The Heat is On…It’s on the Street

Last week we asked you what you thought players did if they weren’t in the post season and 11 of you answered the call! This must be some sort of TBB poll record. The leader of the pack with 7 votes is that they buy two flashy cars with the enormous paycheck they don’t really deserve since they clearly didn’t do anything to help their team make it to the post season. We’re happy to see that our readers are just as jaded as we are. Next runner up with only 2 votes is the theory that players wrestle anacondas with Austin Stevens Snakemaster in their spare time. *Shudder* 1 person felt that players probably play mini golf all day, every day. While this is something that we may do if we had more money than say, George Steinbrenner, we sincerely doubt that there are many (if any) MLB players who would consider spending their days doing this. It is more likely that they’d rather drive around in golf carts, wearing plaid pants and pretending to be Tiger Woods. Another person thought that players definitely go to Vegas in the off season and perform part time as a Pussycat Doll. We don’t think that this happens either, but that being said, we’d definitely pay good money to see Houston Street shaking his goodies on stage in a corset and thigh-highs. No one voted for the option of spending a lot of time at yoga retreats. We find this a little ridiculous because we know for a fact of one player in particular who’d fit right in at a yoga retreat. We don’t want to single anyone out by mentioning specific names, but we will tell you that it sounds like Zarry Bito. Sadly, “Releasing negative energy by ‘reflecting’ during private time” garnered no votes either. This is completely depressing! As far as Serena’s concerned, she firmly believes that they take part in this activity DURING the season and therefore it’s only natural that they’d do this during the off season as well.

On Sunday, Serena will be walking for Grannydukes in the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk at Jones Beach. Please pray for her that she won’t have to suffer through 5 miles in a downpour. If you wish to contribute to the cause, the link to her fundraising page is located on the sidebar to the right. As you may or may not have read on Facebook (especially if you’re not our fan), we’ve received our care packages from the Oral Cancer Foundation and Sean Kimerling Testicular Cancer Foundation! Megan (OC Foundation) sent us brochures galore filled with information regarding the foundation and oral cancer, stickers, clever buttons, and several silver pins. Below is a picture of a pin (we apologize for it not being that clear, but the glare from the lights on the pin made picture taking a bit difficult).
Rosemary (SKTC Foundation) sent us quite possibly the best hats in the world. If you look closely (particularly at Lisa’s hat), you will notice that we fastened one of the pins sent by Megan to the hat so that we can promote both foundations at the same time. We’re not just hat racks, ya know!
This is what the back of the best hat in the damn world looks like (Go on! Seize them!):
Well…the Division Series was pretty exciting despite it consisting mostly of sweeps. Thanks to Matt Holliday, the Dodgers cleaned house in that NLDS. We wonder if Holliday goes to sleep every night with the haunting image of a ball hitting the green grass instead of his mitt. Despite winning game 2, the Rockies really blew the games in their own ball park and allowed the Phillies to advance to the most heinous NLCS known to man. Dodger versus Phillies? Really? Why? Now we’re forced to pick between a man who looks like a smellier version of Pig Pen in a crusty helmet and a team whose fans gave us the worst stadium experience to date. The Angels man handled the Red Sox, which filled Serena with a pleasure she’s never known before. This is what it must feel like to win the lottery. The Yankees swept the Twins, but not without the Twins making the games interesting. Serena felt that it was clear that the Twins’ offense suffered from the lack of *sigh* Justin Morneau’s bat.

Since there hasn’t been a rant like this in awhile, here we go! We noticed last night during game 1 of NLCS that Alyssa Milano was nowhere to be seen in the stands. Did anyone happen to catch a glimpse of her? If a celebrity was present at the game, wouldn’t they be shown on television? Especially one who has written an entire book about what a huge Dodgers/baseball fan she is. Correct us if we’re wrong, but we believe the exact quote was that she “bleeds blue.” Contrary to the regular season, last night, the Phillies’ pitching dominated during the later innings while the Dodgers’ pitching seemed a bit confused. This afternoon is game 2 of the NLDS. Lisa hopes that an enormous flying saucer lands in the middle of the field and abducts both teams and Alyssa Milano. Due to this unfortunate circumstance, the MLB will be forced to choose two other teams to compete for the National League title. Two teams that we’d rather watch. Perhaps the San Francisco Giants (if Zarry Bito isn’t too busy in the downward dog) and the Pittsburgh Pirates?

Can the Yankees stop Torii Hunter and the Angels from repeating the last ALCS that they met in? Tonight is game 1 of the ALCS. Hopefully, the rain holds out long enough to actually get the game in (a little drizzle never hurt anyone). Tomorrow night, AJ Burnett and Joe Saunders will get the start for game 2. If CC wins tonight, we’ll be more confident for tomorrow. However, if he loses, there will be a lot of hand wringing and breath holding tomorrow while watching AJ.

Today’s baseball notes (and yes, surprisingly enough, we have a few that are not related to the playoffs): Late last week, Phillies pitcher, while recovering from surgery, Jamie Moyer developed a blood infection. Yikes! How does that even happen when you’re in a hospital? On Monday, the Chicago Cubs filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy. Do you think they’ll go on sale for something so cheap that the TBB can afford to invest? As in…$1? Billy Wagner announced that he’s considering retiring just shy of 400 saves. This immediately prompted Lisa to do a happy dance, though she’d love to know why he couldn’t have done this when he was with the Mets. Yesterday, Jose Reyes had surgery in Texas to clean scar tissue from the torn hamstring tendon behind his knee. He is expected to be ready for spring training. Will his attitude be fixed by then as well? Last night was game 1 of the NLCS and featured a pitching duel between Cole Hamels and Clayton Kershaw. Phillies ended the game on top 8-6. Game 2 action begins this afternoon at 4:07 pm on TBS. Pedro Martinez will take the mound for Philadelphia and Vincente Padilla will get the start for LA. Later tonight at 7:57 on FOX, New York’s CC Sabathia will take on Anaheim’s John Lackey. If their last performances are a glimpse of what tonight may bring, it’s gonna be a good one!

Finally, Congratulations to Meryl and Kevin on their engagement!

Bono and U2 belted out our feelings when they wrote this classic: "with or without the phillies! we can't live with or without the phillies…on a bed of nails they make us wait. Nothing to win and nothing left to lose..."

Adventures in Division Play

As usual, we’ll start off with last week’s poll results. We asked you if you watched the playoffs even though your team may not have made it. Out of 10 votes, 4 of you said that you’ve moved on to the football season because you were highly dissatisfied with your baseball team of choice. The football season is still early and therefore fantasies of a Super Bowl in the near future are still vibrant. Okay. We can understand that. We don’t agree, but we can understand. 3 of you bleed for the MLB, so OF COURSE you’ll be tuning into the playoffs. You are truly dedicated souls. 1 dirty bird would only tune into the playoffs if it included a naked person running across the field during the game. What if the naked person was Keith Hernandez? Would you still stand by that decision? 2 of you are unable to watch the playoffs because you are currently locked up in a mental institution and are relegated to endless hours of Parliament sessions and the Antique Roadshow on the BBC. We apologize for your “situation.” Best of luck in your padded cell.

We have a few exciting developments to inform you regarding “Team Fred.” The first, and most important, news is that we’ve finally come up with a new name (that to our knowledge, no one from Sloan Kettering uses). We’ve decided on “Fred K’s Cancer” (as in strike out, people! This is a baseball-themed blog, after all). Our next step is to come up with an image that best represent our team. Tech Support Sean suggested using a backwards “K” (as in cancer strikes out looking) in the colors of the cancers’ ribbons. Thoughts? Better suggestions? Email us! Wait…there’s more good news regarding the team formerly known as “Team Fred.” The Oral Cancer Foundation is now on board as well! Okay, we admit that this is probably better news than the fact that we’ve finally come up with a name for our cause. Both the OC Foundation and Sean Kimerling Testicular Foundation are sending us packages to help in our fundraising. The SKT Foundation is sending us hats for us to wear while traveling and the OC Foundation has included pins in theirs. We’ll be fastening the pins to the hats so that we can advertise the foundations simultaneously. Once we receive the packages, we’ll be sure to post pictures here and on Facebook so that you can see.

Speaking of Facebook, it has come to our attention that several people have had difficulty in finding our page! We’ve discovered that you cannot search for “Traveling Baseball Babes” because nothing happens when you do that. Apparently, you have to search “traveling baseball” and we’ll pop up under “pages.” A bit ridiculous, yes, but we’re not the creators of Facebook. We apologize for any inconvenience and confusion that this may have caused.

Today’s Baseball Notes: Naturally, this section will be dealing entirely with the Division Series…considering there’s really nothing else to talk about. Let’s cover what’s already happened first. The Yankees lead their series over the Twins 1-0. While the Twins may have gotten their rears kicked on Wednesday night, they put up an awesome fight against Detroit on Tuesday so major props to them for not giving up! We suspect that they will not go down in this ALDS without push back either. Yesterday afternoon, the Rockies tied up the series against the Phillies by defeating Cole Hamel 5-4. This made Lisa super happy. Since she is a fan wh*re, we’re pretty sure that she’ll be sporting a Rockies poncho soon. Last night, the Angels finally broke the curse and won a playoff game against Boston, defeating Jon Lester 5-0. Go Angels! Unfortunately, the Dodgers took game 2 last night all thanks to Matt Holliday’s awesome blunder in the bottom of the 9th with two outs. Well, Matt…the positive thing to remember is that you’re still good looking. Granted, if the Cardinals lose this series, you’ll go down in history as the Cardinals’ Bill Buckner, but DAMN! You fine!

Now…onto what’s going on this weekend! Game 2 of the Yankees/Twins series will be on TBS tonight at 6:07 pm. AJ Burnett will be taking the mound (with Molina behind the plate) against Nick Blackburn. The Angels/Red Sox game 2 will follow at 9:37 pm with Jered Weaver pitching against Josh Beckett. On Saturday, game 3 for the Dodgers and Cardinals will get underway in St. Louis. Thanks to good ole’ Matt, it’s do or die for the Cards. Vincente Padilla will be taking the mound for LA, while Joel Pineiro will try to stop the bleeding for St. Louis. More game 3 action will be happening in Colorado. Jason Hammel will get the start for the Rockies against Pedro Martinez and his midget. On Sunday, the Red Sox and Angels play game 3 at Fenway. We suspect that this will be the true test for the Angels. Clay Buchholz will take on Scott Kazmir. Should the Cardinals win tomorrow, game 4 will take place following the early Red Sox/Angels game. Chad Billingsley will go for the Dodgers and as of this afternoon, the Cardinals have yet to announce their starter. Rumor has it that they’ve called Brad Ziegler in since it’s obvious no one on the A’s is currently doing anything. It should be interesting since we’ve only seen Ziegler pitch one inning at any given time. Game 3 for the Yankees and Twins will take place in the Metrodome and involves Crash Test Dummy Carl Pavano and Andy Pettitte. Maybe Pavano will break a nail and have to go on the DL before then. Game 4 of the Rockies/Phillies game will be aired quite late on Sunday (10:05 ET) and the pitching match up has yet to be determined.

Leslie Gore summarized last night best when she sang, “It’s Matt Holliday’s party and he can cry if he wants to, cry if he wants to. You would cry too if you blew the game like he did!”

Mustaches & the 2009 Post Season

Last week, we asked you, our faithful following, what you felt was the best free giveaway at a baseball game. We thought we gave you some pretty awesome options, but you still managed to bewilder us. With a whopping 7 votes, Keith Hernandez’s mustache won. Really guys? A mustache? How creepy can you get? Do you really want to leave a ball game with someone else’s facial hair? If you want a mustache so bad, grow one. Well you want it? You got it!
Congratulations. As if we couldn’t look any worse, we’ve actually taped mustaches to our faces just to make you happy. Sadly, we look more manly than Keith Hernandez himself. You people are twisted! Though we suppose it is partially our fault for giving you this option as you’ve demonstrated repeatedly that you cannot be trusted when left to your own devices regarding joke choices. Anyway, the closest runner up had 2 votes and that was for Tiny Tim. We’re pretty sure we know who you are. Honestly, if you offer us an MLB player to come home with us after the game, we will almost always take that option over facial hair (granted, there are always exceptions). How could Keith’s facial hair beat Tiny Tim so badly? He’s so cute and skinny! The mustache is so…skeevy. Only 1 individual voted for an awesome Yankees light up pen. What’s that about? It’s a pen that lights up! You can’t possibly go wrong with that. 1 person wanted a Root Beer Float (which we don’t really blame them as they are delicious). Finally, no one voted for the Mets Build-a-Bear or the A’s pink pashmina. Do you people have issues with stuffed animals and the color pink? The pashmina was for breast cancer!

As you may or may not have noticed, the Traveling Baseball Babes are branching out. We’ve finally joined Facebook. You can find the link to our page on the side bar or by simply searching for “Traveling Baseball Babes” on Facebook. Please become our fan! We only have 20 so far. We’ve posted pictures of the visited stadiums that didn’t make it to our blog as well as pictures of what else we did while on the road.

Also on our sidebar, we’ve linked to our Team Fred charities, The Oral Cancer Foundation and Sean Kimerling Testicular Cancer Foundation, so that you can read more about them.

Ask and you shall receive. When we asked in one of our polls about how we could make our site better, most of you requested that we add a photo album entirely dedicated to mascots. If you scroll to the bottom of the page, you will see exactly that. We are currently working with Tech Support to shrink the size so that it can fit in the sidebar better, but until that happens, it will remain at the bottom. Enjoy it, fellow furries!

Now that October is here, the playoffs are just within our grasps. We know who almost all the teams involved are, but there are a few question marks. We know that the Yankees will host the winner of the AL Central. But who will it be? Will it be the Twins or the Tigers? Despite Morneau being out, Serena still wants the Twins to win. Maybe Morneau will make a miraculous recovery and be able to play? No? Probably not? One can always dream. We also know that the Angels will host the Red Sox. Talk about an ugly series. Interpret that as you will. In the National League, the question marks are much more prevalent. It is still up in the air as to which team (Rockies or Dodgers) will clinch the West and the Wild Card. The Phillies and Cardinals will have to bide their time to see who their opponents will be.

How did the TBB stack up in their playoff picks? After the All Star Break, Lisa stuck to her guns in saying that the Yankees will take the AL East. Serena strongly felt that the division title and the Wild Card would go to either the Yankees or the Red Sox. Looks like we hit a home run with that one. Both of us felt that the Twins would take the Central. While nothing’s definite yet, the Twins definitely still have a shot. All they have to do is win the rest of their games and see two Detroit losses. Lisa, for a lack of a better word, sucked hard core in regards to the AL Wild Card situation. In the beginning of the year, she had actually chosen Oakland…who’s very bad. Don’t get us wrong, we like them, but they’re still bad. After the All Star Break, Lisa let her poncho get the best of her and she chose the White Sox. Yeah…at least she’s still got an awesome poncho. We agreed that the Angels would take the AL West, but that wasn’t too hard to figure out from the get go. For the NL East, Lisa actually went with the Phillies, as did Serena. Score! Again…Lisa had a few issues with the Wild Card situation. She actually thought the Mets would take it. Not so much. We both struck out in regards to the Central. Both of us felt that the Cubs would take the title and Serena thought the Wild Card would go to the Cardinals. The Cardinals have the division, so we suppose that we can give Serena ½ a point for that. Lisa had high hopes for the San Francisco Giants winning the division and it did seem that for awhile, the Giants were making a run for the Wild Card, but unfortunately fell flat when it mattered most. Serena didn’t want to admit it at the time, but thought the West would go to the Dodgers. In our last remaining days of the regular season, time will only tell if Serena will get the full point or just half a point on that one. Not once did the Rockies ever enter either of our minds.
Today’s Baseball Notes: On Sunday, the Yankees clinched the AL East after completing the sweep of the Red Sox. We can only hope that we do not experience another Groundhog Day and witness the Yankees lose in the first round AGAIN. On Monday, the Angels clinched the AL West with an 11-0 route of the Texas Rangers. That’s gotta hurt. Despite rumors, Kate Hudson’s rep denies that she’s pregnant with AROD’s child. Well…congrats to AROD for not having two baby mamas. Josh Beckett had been scratched from his Monday start against the Toronto Blue Jays with back spasms. It makes us wonder how he got these back spasms. Hmmm…as of now, he’s still scheduled to start against Cleveland tomorrow night. The Rangers’ Omar Vizquel is planning on taking up bull fighting when he returns to his home in Venezuela for the winter. We sincerely hope that he doesn’t take a horn to the side since he is one of the best short stops in the game. However, considering last year he went searching for anacondas like Austin Stevens Snakemaster and survived, we think he’ll be just fine. The Rangers were eliminated from contention on Tuesday night when they lost to the Angels 5-2. This loss also guaranteed the Red Sox the AL Wild Card spot. On Wednesday night, Lisa’s oh so favorite team (please read into the heavy layer of sarcasm), the Phillies clinched the NL East again with their 11-3 win over the Astros. Not to harp on embarrassing blow outs, but it is what it is. Since we’re going to continue on the point of mortifying baseball games, the Mets were swept by the Washington Nationals at Nationals Ballpark this week.

In preparation for the post season, we kick off October with the Black Eyed Peas and “Let’s get it started in here!”