vastly different ballpark from what I was accustomed to growing up with (Matt, having never been to the original, could not offer a comparison). Erin enjoyed the respectful, friendly fan atmosphere (in our section in particular, we had the pleasure of witnessing Yankees fan/A's fan bro-mances) the most. Matt's favorite part of the day was the sandwich, which is completely understandable as it is pretty damn awesome. Erin agreed that the stadium's food did make it into her to top 10 percentile, but did mention that it wasn't the BEST she'd ever had.

Erin didn't have a "least favorite" part of the stadium per say, but Matt felt that the crowd seemed low key. He also wasn't sure if the subdued atmosphere was the result of the chill in the air (WE were awfully lethargic ourselves) or if the fans just blew chunks.

It was during this discussion that I mentioned the fact that we hadn't arrived at the game early enough to check out Monument Park or the museum (two somewhat vital pit stops for folks visiting for the first time). I asked the two to rate Yankee Stadium in comparison to the other stadiums they'd visited on a scale of 1-10. Matt explained a 1 as being "a piece of shit aka: Oakland" and a 10 as being "hand jobs for everyone." Discovering that they'd missed major pieces of what Yankee Stadium had to offer effected Erin's overall rating of it. She gave it a 6 or 7, but wasn't confident in the rating knowing that she missed stuff. I promised I'd take her to another game in order to make up for this mishap. Matt rated the Stadium at a 7, citing the lack of "electricity" in the crowd being the reason for not giving it a higher score.

Later this week, Lisa and I will post Erin and The Favorite's Citi Field experience together as per our usual posting schedule. Try not to get too excited. I'd hate for you to have to change your shorts as a result of your over-eagerness.

-Serena

The Return of Facial Hair Around the League

In celebration of Cinco de Mayo and moustaches, we've decided to give you the third installment of Facial Hair Around the League. It was extremely difficult to determine this year's Hair of Fame inductees and way too easy to find the giant failures, which means that the men of the MLB are slipping. The league is becoming a pack of furry dirt bags. Before we get into the do's and the do not's, we thought it might be helpful if we gave you a brief overview about what WE find attractive in a man's facial hair. Here is Lisa's taste spectrum:

Unfortunately for Lisa, Guidos do not play baseball. They play soccer. Therefore, we will not be discussing this aspect of man candy today. After we're done touring the baseball stadiums, we'll move on to soccer and then we'll have plenty of Guido to talk about.

Here is Serena's:

As you can see, Lisa is more into the clean-cut look and Serena is more into the scruffy 5:00 shadow look. And then there's this:

This biggest shame of it all is that he won't have sex before his married. What. A. F*cking. Waste.

Now that you have some understanding as to where our rankings come from, let's begin with the league's worst hair offenses. For starters, we could've put almost the entire Nationals roster (with the exception of Danny Espinosa, Ryan Zimmerman, and Adam LaRoche) into this category, but we didn't have enough room or time to cover that many people. So we picked the worst of the bunch. Naturally, heading up this circus of hair clowns is the King of Hair Fails: Jayson Werth.

The only improvement from last year is that we think he's been conditioning his locks. OF COURSE the young bucks of the Nationals would be led astray if they had to look at this for their entire immature MLB careers. He looks like a deranged Santa Claus. We just don't get it. Beneath this shag carpet is an attractive pleasant face. Why is he hiding it? His beard is probably why the Nationals did so poorly in the playoffs last year. It reminds us of the "furry wall" scene from Get Him to the Greek. When the day comes that Jayson wants to go clean shaven, they're going to need hedge clippers to hack off the initial foot of growth and 80% of the world's endangered species list will suddenly emerge from hiding.

 

Next up on the Nationals' roster is what's being called "The Skullet." Bryce Harper:

That's a clown haircut, bro. It's bad enough that at the age of 20, he's a raging douchebag with an ESPN documentary. He has to sport this look? So not only is he a douchebag, but he looks like one too. He can't even use the excuse that the haircut/beard is a result of a bad night drinking. Why? Cos' the little f*ckwad toddler isn't even old enough to drink alcohol! In studying this photo further, it's become clear that he gets his eyebrows waxed/threaded and shaped by a professional. How does this man give penetration to anything except prostitutes? There's literally nothing here of value. You'd HAVE to pay us to bang you if this is what you looked like. At least Jayson Werth has a World Series ring and once a year, he brings toys to children all over the world.

 

Stephen Strasburg:

Now, he seems like a nice boy so we feel bad picking on him, but this simply cannot stand. When you have the misfortune of being a ginger, you need to be extra careful when it comes to grooming. You're already pretty terrifying. There's no need to add to the terror with a f*cked up beard. Or Billy Goat thing. Or mock representation of a goatee. We don't know what he's doing. All we know is that it's terrible and it's not helping the unattractiveness of his face.

 

Speaking of terrible gingers, what the sh*t is Justin Turner doing with this look?

Holy hell. He looks like a carrot cake nightmare. We HATE having to put one of our own into this portion of the blog, but when you do the crime, you are doing the time, buddy. And you're subjected to ridicule on this blog by us. His hair color catapults him to the top of this list, even beyond the horror that is Jayon Werth. What choice would you have if this man asked you on a date, BUT to scream and run away? Similar to what your reaction should be if you're in your underwear and your house catches fire. Fire...like this man's crotch. Imagine what THAT looks like if his face looks like this? *SHUDDER*

 

It pains us to talk about this last player because he means so much to us: Tim Lincecum.

We know that TECHNICALLY he's done nothing wrong with his face, but his haircut cannot go unpunished. It's awful. Under no circumstances should a member of the male gender rock a do that makes him look like KD Lang. Where were his friends on this one? No one tried to talk him out of this on his way to the barber? Or rather hair stylist because we're pretty sure you can't get this haircut at a barber shop? If Turner's crotch is the forest fire from Hades, then based on his haircut, Timmy probably has a Brazilian. As we sit here typing this, Serena is speechless. Which is as rare as a Lochness Monster sighting.

 

Now that we've raped your sight with those atrocities, allow us to make everything better by presenting our Hair of Fame inductees for 2013. Not every proper facial hair style is acceptable for every dude. Like a snowflake, no two beards are alike. For every well-kept full beard is another guy who looks like a hobo when attempting the same style. We aim to cover all aspects of proper hair styles so that you (and the remainder of the MLB) can find one suitable to your (and their) face.

 

Let's start with the basic: no hair whatsoever as best demonstrated by Matt Cain:

Dear sweet Matthew is as bare as a baby's booty. He might not be old enough to grow hair yet, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that he's found a superb look and embraced it like a champ. If you're ever uncertain as to which look you should go for, go for this one. You can't possible f*ck it up. If you do, you're a special kind of stupid that has bigger problems than shaving.

 

The next step up from totally clean-shaven is a "kept" 5:00 shadow like the kind sported by Serena's Big Texan:

"Kept" meaning pre-meditated. Meaning you wake up in the morning and set your buzzer to the level that keeps your 5:00 shadow just the way it is. You don't let it get past this point nor do you completely shave it off. You keep it just so. Andy Pettitte demonstrates this look with perfection. Don't you just want to nuzzle up in his nook now?

 

Some of you may want to take this step a bit further without committing to full beard or full goatee. You're a man! You WANT to be hairy! It's in the XY chromosome to be hairy so why not embrace it? Kurt Nieuwenhuis rocks what we've been calling "The Scruffy Beard." Not quite full beard, but more than the 5:00 shadow. Look how lovely it is:

For men who want to sport this do, you'll still need to use a buzzer as opposed to a razor since you'll want to keep the scruff mowed and under control without lopping it off. Depending on the hairiness of the dude and the coarseness of his hair, a 5:00 shadow man might need to buzz every morning, but not a Scruffy Beard man (unless you're our friend, Tom, who apparently clean shaves in the morning and sprouts a 5:00 shadow by...well...5:00). A Scruffy Beard man might be able to go 1-2 mornings without turning on his buzzer. Again, the science on how long you can go between buzzes really depends on the individual. We encourage you to experiment with your buzzer to find out what works for you and your hair.

 

Finally, some of you still may not feel that this is enough hair to proudly declare your manliness. Some of you might want, dare we say it? The full beard. We do want to preface this by saying that neither of us find this look particularly attractive, but if you're gonna go for it, please remember to keep it groomed and free of food and other assorted particles. The King Daddy of the full beard is Brian McCann. His beard is always flawless. We've got TWO examples of stellar beards in the league this season and that is RA Dickey and Pedro Alvarez:

Notice how the beards are not scraggly and out of control. Notice how neither men has bits of their morning meal hanging out within the layers of their fur. Remember these men when considering your beard cultivation.

 

This week's baseball notes includes nothing of value, but yesterday WAS International Star Wars Day and for that, we have this:

You People Don't Even Know Us

You may recall that during the offseason, we gave you a quiz to see how well you knew us. The answers to all of the questions were available for you to look up on the world wide web. They could've been found on the blog, our Facebook page, OR our Twatter feed. This is not complicated shit, people. Yet, overall, you scored an underwhelming 40% on this quiz. How do you fail open book test? It takes a special kind of stupid to accomplish that. You did NOT graduate from TBB University. You will NOT be the next Pussycat Doll. Let's talk about this quiz and where you all went wrong. Unfortunately, the database that created this quiz does not tell us which questions you struggled with, only your final scores, therefore we'll break down each question.

First question:
What was our first out-of-town baseball stadium?
Your options were Safeco Field, PNC Park, Oriole Park, Citizen's Bank Park, or RFK Stadium. The correct answer is RFK Stadium. Do you know how simple it is to find the answer to this question? Literally scroll to the top of the blog, click "MLB Stadiums," search through the blog posts of our visited stadiums, and find which post has the oldest date. That's it. This was a no fail situation.

Next question:
Which TBB has blonde hair?
The correct answer is Serena. Yes, folks, she currently has dark brown hair and lately, she's been sticking to that color, but deep down, Serena is a natural blonde. Lisa may DYE her hair blonde, but under no circumstances is she a natural blonde. You HAD to have known that, right? LOOK at us. Which of us seems more likely to a natural blonde? Do you really look at Lisa and think she might actually have blonde hair without dye assistance? Shame. On. You.

#3:
Which TBB favored Coors Field above all other stadiums? Serena, Lisa, neither, or both?
Again, this was a no fail situation. All you had to do was scroll to the top of this blog and select, "Rank Em'!" We each rank and talk about all of the stadiums we've visited (with the exception of last year's visits...mostly because we're lazy and forgot). The correct answer is Lisa.

#4:
Who is Lisa's Forbidden Love? Joey Votto, David Wright, Cole Hammels, or Derek Jeter?
Ok. We'll admit that it's totally understandable where you could've gotten confused on this one. The answer is Cole Hammels as Lisa is a Mets fan and Hammels pitches for the hated Phillies. It's like a one-sided version of Romeo & Juliet. Like Juliet stalked the crap out of Romeo and Romeo ran away in terror. Where could you find the answer to this question? Scroll to the top of this blog and click, "TBB Cronies & Lingo." Voila.

#5:
Which TBB hates mayo? Lisa, Serena, or we both hate mayo?
The correct answer is Serena. This is something we have discussed at length regularly...on our blog, Facebook page, AND Twatter feed. When Serena's food is accidentally served to her with mayo on it, she has to cover it with a napkin because the sight of mayo disgusts her so much.

#6:
What was our first out-of-town free giveaway? Chicago Cubs license plate frame, Jack Cust bobblehead, Angels baseball hat, Mount Rushmore poster, or Teddy Roosevelt bobblehead?
Correct answer: Teddy Roosevelt bobblehead. Remember how you found the answer to our first out-of-town baseball stadium? You would've found the answer to this question the same way. Oh, and side note: we never got a free Angels hat. Lisa was given that heinous hat by The Favorite. Reading is fundamental.

#7:
Who is Winkie? The cat we adopted together from the North Shore Animal League, one of AJ's cats who tried to suck the breath from Lisa, Serena's family pet, or the imaginary cat we adopted with AJ Burnett?
For starters, without referencing the precise locations of the answer on this blog, if you knew Serena at all, you'd know that she'd never have a cat as a family pet. Secondly, we've clearly referenced AJ's cats sporadically on this blog and on Facebook as Thundercat and She-Ra. Thirdly, we have imaginary relationships with a TON of professional athletes and celebrities. It's like one giant imaginary orgy. OBVIOUSLY, we'd have an adopted imaginary pet with one of them. The precise locations of this answer can be found in both letters to AJ Burnett, "TBB Lingo & Cronies," and there's a photo of him on Facebook in one of our albums. Probably "Wall Photos."

#8:
Which New York baseball team boasts the best sausage sandwich? The Mets or Yankees?
Correct answer: Yankees! Where did you learn this tid bit of information? Back in the day when the former Yankees Stadium and Shea Stadium were still our home team venues (and back when this blog was still a virgin), we talked about how Shea Stadium had the better hot dogs and Yankees Stadium had the better sausage sandwiches. Which probably explains why Lisa finds more guidos at Yankees games than at Mets games.

#9:
Who is Serena going to leave Justin Morneau for? Barry Zito, Chris Cornell, Aaron Rogers, or Justin Verlander?
While the answer to this question is not stated outright anywhere on the blog, it can be determined through basic deductive reasoning by visiting "TBB Lingo & Cronies." There, you will see that Barry Zito is Serena's Future Ex-Husband #1 and Chris Cornell is Serena's Future Ex-Husband #2. Therefore they can't POSSIBLY be the correct answer to this question (you know why, right? Do we have to explain to you that the reason is that both of these men came BEFORE Justin?). Of the remaining choices, who is the man that we talk about incessantly on this [baseball] blog? Justin Verlander.

#10:
Which player did Lisa forget to hand a pen to when asking for an autograph? Brad Ziegler, Huston Street, Barry Zito, or Matt Cain?
Barry Zito. Where did you learn this? In our letter to Barry Zito regarding his offensive moustache. Side note: we do not have autographs from Huston Street OR Matt Cain.

#11:
Which TBB is obsessed with mini-doughnuts? Lisa or Serena?
Lisa. This obsession stems from our trip to San Francisco's Pier 39 and has been referenced in the PETCO Park and Target Field blog posts, as well as on the "While You're in Town" page.

#12:
Who is the player we refer to as the "Big Texan?" Roger Clemens, Roy Oswalt, Josh Hamilton, Andy Pettitte?
Seriously, if any of you got this question wrong, you deserve a dick punch. It's a borderline weekly Facebook post. We're not even going to give you the right answer because if you don't know it, shame on you and your house!

#13:
Which TBB can quote the entire script of Willow? Lisa or Serena?
Which TBB has the mentality of a 5 year old boy? That's basically all you needed to ask yourself to figure out the answer to that question, but if you needed a little help, all you had to do is go to the "Meet Serena" page and see that one of her favorite things is the movie Willow.

#14:
At what stadium did we witness major side boob? "Old" Yankees Stadium, Citi Field, Citizen's Bank Park, or Dodger Stadium?
Yankees Stadium. You could've figured this out by reading any of these stadiums' blog posts.

#15:
Where did Lisa get roofied? And then turn around and accidentally roofie Serena? New York, Philly, Minneapolis, Oakland, or Milwaukee?
Minneapolis and you could've found this information had you read about our recommendations for good time in Minneapolis on our "While You're in Town Page."

In conclusion, you suck. And you're still not getting a poll.

Erin and The Favorite are coming to town this weekend. Serena will be going to Sunday's Yankees game with them (she'll cover the out of towners' first Yankees Stadium experience for the blog separately) and then on Tuesday, we'll be escorting the duo to Citi Field (also to be covered on the blog).

This week's baseball notes:
RA Dickey's been struggling with his new team, sporting an over 4 ERA (closer to 5, to be quite frank) and a 2-3 record. He attributes the issues to ongoing shoulder and back problems, which has caused him to throw his knuckleball slower. He is expected to get an MRI on the problem areas in the near future.

Also set to get an MRI is Kevin Youkilis, who continues to suffer from a stiff back. We're confident that MRI results will show an enormous stripper pole jammed up his rectum. Remind us again why the Yankees signed him? They could've signed Eric Chavez to hold down the fort at third until AROD's return for half off and they would've had a bad ass third baseman in the process. Now they have a tool box that looks like a cracker jack at third when he does play and rides the bench with a stiff back the rest of the time. What. Purpose. Does. He. Serve? Except to annoy the ever the loving crap out of Serena.

What Would Make This Day More Special?

Sooo, you guys are no longer getting polls. Last week's poll was blantantly ignored and previous polls received minimal feedback. Congratulations. You get nothing and like it.

Stadium Tour Update: up until yesterday afternoon, we had almost nothing booked for a stadium tour that's taking place in two months. All we had was tickets to the stadium tours and the games. No plane to get us to and from St. Louis. No place to stay. No mode of transportation to get us to and from Kansas City. The worst part is that we didn't even realize that we haven't done anything until two days ago. So that's swell. Yesterday, Serena booked our hotel (the lovely Hilton St. Louis Downtown within walking distance of the stadium) and our rental car for the Kansas City trip. We still have no flights to get us to and from St. Louis, but at the very least, when we get there, we'll have a place to sleep. Win.

It's too early in the season for a "Facial Hair Around the League" post, but we assure you that when the appropriate day arrives, THIS is going to be addressed:

The Google/Bing is referring to this snazzy style as a "skullet." Whatever the f*ck that means. All this "do" seems to accomplish is make Bryce Harper look like an a-hole. He already IS an a-hole, but that doesn't mean you should LOOK like one too. Harper, we forbid you to continue taking shaving advice from Jayson Werth. The Nationals do not need 2 Missing Links playing for them. At this rate, the entire bad segment of facial hair blog post is just going to consist of Nationals players.

This week's baseball notes are riddled with injuries:
The big news is that Derek Jeter will most likely not be returning to action until after the All Star Break, which is later than initially anticipated. Turns out that Jeter had re-fractured his ankle and he'll be unable to resume rehab activities for at least 4-8 weeks.

The Nationals have placed Ryan Zimmerman on the 15-day DLbecause of a strained left hamstring. In his place, the Nats have called up prospect Anthony Rendon from Double-A.

The Indians have placed Brett Myers on the 15-day DL with elbow inflammation.

Kevin Youkilis has back problems, but who cares? From what Serena can tell, he's not that impressive of a first baseman. Perhaps if he removed the pole from his ass, his back would feel vastly improved. Shane Victorino is also suffering from back issues and at the very least, was benched for the first game of today's doubleheader.

A's Brett Anderson supposedly "feels a lot better" since being removed from his start in the first inning on Friday with a sprained ankle. Well, congratulations, Brett. Glad you're feeling "better." Your presence on Tigers Love Pepper has been entirely useless. He'll be evaluated before his next start, which is on Wednesday.

By the way, the answer to this blog title's question is if SpikeTV followed up Temple of Doom with Last Crusade. It certainly isn't Harper's skullet.

Madness? THIS. IS. SPARTA!

We hope you enjoyed our solo accounts of Opening Day. Hopefully, next year, we can actually attend each other's Opening Days like we'd originally planned. But now that we've written that, we probably just jinxed ourselves. Yesterday, we ran in the Spartan Sprint at Citi Field and we promise we'll tell you all about it and post pictures, but first we feel compelled to inform you that we're writing this blog while drinking beer. This may get sloppy near the end.

Before we get into the nitty gritty of the race, it's time for us to discuss Best Team Name in Spartan Race History (mind you, we've only been to one race, but we're pretty confident in our decisions). In first place is none other but, us, "The Fear Boners (raging in your pants)." In second place, we have "Morning Wood (we go hard)." Their logo was a sun holding a piece of wood. To Team Gerard Butlers, we give third place. Yes, Butlers pluralized. There was more than one Gerard Butler. Serena also appreciated Team Stark (Game of Thrones reference), but unfortunately, they weren't enough to get into the Top 3. If the logo had been of Sean Bean's face instead of the direwolf sigil, THEN we would've had a competition going. This reminds us, why isn't there a meme for, "one does not simply show up to a Spartan Race without training?" Because that's us. Lisa did zumba and following the Yoga Journal Conference, Serena sat around catching up on her shows via the internet machine.

Ok, now for the Spartan Sprint a la Pop Up Video-style:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hope you enjoyed our innovative form of lazy blogging. We will be wearing our medals all day tomorrow.

Now for this week's baseball notes:
By now, we've all seen the clip of Carlos Quentin trying to level Zack Greinke for hitting him with a pitch on the shoulder. As a result of the brawl, Greinke will be out for at least 8 weeks with a broken collarbone, which is a glorious waste of money. Quentin will be serving an 8-game suspension due to his actions in the fight. For starters, Greinke is half of Quentin's size and secondly, Quentin got hit on the lousy shoulder. Was Quentin on his period or something? Who charges the mound for something so stupid? Unless Greinke beaned him on the shoulder and followed it up with, "Your mother was easy all night long," Quentin looks like a real a-hole in this scenario.

Andy Pettitte's start has been pushed back again due to back spasms, which begs the obvious question. How much sex do the Pettittes have that this man has had to skip two starts? More importantly, how does Serena get in on the action (minus the Mrs.)?

Clay Buchholz took a no-no into the 8th today against the Rays in the Sox's 5-0 victory. Kelly Johnson's broken-bat single leading off the inning didn't really do much in terms of preventing the Rays from getting their butt kicks, but it, at the very least, prevented another douchebag from having a no-hitter.