I have a confession to make.

I'm in love with another man.

Oh, it's okay. My husband knows about it. In fact, he's done nothing but encourage this whole sordid affair. It's kind of endearing.

I'm in love with contract year Pat Burrell. Oh, sure, I make jokes about his funny syphilis and his deeply questionable fashion sense, but the man is hitting like his ass is on fire. (Normally, I would say that his ass was on fire because of the clap, but this is a kinder, gentler Maggie talking.)

He's ranked second in the NL in home runs. (Behind only My Boyfriend Chase Utley, mind you.) He's ranked second in the NL in RBI, third in slugging percentage (an eye-popping .670), and fourth in both OBP and OPS. It's not just the hitting, either. He's working counts like it's his job- 24 BBs so far, and we're barely into May.

The hitting? Has been clutch, too. In other years, seeing him stroll up to the plate with two outs on the board in a tie game would have been met with the gnashing of teeth and the rending of various garments, as he would have inevitably struck out and launched us into extra innings. Not Contract Year Pat Burrell. Contract Year Pat Burrell worked the count full, and then turned and launched one into the stratosphere. Game over, Phils win, everybody goes home happy.

The whole season has been full of moments like that- big hits just when the team needed them, diving catches to get the team out of innings. Hell, the fact that he's actually hustling for the ball once in a while is a major improvement.

Which only makes me sad when I think about it too much. He's having an amazing year (and put together a solid season last year, mind you, putting the team on his back when Utley was out with a broken wrist and soldiering through) and is set to make a lot of money when his contract with the Phils expeires at the end of the season. And, let's face it, he's not making that money with the Phillies.

My husband keeps musing aloud that he wonders if the Yankees would sign Burrell. I've taken to just glaring at him and muttering darkly under my breath every time he does.

Pat's said that he wants to stay in Philadelphia when he's done. This has to be a total lie, as the poor man has taken absolute rafts of shit from the Boo Birds in the outfield.(Occasionally, I've booed him from my seat in center, but that's usually because he's been too busy staring at the ball girl to, you know, field.) I'd love to keep him around, if only because his manwhorishness makes me laugh. I'm not, however, holding my breath. He's going to make the single female population of another city very, very happy next year.


Ladies: Take care of him, and take care of his fine, fine ass. (What? I can't ogle? Bullshit. He does it all the time.)

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.)