Warning: This edition of John Parker’s blog is more offensive than usual. If you take things too seriously, are a fan of UCONN women’s basketball or are nursing, navigate away now. For those about to read, remember, it’s all good and it’s all in fun…

Jennie Finch and hot softball players

Ahh, it was the summer of 2002.

The A’s were still good, And1 (see below) was just reaching the height of its popularity, and Jennie Finch (dressed in a revealing black gown) made me do a double-take while I was watching the ESPY awards.

Only those really in tune with collegiate softball were familiar with Finch before that night, but in the three years since she has been immortalized as, “That hot softball chick.”

And well kiddies, that brings me to my point, things have changed.

I got the latest issue of Sports Illustrated and to my delight, Finch is the covergirl. Still every bit the California blonde bombshell she was in 2002 — holding a whiffle ball bat and clad in a short skirt and tank top — she is however showing chinks in the armor.

Now don’t get me wrong, Finch is still a very, very beautiful woman (and before you start writing me angry feedback, one hell of a pitcher and nice person), but she just isn’t the hottest anymore.

As one of my colleagues at The State Hornet put it while watching last year’s Athens Olympics, “Finch? I’m over her.”

This should come as no surprise, though. In fact, it’s a tribute to how far collegiate softball has come. In 2002, Finch, and the sport were an unknown — and thus pardon the pun, “hot” — commodity.

Softball is everywhere it seems now. It dominated the college sports networks during the 2005 season, the 2005 series (which Michigan won in a three-game series over 2004 and 2003 champ UCLA) raked in its highest ratings ever and was viewed by more sports fans than NHL games before people stopped caring about hockey completely.

Softball is now, according to SI, poised to supplant basketball as the glamour sport for female college athletes.

Three reasons this has happened: Women’s hoops just isn’t what it used to be.

No one watches the WNBA and fewer people tune into women’s NCAA games. Last year had some real nice stories, like Baylor’s amazing run shaking the memories of male counterparts Patrick Dennehy and Carlton Dotson and the stigma they carried out of the minds of Waco, Texas, sports fans. But still why watch?

Connecticut — which along with Tennessee and coach Pat Summitt were the only reason to watch– had its nation-leading 70-game win streak broken in 2003, Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi graduated to play in front of empty arenas in the pros and Huskies coach Geno Auriema is an ass.

So if it’s glamour you’re after, softball will give you your fix. And with that in mind, I present to you the three hottest softball players as voted by me.

1. Lauren Watson-Perry , BYU, Sr., Catcher.

Stats: Height: 5-foot-3, Hair: Brown, Eyes: Brown.

Real stats: Led regular players hitting .421 in her senior season scoring 52 runs and driving 33 RBI.

2. Vanessa Iapala , Oregon State, Jr., 1B/Catcher.

Stats: Height: 5-foot-10, Hair: Brown, Eyes: Brown.

Real stats: Hit .300 during her junior campaign in 2005 while slugging .482 and hitting five home runs.

3. Vicky Galindo , California, Sr., 3B.

Stats: Height: 5-foot-4, Hair: Brown, Eyes: Brown.

Real stats: Named to the U.S. national team after stoking Cal’s fire for the last three years, one of the few players in the game that can successfully bunt one-handed with the rest of her body speeding toward first base. She hit .324 and stole 19 bases in 23 attempts all while nursing a hamstring injury.

So there you have it, all apologies to Jennie and all others left off the list.

If you are a hot softball player and feel you were snubbed, just e-mail me an action photo and — nevermind. The point to all this shenanigans really is that softball is here to stay, like the big neon ball or not, and think of the attractiveness of the athletes as just a really sweet bonus.

And 1

Go to any middle school blacktop and you won’t find kids trying run pick-and-rolls, or starting their offense with a pass into the post.

What you will find is kids being kids, trying to cross each other up and attempting circus-style lay-ups and generally playing a one-on-one style of game.

This is precisely what aerial acrobats of the And 1 Mixtape Tour do, just on a grander — and more hyped — stage. Five And 1 ballers appear on the cover of the latest issue of Sports Illustrated and there is a lengthy featured story inside.

The Tour hits Sacramento on Saturday and I thought I’d take time to address those that don’t appreciate the athleticism and skill these players possess — the haters.

Yet, the Tour is mostly shunned by so-called basketball purists — NBA fans — as selfish, un-fundamental crap. You’re damn right! And it’s fun to watch too.

If you really want your own similar product, put together the AAU Mixtape tour. I can see it now, balding 50-something fathers huddled around a TV screen with a bowl of Jiffy Pop going crazy.

Dad No. 1: Ooohh, did you see that entry pass?

Dad No. 2: What a great pick-and-roll!

Dad No. 3: Look at that 15-foot J!

You see my point?

While the elitists turn the cold shoulder, the And 1 boys bring street hoops on the road and into the homes of America once the TV series hits the airwaves.

I don’t think the AAU Mixtape Tour would get near the ratings or generate half the revenue the And 1 boys do. My only gripe about putting them on the cover of Sports Illustrated is why not do it two years ago when it was really exploding?

Oh yeah, and don’t put Professor on the cover over AO.

Chappelle’s Show

Chappelle’s Show season two was released to DVD recently I’ve spent every waking hour that I wasn’t at work watching it. Hence, no updates for a week.

Why bring up Dave Chappelle in a blog entry you ask?

Well if you buy the DVD box set and watch episode five, you’ll see why. Or just keep reading, I mean, that’s the point anyway.

At the beginning of the fifth episode, Dave emerges from the audience “Price is Right”-style and on his way to the stage passes two large men. When the camera pans back the men seated in the front row, it’s plain to see that they are Florida Marlins pitchers Dontrelle Willis and Josh Beckett.

Due to the shooting schedule of the show, this had to be right after the Marlins won the 2003 World Series, in which Josh Beckett was the MVP.

The great part about this is that the show’s producers just showed Willis and Beckett like they were two regular guys, as there are often reaction shots of the crowd after Chappelle delivers a punchline. They didn’t make anything of it, so that to notice it happened you have to watch the episode five times in a day and as you’re stuffing a snack cake in your mouth realize that those two guys look familiar — that’s how I noticed them anyway.

Other Chappelle-sports highlights from the season two DVD include:

The Racial Draft, episode one: Famous americans are drafted in this sketch by different races to “state the racial standing of them, once and for all.” For example, black people draft Tiger Woods (he’s half black, half Thai) with their first pick so he is therefore officially 100 percent black. The real highlight however is the asian delegation drafting the entire Wu-Tang Clan, which includes cameos from the RZA and the GZA.

Charlie Murphy vs. Prince, episode five: Eddie Murphy’s older brother Charlie recalls a time he and his friends were challenged to a game of hoops by Prince (played by Chappelle) and the Revolution, a game he dubs, “the shirts against the blouses.” The blouses take the game behind a dominating performance from Prince who “was crossing cats like Iverson and … snatching rebounds like Barkley.”

The World Series of Dice, episode seven: The triumphant return of tough-talking fan-favorite Leonard Washington, this time as a professional dice shooter as the show broadcasts the 2004 World Series of Dice from the Marcy Projects in Brooklyn. Features a cameo from Eddie Griffin as legendary shooter, “Grits ‘N’ Gravy.”

May 29

Everybody loves Danica

So I was watching the Indianapolis 500 today and for the first time in my 12-plus years of watching auto racing (yes, I’m an auto racing fan and no, I didn’t vote for Bush) I got goose bumps.

Watching Danica Patrick, the 23-year-old rookie come back to lead the greatest spectacle in racing with 24 laps to go — after stalling in the pits and wrecking her front wing in an accident — is one of the most culturally significant events I’ve seen in sports and is something I’ll never forget.

All month long at Indy the focus had been on whether Patrick, in her first-ever appearance at the Brickyard and just the fourth by a female, could pull the biggest upset in the race’s storied 89-year history … and she almost did.

Race winner Dan Wheldon passed Patrick, who was running out of fuel, with seven laps to go. Patrick could have put up a stronger fight in the closing laps but instead chose to conserve fuel and finish in the race higher and get more championship points rather than trying to win and running out of fuel in the process. She pulled into the pits after the race with a tablespoon of fuel in her Argent Honda.

A selfless move on a day that was all about her.

Nearly the entire ABC broadcast of the race was devoted to her and in the final laps as Patrick had drifted back to fourth, the cameras stayed on her car instead of showing Wheldon trying to fend off her teammate and second-place finisher Vitor Meira.

In a joint post-race news conference with Meira, Patrick fielded questions for nearly five minutes before she turned to him and said, “Vitor, tell me about your race. I want to know. Come on, the guy just finished second, everybody.”

When she was asked what she thought of the significance of her run on Sunday, she said, “I don’t know, I’m just racing.”

She could have taken all that time to herself and no one would have or should have blamed her. But instead, she just shrugged it off with all the charm that made her the media darling of this year’s Indy 500 and, we can only assume, the rest of the IRL season.

Patrick’s nonchalant attitude and courageous performance made me think of another female athlete I consider a favorite.

Almost two years to the day before DanicaMania came to a head, quiet, humble Annika Sorenstam took a week off from beating up on LPGA competition and stepped on to a golf course with the big boys in the PGA Bank of America Colonial on May 22, 2003. I forced myself to watch the first two days of that tournament, knowing I was witnessing history. Although Sorenstam didn’t make the cut, it did blaze the trail for female golfers like Michelle Wie and recent first-time LPGA winner and 17-year-old phenom Paula Creamer to one day do some damage.

Perhaps May should be Women in Sports month with all of these significant events taking place in the same 30-day span.

The face of sports is changing stories like Danica at Indy, Annika at the Colonial and Creamer winning her first tourney soon will not be a novelty. They’ll be commonplace. I’m not saying we’ll see Lisa Leslie dunking on any NBA players (unless they happen to be Shawn Bradley), but more and more women are stepping up and even more who saw Patrick today, will go out tomorrow and practice their skills just a little harder.

John Parker can be reached at [email protected]