Free Form Blogging: Famous Female Athletes

Greetings to our blog visitors in Dubai, Slovenia and Peru.

It has been a good while since we posted a free form blog where we just use words, topics, things which are trending on Twitter, yada, yada, yada, and tonight, we are going to come with a short piece involving female athletes, many of which we saw on ESPN's "Nine for IX" documentary on female athletes.

The six athletes we are using former American gold-medal winning gymnast Mary Lou Retton (pictured top), soccer star Mia Hamm who lead the USA to a World Cup title in 1999 (pictured center), Gabrielle Reece, a beach volleyball superstar (we expect she help us get hits from Dubai, Oman and Yemen), Indy race car driver Danica Patrick, East German gold-medal winning figure skater Katarina Witt and tennis Wonder Woman Martina Navratilova.

Witt and Reece both posed for "Playboy," Hamm posed for the cover of "Washingtonian Magazine" and Retton for those Wheaties boxes.

Here we go:

"Mary Lou Retton, a country girl from Fairmont, W.Va, won gold at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, and assuredly if Twitter had been around back then, she would have trending for a full six weeks. Mia Hamm went on to play for the Turkish soccer team Fenerbahce, an Istanbul powerhouse, and she broke a huge gender barrier for women (this is a joke, but there is now a women's soccer league in Turkey and ironically not one in America). Gabrielle Reece is probably driving a Prius with a bumper sticker that says: "Real athletes don't wear shoes." Amazingly enough, she is now 43 years old. But, Katarina Witt and Martina Navratilova are older than that. Witt was manipulated by the East German regime. Navratilova is now a gay rights activist and a novelist/writer; we assume she doesn't live in Topeka, Kansas. Danica Patrick is the only one of these athletes who has competed directly with men
in a men's sport. Of course, lots of guys hate her for this, but we think they are really just jealous because she is sooo out of their league."

Hmm....yeah, I don't think we need to file a copyright for this.

And, kudos to our beloved Salem Red Sox who defeated the Myrtle Beach Pelicans 1-0 in Salem, Va., in the first game of a best of three playoff series. The winner plays for the Carolina League championship.

http://www.gabriellereece.com/

http://www.miafoundation.org/

http://www.danicaracing.com/

http://en.katarina-witt.de/

http://www.martinanavratilova.com/

http://marylouretton.com/

Blogging in Three and a Half Minutes (or less).........Games Children Play

Yes, today we are just going to use an image of a dodgeball in our effort to save time and energy, and besides our intern Javier the Intern is vacationing in Vermont (this is an in-joke as Javier is a fictitious person, and well, we'd like to be in Vermont actually).

Let us take a minute to greet those of you in Israel, South Africa and Malaysia, who might be checking us out today.And, to generate more hits, we will arbitrarily mention Jon Hamm, Nik Wallenda and the Rev. Joel Osteen.

Wallenda is that crazy guy who walked a tightrope across the Grand Canyon in Arizona last night. Since he is a Christian fundamentalist, he brought Osteen along for support.

Today, we are going to ask a simple question, which one of these sports was the favorite sport of Tilly Gokbudak, our managing editor (well, he is actually moi) while growing up in Roanoke, Va.

Was it?:

A) Dodgeball (pictured)

B) Kickball

C) Volleyball

D) Softball

E) Bowling

The winner gets a free ticket to see Dwight Yoakam perform at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC, on June 21:)

http://www.930.com

Silly Picture to Fill Space- Cleveland Browns Fans

We normally post the Silly Picture to Fill Space on Tuesdays, but we were preoccupied with many, many other things two days ago.

So, today we are showcasing Cleveland Browns fans, who hang out in a place called The Dawg Pound. The original team scandolously left for Oriole Town and became the Baltimore Ravens in 1995.

But, the new Cleveland Browns resurfaced in 1999. The current team is 0-3 this season, but they play a home game against their arch rival the Cincy Bengals on Sunday. According to the Browns' official web site, there are three days and 45 minutes remaining until kick-off. Perhaps, someone will watch the game via satellite at the American embassy in Tashkent, Uzbekistan!

Famous Browns' players from the original team include quarterbacks Bernie Kosar and Brian Sipe.

SIDEBAR: One of our "High Schools of the Week" is East Side High School in Youngstown, Ohio. We have no idea if Browns legend Bernie Kosar actually played for the school, which closed in 1998, but reopened in 2007, but he is from the industrial city in northeast Ohio. The team mascot for East High School is the Panthers.

Silly Photo to Fill Space- Sports Mascots

I chose to use sports mascots as my choice for Silly Picture to Fill Space since I made a pledge late last Friday while watching the Orlando Magic-Portland Trail Blazers NBA game on ESPN to give up watching sports for the rest of the weekend.

I made it to Sunday afternoon at 1 p.m. to watch the Minnesota Vikings-Dallas Cowboys which the Vikes won 34-3. (Oh well!)

At least, it's not baseball season although the Baltimore Orioles (their mascot is pictured here with Miss Teen Maryland) haven't been good since Cal Ripken Jr. retired.