Howdy!!
Thanks
for checking out this week’s blog. Hope
you all had a great Easter Weekend last week, I know I did. Spent most of it plastered (easier to handle
the family that way). Fortunately, wifey did the driving so I could indulge in
beer and wine.
So
now we’re back in the saddle and you know what?
We’re
halfway home.
That’s
right; the blog is halfway thru its original lifespan.
I
started this blog last October with the intent of dumping all of my confused
and rambling thoughts on blondes vs. brunettes out on the blog for a period of
a year, give or take a few weeks. Well,
I’ve been at it now for six months.
Six
down and six to go.
Today’s
topic is athletics. Wait, I can hear you
saying, haven’t we flogged this topic before?
Like maybe four times?
Well,
yes, we have.
Don’t
worry; we’ll toss in a few catfights at the end.
I
thought we would do athletics one more time because its baseball season and it
all started with America’s grand old game, the National Past Time.
A
couple of years back, I read John Thorn’s book Baseball in the Garden of Eden:
The Secret History of the Early Game.
Thorn, for those of you who don’t know, is the official baseball
historian at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Now, if you’re a fan of baseball, and you
haven’t been to the HoF, then you don’t know what you’re missing. It’s a religious experience, for sure. Even if you’re not a fan, it’s wonderful
time.
By
the way, if you didn’t know, the National Soccer Hall of Fame is in Oneida, on
the way to Cooperstown. Although I don’t
know as much about soccer (or “association football” if you prefer), the soccer
HoF is also a nice experience.
Back
to Thorn’s book. At various points he
touches on the issue of women playing baseball and then he lays it out on page
191:
“By
the mid-1870s, exhibitions of women’s baseball had generally taken the form of
Blondes versus Brunettes, with varying geographic modifiers applied to
each.”
Thorn
goes on to discuss that many of the organizers and producers were, in so many
words, fucking perverts. Apparently a
couple of them were arrested for sexually exploiting young ladies. Fans attending these events were also derided
in Thorn’s book.
Not
that it has anything to do with blondes or brunettes, but Thorn also noted that
barnstorming baseball team include people of color, freaks, geeks and
handicapped folks to include teams that featured one-legged players.
Interesting
times, the late 1800s.
Well, I did some researching on line and found a box
score from the September 15,
1875 edition of the St. Louis Globe Democrat in an article titled, “Girls of
the Turf: A Baseball Contest between Two
Female Clubs”. For the time, I’m sure it would have been interesting although
the truth of the matter is that blondes vs. brunettes football, with girls
battling each other in shorts and t-shirts is a bit more exciting!
Almost as thrilling, I also found that neat little sports update thing called "The Sportswoman" on page 53 of the December 11, 1924 Washington Post. Isn't that fascinating? God bless Dorothy Greene for covering the event in what no doubt was a cold Washington DC evening.
Mmmmm. A blonde vs. brunette relay race, won by those strong sexy blondes of course.
Now here’s the funny thing: organizing sports teams as blondes and brunettes was not considered unusual in previous decades. Teaching and parenting guides, when discussing activities for children, to include young girls, would recommend dividing teams into contrasting categories such as tall vs. short, skinny vs. fat, and blondes vs. brunettes. In more contemporary times making such distinctions as a way of classifying sports teams might be considered demeaning or stigmatizing. That was not the case in the late 1800s or during the first half of the 1900s. A popular turn of the 20th century handbook, “A Pocket Encyclopedia of Good Times” gave directions for playing every conceivable kind of game from the “the old charades” to a “tug of war of blondes against brunettes”. The Parents Teacher’s Association (PTA) actually recommended a tug of war competition between blondes and brunettes as a picnic activity for children in a 1925 PTA magazine.
At
least one tug of war was documented following a Labor Day Picnic in Miami,
Ohio. “A Tug of War: Blondes vs. Brunettes. Won by the Blondes. They stripped the Brunettes off the rope
against a tree like beads off a string.”
Yup, I shit you not.
I took that from a document called “The Miami Conservancy Volumes 1-2” which covered the period of time Aug
1918 thru July 1920. This is not
Florida, by the way, but rather Miami, Ohio. The entry on the Labor Day Picnic”
is found on page 47.
Fascinating: Won by the Blondes. They stripped the Brunettes off the rope
against a tree like beads off a string.
Wow. Too bad no pics of that. I wonder if it was blonde vs. brunette women
or men or maybe co-ed. The article does say
that women participated in races, so perhaps they were the contestants in the tug
of war.
As
you might expect, I spent some time googling this and came up with a couple of
hits. The first is a You Tube video and then down below, a second clip from a Houston TV station, KHOU.
http://www.khou.com/video?id=256566661&sec=548187
As
you can see, Brunettes 2, Blondes 0.
One
last comment on the topic of athletics.
I scanned the "Penn Relays" photo at the top of the blog entry from an issue of Sports Illustrated,
a few years back. What a sexy pic: four blondes in a relay.
Look
at the leg muscles on those blondes.
Wow!! I’d like to see those two blondes in the forefront take on a
couple of brunettes in a tug of war contest!!
OK,
I know what you’ve been waiting for: catfights!!
First,
a catfight pic from last Sunday’s Washington Post. The pic is a still from a TV series called Orphan
Black which is a BBC production that features Tatiana Maslany as a female
clone. Actually, she is one of many clones, all of whom are the target of an
assassination campaign by some top secret religious organization. The clones,
which have some type of tracking chip in them, are also killers because...I'm
not really sure.
There’s
another top secret organization called Neolution involved in the story and it
seems the police are trying to arrest everybody for something or another, maybe
because the Neolution folks are out to kill the folks trying to assassinate the
clones who are out to kill other people … and there’s a sibling rivalry … and
then somebody comes up missing.
Oh
gosh, does any of it matter? No wonder I never watch TV anymore.
In
any event, the story indicates there are one of more catfights in this wacky
series.
Maybe
one of our TV watchers can track it for us.
I’m
going back to ESPN to watch the Washington Wizard in the NBA playoffs!
The
first video clip features brunette Jane Russell battling blonde Helen Westcott
in the movie Hot Blood. I like this scene because Russell is giving shit to
Westcott and starts the fight. But
blondie does a good job defending herself against the tough brunette (as
usual!!) and may very well have kicked Russell’s ass if the men didn’t jump in. As it is, it turns out to be a draw.
The
second clip is a one punch affair from a movie or TV show that I have listed as
“Cold Harvest. ?? I can’t find that anywhere
on the internet, so maybe I have it wrong.
Anyway, I think we can say the blonde wins this fight.
The third
clip is from some goofy movie called (I think it’s called) El Recomendado. I mean this is about as dumb as it gets, two
hotties catfighting over some douche bag.
Well,
maybe he had a lot of money, I don’t know. In any event, it’s another draw.
... AND THE LEADER BOARD SAYS...
Here’s
our remaining schedule:
May
4 -- Cruising around Wikipedia + MORE CATFIGHTS, I PROMISE!!
4 -- Cruising around Wikipedia + MORE CATFIGHTS, I PROMISE!!
11 -- Westerns, part 1
18 -- The Warring Tribes
25 -- Who were these people in the photo?
Jun
1 – Ron & Jeff
18 -- The Warring Tribes
25 -- Who were these people in the photo?
Jun
1 – Ron & Jeff
8 -- The Real Deal, Thumb Fight!
15 -- Kansas City Here I Cum, part 1
22 -- Kansas City Here I Cum, part 2
29 -- Kansas City Here I Cum, part 3
July
6 -- Foreign movies, various spy flicks
13 -- The Real Deal, Miss Edy
20 -- The Awesome Martine Beswick
27 -- SUMMER BREAK
Aug
3 -- SUMMER BREAK
10 -- SUMMER BREAK
17 -- Secretaries
24 -- Classic B&W
31 -- Don't Get into a Knife Fight with a blonde
Sep
7 -- Total Recall
14 -- The Real Deal again
21 -- Various peplum
28 -- Dr. Woodruff
Oct -- it's been a year now
6 -- Action flicks
13 -- More oaters
20 -- Don't Get Into a Swordfight with a blonde
15 -- Kansas City Here I Cum, part 1
22 -- Kansas City Here I Cum, part 2
29 -- Kansas City Here I Cum, part 3
July
6 -- Foreign movies, various spy flicks
13 -- The Real Deal, Miss Edy
20 -- The Awesome Martine Beswick
27 -- SUMMER BREAK
Aug
3 -- SUMMER BREAK
10 -- SUMMER BREAK
17 -- Secretaries
24 -- Classic B&W
31 -- Don't Get into a Knife Fight with a blonde
Sep
7 -- Total Recall
14 -- The Real Deal again
21 -- Various peplum
28 -- Dr. Woodruff
Oct -- it's been a year now
6 -- Action flicks
13 -- More oaters
20 -- Don't Get Into a Swordfight with a blonde
27 -- The survey
Nov
9 -- The Real Deal once more
23 -- Football rematch
Dec
7 -- The Real Deal in a Ring
21 -- Scissors
Nov
9 -- The Real Deal once more
23 -- Football rematch
Dec
7 -- The Real Deal in a Ring
21 -- Scissors
