Chicks Dig the Long Ball

First off, in the interest of full disclosure, I only understood about three words in The Queen E's post below, and two of them were 'the' and 'Philly.' In my defense, I'm borderline retarded when it comes to basketball. I can tell you that it's probably pretty awesome that the Celtics are doing so well, but I'm not sure I'd be able to name more than three guys on the team. Seriously, she starts talking to me about jump shots and point guards and my eyes glaze over and I have to tell some dick jokes just to keep myself awake. I'm all class.

Even if I did understand basketball? I probably wouldn't care, because it's baseball season, and baseball ate my life. Outside of a wacky Man City/Portsmouth match this morning in which Man City inexplicably scored twice in about thirty seconds, my firm yet ample Irish ass has been ensconced on the couch watching baseball, the real love of my life, since the time I woke up today. (It's okay. My husband knows. He's fine with the fact that the Other Man in our marriage is actually 30 teams of 25 men each, and wow, that sounds a lot more whorish than it probably should.)

I'm just warning you now, people: If we're going to get into this whole weird relationship where we talk about sports and stats and how I kind of want to put my tongue in Jonathan Papelbon's mouth solely because of his fastball (okay, that's a slight lie, as the fact that the boy is fucking off his rocker doesn't hurt - I dig on the crazy.), you need to know this about me. I'm being kinder to you than I am to most people, gentle reader. I let them find out on their own, and its inevitably terrifying for just about everyone concerned.

So since the Phillies are about to get swept by the Mets by stranding approximately seven hundred men on base and hitting nothing but double play balls and just enough home runs to not completely humiliate me on national TV, let's confront one thing here, and let's just get it out of the way.

I love Chase Utley. Go on. Start mocking me. Yeah, I know this blog is named 'Real Bitches Don't Wear Pink Hats' (and we don't) and I know that Chase Utley is sixteen kinds of dreamy (and he is) and more or less the King of the White Girls here in the old Illadelph (due, I am saddened to assume, mostly to the blue eyes and the dimples and not his willingness to sacrifice his body on any given play and the fact that he once broke his wrist in a game and continued to play, which is incredibly fucking hot if you're me and you're crazy), but I love him. Unabashedly and unashamedly. I'm one of those jackasses with an Utley jersey.

But here's the thing: It took me three years to suck it up and buy that jersey, because every pink hatter who has ever even looked at a baseball game sideways immediately rushed out and bought a pink Utley jersey about two days after he was called up. I always joked that I was going to buy an Utley jersey and cross-stitch a manifesto into it under the letters that 'I own this jersey because he's a fucking fantastic, gritty player who does what it takes to get on base and to keep the opposing team off base, including some of the more ridiculously acrobatic catches that I have ever seen, and he would have given J-Roll a serious run for his MVP money last year had he not had to spend a huge chunk of the season out with a broken damn wrist, so don't judge me, because I probably know more about baseball than you, and yes, that was an E4, so stop complaining about the call, because he has a lot of things, but a great arm isn't always one of them, and no, Pat Burrell actually does not suck, so kindly shut the fuck up.' But you know, I'm lazy and that's a lot of stitching.

So anyway, I didn't want to buy the jersey, because all it meant was that I was going to be relegated to the 'chick at the game with her man' file by any and all who looked at me. And then I woke up and decided, more or less, 'Fuck it.' I've spent the last three Opening Days explaining to morons at the ballpark that no, Jackie Robinson didn't play for the Phillies, every team retired his number, and yes, the pitcher can totally have an error. I've also had to explain that Pat Burrell isn't nearly as terrible as the boo birds continue to think he is, but that Ryan Howard is actually not so awesome of late. So fuck it. I'm a girl who knows baseball like the back of her hand, and I'm going to buy the jersey with my favorite player's name on it. All it means is that I get to shock some morons who think that girls can't know baseball when I open my mouth and rip a strip off them for cracking on Jayson Werth for striking out, like, once. (Yeah, it really sucked that we were stuck with him in center when he was batting an obscene .444, you morons.)

I'd also like to point out that while I was typing the above paragraph, Utley went yard. Again. Against the Mets. Again. So haters? Suck it.

And because I am a terrible, terrible fangirl, I have only now discovered that Chase Utley has a blog, and that it is exactly as humorless and businesslike as one would expect. I adore the man, but he's not exactly a barrel of laughs.

Whatever, have a picture of him and his by-all-accounts-lovely wife saving puppies. (No, seriously.)