A SAD DAY INDEED........

Well, this is a SAD day indeed!
A buddy called me this afternoon and as soon as I picked up the phone and said, "Hello," he responded, "Dude, you'd better rename your dog!"
You see, I have a purebred cocker spaniel named Pudge. Yes, I'm a member of Red Sox Nation. No, my dog isn't named after Carlton Fisk. He's named after Ivan Rodriguez!
I live about 30 miles from Comerica Park. I started attending Detroit Tigers' games back in 1968...I was nine years old. Back then my favourite ballplayer was Tigers' catcher Bill Freehan. I go to about 15 Tigers' games every year...and follow them religiously. I root for the Tigers - unless, of course they're playing the Red Sox!
I was there back in 2003 when the Tigers lost 119 games. Then, during the offseason they signed Ivan "Pudge" Rodriguez! He, immediately, became my favourite player.
Back then Detroit was a No-Man's Land for professional baseball players. After Pudge showed-up in Motown he paved the way for star players like Magglio Ordonez, Gary Sheffield and Miguel Cabrera. Now he's gone. Worse, yet, he's gone to the Yankees!!!
I certainly UNDERSTAND the trade from a business point of view. However, I was hoping that, by some miracle, Pudge would retire as a Tiger.
The dude's a lock for the Hall of Fame! Thirteen Gold Gloves! Fourteen All-Star selections! American League MVP in 1999! MVP of the National League Championship Series in 2003! Won the World Series with the Florida Marlins that same year! First catcher in Major League history to record 12,000 putouts! Pudge caught Kenny Rogers' No-Hitter with Texas in 1994 and caught Justin Verlander's No-Hitter with Detroit in 2007!
Yes...it's a SAD day indeed!!!







Gratuitous pic of Denise Milani......

Hi kiddies,
Since this is the Hot Baseball Wife Hall of Fame it seems appropriate to get down to business...beginning with this post I'll feature a Hot Baseball Wife each week.
So, let's roll up our sleeves...put some eyedrops in....make sure you're wearing loose boxers...or expandable briefs...and we'll begin our HARD journey with the First Lady of Hot Baseball Wives!
Here's Mrs. Joe DiMaggio......Playboy's 1st Playmate....Marilyn Monroe......

Roger Kahn, who wrote one of my favourite baseball books EVER...The Boys of Summer also wrote a book entitled Joe & Marilyn.....here's an excerpt:

"Joe and Marilyn were man and wife when she flew to New York City for location shooting on George Axelrod's teasing comedy The Seven Year Itch.

In the most famous scene, Marilyn, wearing white shoes and a billowing white skirt, stands over a subway grating. When a train passes, the updraft blows her skirt high, revealing fine legs and white underpants about a bottom that no less a connoisseur than Groucho Marx acclaimed as "the greatest ass in Hollywood."

The scene was shot over the grating at Lexington Avenue and Fifty-first Street, with a wind machine installed below. Although it was close to midnight, a few hundred New Yorkers stopped behind police barricades to see as much as they could see.

Dimaggio appeared with Walter Winchell, the Broadway columnist, and stood quietly to one side.

"I remember it," says a photographer named Frank Morse, "because [Twentieth Century] Fox had hired me to take still shots for publicity and it was a damn good job. I figured I'd take the best angle I could find; we could always airbrush the stills later so that the newspapers could use them. I lay down on the sidewalk in front of her.

While movie cameras were positioned at more discreet locations, Morse settled onto the cement. A few onlookers followed suit. "Here comes the wind machine," Morse says, "up goes the skirt and damned if she isn't wearing something filmy. From back of me I hear a voice, pure New York, saying loud and clear, 'Chees, I thought she was a real blonde.'

"DiMaggio hears it too, and this is his wife. he walks on the set, sorer than hell, and Marilyn has to go into the trailer and change into some underpants you couldn't see through with a spotlight."

Dan Hinote, right winger for the St. Louis Blues, and Playboy Playmate (sister of even-Hotter Playmate Jenny McCarthy) Amy McCarthy just got hitched....another Hot Chick joins the rank of Hot Hockey Wives....Nice Work Danny-boy.......

Geez, Jason Taylor looks like he's still in good enough shape to cut a rug.....
Actually the dude looks pretty dapper in a Redskins uniform....

If you look at the margin to the right you'll see a poll for the HBWHOF Hot Chick of the Month.

So far, Stacy Keibler is leading at a whopping 40%!! Keep the votes coming in...voting ends at the beginning of September.

Obviously you Cats dig the Weapon of Mass Seduction....so I'm layin'-down some gratuitous pics of Stacy Ann-Marie Keibler......

I'd like to begin my first foray here at BLOGGER by extending Happy Birthday wishes to two guys who greatly enriched the culture of baseball.

Today - July 29th, 2008 - marks the 55th anniversary of the births of RUSH bassist/vocalist Geddy Lee and documentary producer/director Ken Burns! Burns made the excellent 1994 documentary Baseball which explored the history of the national pastime from 1840 to the present.
Not long ago Geddy Lee donated 200 signed baseballs to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. Lee, who's a HUGE baseball fan, was so impressed when he visited the museum that he decided to present them with a very RARE donation!
When he passed through Kansas City in support of RUSH's latest album he brought with him a trunk filled with extremely rare baseballs.

Negro Leagues' director of marketing, Bob Kendrick, stated that

"Some of these guys have been dead for some time, and we could not get these (signatures) before..no matter what their significance in the Negro Leagues."

Some of the notable signatures belonged to Cool Papa Bell,
Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Josh Gibson and Lionel Hampton, a famous fan of the Leagues. Also men such as Fireball Bill Beverly and Piper Davis, who would go on to manage Willie Mays in his early days in the league.

Among Geddy's favourite balls in his personal collection are a baseball autographed by Christy Mathewson and another ball that John F. Kennedy threw out for the first pitch of the 1961 baseball season.

That smell is in the air....NFL training camps are gearing-up....that means that the Hot Baseball Wife Hall of Fame has an excuse to start barraging it's readers with images of Hot Cheerleaders!!

In fact, the HBWHOF's fave cheerleaders the Washington Redskins babes are practicing their booty-shaking routines RIGHT NOW!!!!

It's a slow news day....and this is my 1st post here on Blogger...so I'm gonna wrap it up.....Enjoy some EYE-CANDY....Gratuitous pic of Denise Milani..........