The Week in Sports

The WPS LA Sol fire sale Dispersal Draft took place yesterday. Oddly, despite usually sending out more Tweets per fan than any other professional sports league, the Twitterfeed was silent until it was all over, leaving dozens of people biting their nails wondering where Marta would land. She wound up going third, to the apparently named by an AYSO U-14 girls team that won the lottery Gold Pride, newly of the East Bay. Former Notre Dame and current women's national team stalwart holding midfielder Shannon Boxx was the first pick, going to St. Louis, which totally cleaned up by also adding Aya Miyama and Tina DiMartino; red hot Candian keeper Karina LeBlanc went to Philadelphia. My hometown Red Stars passed on veteran players, grabbing rookie Tarheel Casey Nogueira with pick #4, and with that decision hopefully both saved a lot of cash and (potentially) increased their anemic scoring output by a factor of maybe four. Of course, without Tarpley in the midfield any more, that's a lot of reliance on Megan Rapinoe's ability to remember she can pass the ball now instead of having to do it all on her own.

In baseball news, Big Z showed up early (!) to spring training, with a shiny new good attitude and svelte physique, both of which should asplode right on schedule the first time he walks three guys in a row and blows a two-run lead, which we'll peg at 'round about April 8.

And in other baseball news, this.

We Take a Break from Our Maine Fuming to Ask One Soccer Question

And the question would be, "huh?"

Sky Blue seems bent on making [Carli] Lloyd their showcase player for next season, giving her the 10-shirt off Yael Averbuch’s back and her own supporter group, named Lloyd’s Loonies in an apparent homage to LA’s Marta’s Maniacs.

Lloyd? Really? After last season's disappearing act in Chicago? When they already have HAO and Tash Kai in their lineup? Hope the supporters' group is armed with coffee, or at least blankies for the inevitable stultified-into-somnolence status they're likely to be enjoying (?) next season. I could be wrong.

The Weekend in Sports

The Cubs have suspended Milton Bradley for the rest of the season and may be looking to unload him. At this point, just eating the two years remaining on his contract would be worth it if it gets him out of Chicago. They dumped Mark DeRosa to pick up this guy, and then had the temerity to act baffled when he refused to play nicely with his teammates, the fans at Wrigley, and greater Chicagoland. Bradley's been clubhouse poison basically forever. How this knowledge escaped Jim Hendry until it was too late is a mystery to me.

In football news, the Irish escaped a fiftieth or something consecutive home loss to Michigan State on the whisker of two dropped balls by the Spartans and Kyle McCarthy hanging on to an interception at the Notre Dame 10. And top receiver Michael Floyd is lost for the year to a broken collarbone. Maybe this was the wrong year to keep Goliath-slaying Washington on the schedule?

Finally, the Washington Freedom's Jo Lohman and Becca Moros are spending part of the WPS off-season playing in Japan. They're blogging about it, and they're adorable.

WPS: Interesting Reactions to Actions and Non-actions...

The WPS disciplinary committee huddled and--one two three break!--handed out two suspensions in the wake of Sunday's St. Louis-Washington match. One went to Washington's Abby Wambach for the tackle on Daniela that landed the Brazilian a broken leg and Wambach a yellow card; the other went to Athletica defender Kia McNeill for repeatedly introducing Wambach to the turf via body checks that would have put an NHL player in the box for charging but did not draw any cards on the pitch.

It's an interesting precedent for the league to set, what, four weeks into the inaugural season, and I say "interesting" rather than "troubling" pending the ripple effects it proves to have league-wide. Both suspensions are clearly intended to send the message that chippiness is not the way to go, particularly when an infant league is relying on big-money international stars to pique fan interest and put butts in the seats, but I hope the suspensions have been accompanied by a stern talking-to directed at the center referee who allowed the overly physical play to go on unchecked. One of McNeill's tackles on Wambach was card-worthy on its own, and certainly by the time that one happened--the third such foul on Wambach in the first half, two by McNeill--a yellow should have been shown for persistent infringement. Retroactively showing two yellows, which the committee has effectively done in meting out the suspension to McNeill, is a huge nonconfidence vote from the league for that referee. And I still maintain that while Wambach deserved yellow for the careless tackle on Daniela, it was not straight-red-worthy, contrary to the implicit message being delivered by the league's suspension of her.

Let's hope for more consistency this weekend. I will be very interested to see how this ref handles his next assignment, should he be given one. Should he be given one? Based on last week, that's a great big no.

Soccer Interlude

WPS teams had something like five weeks to prepare for the season, with some teams losing significant players from their rosters during that time to international tournaments (say, the Algarve) and friendlies, so it's no shock that some of the early games were shaky at best. The girlfriend and I have seen a marked improvement in play over the past couple of weeks, though, including an absolute gem of a match last week between Washington and Bay Area that FSC has already replayed a couple of times, and then today's damp but sparkly Washington-St. Louis match.

Washington's passing game was superb, with through ball after through ball delivered with such precision that we howled oh my god did you see that ball? And this one was another goalfest with plenty of last-ten-minutes drama, although only one of Athletica's three goals was really a quality strike rather than a biff by the second placeholder keeper who's trying to keep the box warm until MacLeod's visa problems get resolved (visa problems? for a Canadian who's not even half Muslin, as far as we know?).

The only downside was the officiating, which was generally crap. I'm a ref, so I'm allowed to say that. Athletica decided to play the Brazil defense against Wambach, meaning she got hammered hard four times with only two whistles and one card resulting. The most egregious was a full-on fucking body check in the box delivered by Kia McNeill, who should have received a second yellow rather than seeing a goal kick awarded. I went into the game kinda pulling for St. Louis since they hadn't even scored yet this season and I kinda like their uniforms, but I quit on that once it became apparent that they decided to take the hacking route.

Anyway. Come on you Stars!

Red Stars Draft Part... Four?

Tempting as it is to play Calibrate That Gaydar with the Chicago Red Stars' roster, I will content myself with noticing that they drafted one Megan Rapinoe out of Portland last Friday, and also that she got rid of that awful fauxhawk she was sporting before the college season. Now if she can avoid blowing her ACL for a third time, the Stars may be pretty charmed indeed.

No word on what this means for the Chicago-Washington rivalry, or if it has inspired a certain member of the Freedom to crank up her rehab schedule a bit.