After Atalanta

For those of us in the western hemisphere, the French Open--oops, I mean Roland Garros, I'm such a silly American!--is really the first Grand Slam of the year. It is next to impossible to follow the Australian given ESPN's insistence on covering it live which means very late nights for me and I am just not as young as I used to be. I can't pull all-nighters for tennis anymore. Of course I am not quite an early bird either which is what one has to be if you want to see all 10 hours of daily coverage of RG. In my part of the country coverage starts at 4am. The only reasons I am up at 4am is either to go to the bathroom because I drank a whole Nalgene right before bed or to fight off the bats that keep finding their way into my house. But I digress before I even begin... So it's only day 4 (there was a Sunday start for the first time ever in Grand Slam history which irritated some people ) but some interesting things have happened and of course there are many possibilities...

I was thinking this morning that I hadn't followed up on my "trangressions" in sport entry where I talk about some of the missteps that occur in the wide world of sport. I suppose most of the things I write about could fall under this category in one way or another but one just came up and hit me hard across the face. I am/was watching game 3 of Tennessee/Michigan. It was a 1-0 game in Tennessee's favor when ESPN cut away to Barry Bonds's at bat. Okay--this had already happened once and I was not upset. Sure I get it--history in the making, breaking a record blah blah blah. So he actually did it this time. Okay, fine. What has proceeded has been ridiculous. Three guys in suits decided to talk about it without really saying anything profound and some of them chose to excuse Bonds's alleged (but really we all know the score) drug use. Lovely. And then ESPN decided to show this mini-retrospective of his career. Are you fuckin' kidding me? Sport Center is a hl...

LSU pulled out a win in the second game of the 3-game series against U of Arizona last night. It was an amazing game that Arizona almost pulled out in the last inning when LSU pitcher, who I initially dubbed Puma (because I think she bears a striking resemblance to Paris Hilton and Uma Thurman) started to get a little to animated on the mound. Given Turner's (that's her real name) Filipino heritage and the problematic aspects of exoticization and the elliding of women of color to animals I retract my earlier nickname and have re-dubbed her Paruma. I actually won't have much need to call her anything anymore because LSU lost in the final game three last night. Not that I can really comment on that loss because ESPN2 that had been covering the game opted not to show it, relegating it instead to ESPNU and opting to stick with the scheduled programming that included several episodes of City Slam. I don't really know what City Slam is but I gathered from watching--as I hoped...

I know I am a day late on this but it really needs to be discussed in part because of the response that has been levied against bloggers daring to question the actions of the women's lacrosse team at Duke . So the brief recap is that some of the players chose to write the numbers of the 3 men's team players who have been implicated in the alleged rape incident. Others chose to wear the men's logo on their sweatbands/headbands (why do the teams have different logos?). So all this was in support of their fallen brothers. So, many commentators on this perverse form of activism have noted that these women just continue to reify their own oppression. Yes, of course. The naysayers invoke the justice system and innocence and wouldn't-you-support-the-innocent? rhetoric. But that's not the issue. It's all about these women choosing to support the bad behavior (whether a rape occurred or not) of these male athletes. In the end they may be found innocent of rape but they a...

During the commercial breaks of ESPN2's coverage of the LPGA tournament yesterday were promos for the upcoming season of the WNBA. (How many acronyms can you fit in one sentence?) The promo showed the stars of course including some of the newcomers. I didn't really pay too much attention to the actual people because I was appalled by the presentation--not the visual--the verbal. The women were all in their uniforms and some actually appeared to be playing basketball though there was a lot of posing; but again, in uniform and not in any kind of overt sexual way. But alas the voiceover which was simply a list of names was problematic. Only first names were given. "Sue, Diana, Swin..." This is a noted problem in women's sports. Commentators frequently refer to women by their first names whereas men are almost always (with some notable exceptions of course) by their last. The problem of course transcends sport too. In academia there are debates over whether female pro...

After failed negotiations to settle the discrimination suit brought against her by a former Penn State player, basketball coach Rene (rhymes with weenie in case you forgot) Portland has allegedly gone on the offensive to fight these outrageous claims against her. Where I do I even begin with this? OK how about here. Portland comments that she is taking this offensive stance after months of remaining silent because she feels she must counter the "agendas" of complainant Jennifer Harris and the National Center for Lesbian Rights that represents Harris. Invoking "agenda" of course rings of conservative cries of the gay agenda apparently infiltrating our schools, our homes (through such crazy shows as Will and Grace--conservatives must be breathing a sigh of relief that it finally lef the air, eh?), and our minds. Mwah, hah, hah, hah. (That's my evil gay agenda laugh.) Yes, the gay agenda is so manipulative and frightening. Damn Harris and the NCLR for asking for th...

This post doesn't have an explicitly gendered aspect, I am just pissed that there have been a myriad of tennis tournaments occurring in Europe that have not been shown on American television. And apparently I have missed some good matches including a 5-set showdown between Federer and Nadal that Nadal eked out. Apparently the chink Federer's armor is Nadal. And it seems Henin-Hardenne, a perennial clay court favorite has not been having the warm-up to the French Open that she would like. On the other hand Nadia Petrova seems to finally be realizing the potential people have been seen in her for years now. I did check the listings and found that there is some tennis on in the wee hours--around 2:30AM my time. I do not think I will be pulling an all-nighter for that. In addition to my general annoyance that there has been no tennis on, is my concern that coverage of the French Open will again be dismal. The American-centric coverage that means watching a Williams sister match thr...

At brunch last weekend with friends AM and CF we started talking about pink hockey sticks--our friend had just bought one for her niece--and other hockey gear that has been appearing around the NHL. I actually saw pink gloves at a hockey tournament in March but at that point I thought they were being marketed toward women. Apparently not. But then I started to get confused because I found this story about pink gear in honor of Mother's Day and to raise awareness for breast cancer. But I found it when I was looking for more information after reading about the pink bats in baseball . These are special bats for a one-day only performance at MLB games on Mother's Day to bring awareness to breast cancer. So pink bats in baseball and pink sticks in hockey (and pink gloves, and pink stick tape, too). But AM said nothing about these pink sticks being associated with a cause. Apparently there are pink sticks being produced that are just good sticks. And this seems to be true. I found so...

I don't really spend a lot of time thinking about the gendered aspects of athletes' uniforms usually because I, as a skirt-wearing tennis player, embody some of the contradictions I find these uniform standards pose. But I am putting that aside for a moment because of the very egregious differences I noted this past weekend during the NCAA volleyball championships. I should note that I am not an avid v-ball fan but enjoy it when I can find it. The TV Guide channel said College Volleyball Championships and I turned to ESPN2 and found men. I had assumed it would be women for some reason but as we all know Volleyball or Soccer or Golf in the tv listings equals the men's version. One of my many pet peeves. But moving on... More than the fact that I saw men playing volleyball was the shock that came when I saw what they were wearing: baggy shorts and shirts. Now I had seen men's beach volleyball before and they wear swim trunks of varying degress of bagginess. But that was b...