The Circle of TBB

Last week we asked you if Lisa should ditch her god mother duties for the sake of stadium touring. Of 7 total votes, 3 of you felt that the fact that we were asking you this question makes Lisa a selfish older sister/not nice word. Did we not mention that last year for Lisa’s 30th birthday, Sister got married? Not to be tit for tat or anything, but Sister definitely stole Lisa’s thunder and caused everyone (but Serena) to forget her birthday. ANYWAY, in close second, two of you highly intelligent beings agreed that we should definitely ditch Sister because this is our opportunity to go see the Giants, Tiny Tim, and Steamy Guido Zito in action. While we commend you for your high IQ’s, we must admit that perhaps that’s a bit severe and over the top. Even for us, that might just be too mean. Besides…Lisa will most likely be thrown out of the family if she does that. 1 person felt that we should investigate which month had better giveaways before making any decisions and 1 person thought Lisa should call the bullpen to “coach” Sister in relief while we party it up in LA with hot mama Erin (who does not actually have children nor is she pregnant) and her trusty man, Matt. Perhaps Billy Wagner is available and he’d much better at delivering babies than delivering outs in the 9th inning with men in scoring position.

We’d like to discuss our progress regarding Team Fred, which we’re not allowed to call Team Fred because there already is a Team Fred. So we started off our charity work by emailing Lance Armstrong and the American Cancer Society to discuss potential fundraising events. Neither has replied, which is a bit disheartening because we’re actually trying to do something meaningful. It’s not like we asked The One Who Shall Not Be Named to be our Facebook friend and then he ignored us. Because that we would completely understand. Why are charities ignoring us? So…we tried a different tactic. Perhaps Lance Armstrong and the American Cancer Society are too wrapped up in their events to pay attention to someone as small time as the TBB. *sob* We decided that we would just fundraise by ourselves and split our earnings between the Oral Cancer Foundation and the Sean Kimerling Testicular Cancer Foundation. We’ve emailed both organizations to see if we can gain their support. We plan on walking the Jones Beach State Park bike path on June 20th before the Mets battle the Yankees at Yankees Stadium in the Subway Series. We feel all warm and fuzzy inside for our good deeds. *applause* Side note: if anyone is interested in supporting Serena and her walk for breast cancer in honor of Grannydukes, you can find the link to her fundraising page on the sidebar.

Now that we’ve consulted with our readers and our employers, our 2010 stadium tour is becoming a bit more solidified. Granted, nothing is booked yet as baseball tickets have yet to go on sale (and why haven’t they? They’ve already released the schedules. Why not the tickets too…and the promotional giveaway schedule while they’re at it), but plans are afoot. We will be going May and since we could not get a full two weeks off at work, we were forced to change around our Dodgers and Padres series. As a result, we’re basically attending a game every other day and traveling between LA and San Diego. So…we’ll be seeing the Athletics/Angels, Giants/Padres, and Padres/Dodgers. Yes…we’re stuck seeing the Padres twice. While in LA, we’ll be staying with hot mama Erin and checking out Disney Land. We’ve already found an awesome hotel that is located near Sea World in San Diego that we will be cashing in our Wyndham Rewards to pay for. Apparently, it’s one of the nicest hotels we’ve ever stayed in. It’s a shame that we’re only staying there overnight. In June, Serena will be returning to LA briefly to visit hot mama Erin for a weekend and to see the Yankees play the Dodgers. She will not have to pretend to be a Dodgers fan during this trip.

On a lighter note, today is quite cool outside and we’re finally not sweating through our corporate attire. So take that, Ben Affleck (again, see glossary)! For those of you who think you know who Ben Affleck is, think again (ahem, MJ)!!

Today’s baseball notes: Laurie (you must remember Laurie, but for you new folks, please see glossary for more information) told Lisa that her fellow little league papa, Alan recently participated in a golf outing where he met Ron Darling and was nice enough to mention our blog to him. To the best of our knowledge, Ron Darling has not checked out the site nor does he care to because he is much too busy being #1 Mets announcer and having to pull his weight in the SNY booth because his co-announcers are complete a$$ clowns. Kudos to Alan for trying to market the TBB though. On Tuesday night, the Yankees finally clinched a playoff spot in their 6-5 route of the Angels. Bobby Cox has announced that after the 2010 season, he will be retiring as Braves’ manager. This is completely strange to us. Bobby Cox is the Braves. This is just as strange as if Chipper Jones announced his retirement. Not that we like Chipper Jones or anything, but he and the Braves are like Jenny and Forrest Gump. Chipper should be playing third long after he’s confined to a wheelchair at the age of 95.

We head off into the weekend and a Red Sox/Yankees series with the delightful and uplifting words of ABBA, “cancer foundations take a chance on us! If you change your mind, we’re the first in line, honey we’re still free! Gonna do our very best, it ain’t no lie! If you put us to the test, we can raise lots of money!”

The West Coast Has the Sunshine & the TBB Will Get So Tan

We were unaware that our readers think that we’re No Talent A-holes with severe mental issues. Exactly why do we even have readers if you think so poorly of us? Are our mental issues that comical that you need to tune in every week to see what nonsense we speak next? 7 of you voted on last week’s poll in which we asked you if MLB players should accept us as friends on Facebook. Let’s just say the results have not been kind. For starters only 1 felt that we seem like nice girls, therefore players should definitely accept us. 3 of you seem to think that we’re so crazy that no MLB player in their right mind should accept our friendship. All because of Tim Lincecum Appreciation Day. We just don’t get it. He absolutely loved this holiday. Why would you think it’s crazy? The remaining 3 voters chose the option, “Forget answering the question. Why are you Facebook stalking strangers?” For you three, we have only one thing to say to you: if you are going to try to tell us that you don’t Facebook stalk strangers, then you sit on a throne of lies and you smell like beef and cheese. Okay, so maybe you don’t try to find Justin Morneau’s non-existent Facebook page and maybe you’re not upset that you found The One Who Shall Not Be Named’s page and saw that his profile picture was of him and a scantily clad hot chick. But we’ll bet that you’ve at least Facebook stalked your exes! Or spouses of your exes (who are definitely most likely strangers)! Don’t deny it. The good news is that no one voted for us being ugly. We may need to take prescription drugs, but at least we’re not “ugly.” Granted, it doesn’t mean we’re good-looking either. Just not ugly.

Onto more important matters! On Tuesday night, the MLB released the 2010 regular season schedule. Clearly this means TBB preparations may begin. We will either be visiting Erin and the West Coast in either April or May. The series in question are:
Angels vs. A’s 4/9-4/11 (before you accuse us of stalking Brad Ziegler, let us just tell you that this is how it worked out! Why would we stalk him when he can’t even tell his #1 fans about Root Beer Float Day, $1 Hot Dog Day, Pink Pashmina Day, or Player T-Shirt Day? We have to hear about it from the A’s mass email distribution)
Dodgers vs. Diamondbacks 4/13-4/15
Padres vs. Giants 4/19-4/21 (potential reunion for the TBB and Tiny Tim. BONUS: Barry Zito, which is actually only a bonus for Serena)
OR
Angels vs. A’s 5/14-5/16 (Yes, the A’s again. Shut up, you skeptics! We’re not stalking)
Dodgers vs. Astros 5/17-5/18
Padres vs. Cardinals 5/25-5/27
Now…there pros and cons for both of these options. Pros for April? Our trip would be right around the corner! Serena would get to see Erin that much quickly. Tiny Tim Lincecum and Barry Zito! Cons for April? Sister is pregnant. She is potentially due 4/8 and for some selfish reason, she’s asked Lisa to be her support system during the birth. Please keep in mind that Lisa has no children and has no idea what the labor process is all about. Pros for May? Lisa doesn’t miss the birth of her godchild. We have more time to collect spare change…and that’s basically it for pros. Cons? There doesn’t seem to be any cons for May with the exception of not being in the same stadium as Tiny Tim and Barry Zito. Oh! If we go to LA in May, we’ll miss the Twins/Yankees series at Yankees Stadium, which will be a bummer. Either way, providing nothing sends him to the DL or another team, we’ll be in the same town as BFFer.

Other fun items from the 2010 schedule include the knowledge that the Twins will be playing the Mets at Citi Field and Serena will no longer have to Google Justin Morneau because he will be in the New York area. Hopefully, he won’t bring his cute wife. Other good news regarding Citi Field is that the Mets will FINALLY be home on Lisa’s birthday. Can we say, Happy Birthday to Lisa on the jumbotron? Perhaps a Mr. Met visit to our seats?

Major props to Serena’s co-worker, MJ (father of the Shea Stadium Mr. Met in our mascot entourage), who was nice enough to give Lisa an autographed photo of Ron Darling. His charity does not mean that we will stop stealing Mr. Met from his office for our stadium trips, but it was still a good deed. As you can see in the photo, Ron has been added to Lisa’s blossoming Mets memorabilia collection. Can you find the TBB in the picture? Hmmm….
Speaking of charity and good deeds, on October 18th, Serena (and her friend, Maureen) will be participating in the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk at Jones Beach State Park. If you wish to contribute to the cause, click here. The walk prompted us to think about what the TBB can do together (other than Serena being a cruncher for St. Jude’s and Lisa being a counter of crunches) to be people helping people. Both Papadukes and Papa L are named Fred and are cancer survivors. We felt that since it was an issue close to our hearts, we would walk in their names for testicular and oral cancer. Unfortunately, after conducting all sorts of research, we couldn’t find anything geared specifically to these diseases. So…our options are to walk for cancer in general (which we cannot find a walk for either! If you know of one in the New York area, please email us!) or do something on our own. We wanted to be called Team Fred, but apparently some guy from Sloan-Kettering runs for cancer and is “Team Fred.” So not only can we not find a walk to participate in, but we also no longer have a team name. We think we need some community service guidance because apparently we’re not very good at it.

Today’s Baseball Notes: As all you probably already know, Derek Jeter broke Lou Gehrig’s Yankees franchise all-time hits record on September 11th against the Orioles. On September 13th, Ichiro Suzuki of the Mariners set the MLB record for having a 200-hit season for the 9th straight year against the Rangers. Fellow TBB, Tiny Tim returned to the mound on September 14th against the Rockies. He lasted 7 innings, allowing 6 hits, 1 run, giving up 4 walks, and striking out 11. We’d say his back’s no longer bothering him. The Giants defeated the Rockies 9-1. Justin Morneau is out for the rest of the season (SOB!) with a stress fracture in his lower back (which Serena would love to fix for him). He’ll have to rest the back for three months, but surgery does not appear to be necessary. In further Bay Area news, the Giants activated Randy Johnson from the 60-day DL on Wednesday night (September 16th) and plan to use him out of the bullpen. Finally, Mike Hampton of the Astros is apparently the equivalent of being the Bella (from Twilight) of baseball. He underwent surgery for his torn left rotator cuff and other damage (what this exactly means, we don’t know). He will miss the entire 2010 season. Mike Hampton, you may be good-looking and when healthy, a kick a$$ athlete, but damn! When do you actually play????

We part ways with you with the inspiring words of LL Cool J. “We’re going back to Cali, back to Cali…to see Erin.”