The New York Post has been lapping up the sources feeding them information about a sudden-but-unsurprising rivalry between the girlfriends of the two most popular Yankees on the planet. Actress Kate Hudson and Alex Rodriguez are dating (publicly, grossly), and so are New York’s captain Derek Jeter and lesser known television actress Minka Kelly. The Post’s sources had no explanation for why the two starlets aren’t getting along other than proposing that their actions are “an extension of the ongoing A-Rod-Jeter rivalry.” Boy, the New York press just has to believe that Rodriguez and Jeter hate each other, don’t they? The supposed coolness between Kelly and Hudson couldn’t be a simple difference in personalities, could it? Hudson is a movie star who grew up near the hot warmth of stardom. Kelly? She’s almost famous (get it?). Kelly’s more famous than you, but not nearly as famous as Penny Lane.

According to a second NY Post feature on the Yankee Wives, there is a close-knit group of ‘em that act as negatively as you would assume unemployed women with millions of their husbands’ dollars to spend would act: like uppity jerks. Feel free to check this link if you’re interested in further details, but trust me, the wives don’t come off well. One part of the feature explains that there is a rule among the clique: no girlfriends.

So while Kelly sits quietly in Jeter’s private box (as the “rules” stipulate) Hudson was immediately embraced by the elite group. Why? It’s either their huge reverence for her step-dad’s work in “Escape From New York” or, uh, because Hudson’s more famous than any of their husbands.

The Yankee wives … fame whores? Flabbergasting.

If this coldness between Hudson and Kelly really does exist, it likely exists for one of two reasons. Either a) Kelly prompted the rumors because although both actresses have careers, Hudson’s is more notable or b) Hudson started all this by embracing the clique instead of influencing it to stop being so exclusive. Hudson, in essence, might have developed into a queen-bee among a bunch of bitchy drone bees.

A war such as this deserves a carefully considered tale of the tape. Kate or Minka: who ya got?

We get it. Shane Victorino got $8 worth of beer dumped in his eyes. The kid who did it didn’t get caught. He spent 20 hours getting called every colorful collection of adjectives bloggers could concoct, then turned himself in. He apologized. It’s over. In the end, it was just spilled launched beer. That’s it.

But what if that wasn’t it? The facts of the situation are that the Victorino’s Phillies were embarrassing the Cubs in a mid-August weekday game between two teams in different divisions. If the game were interesting or meaningful, we wouldn’t be talking about beer. Unless …

When 12-year-old Jeffrey Maier reached over the Yankee Stadium bleachers to help Derek Jeter‘s pop fly become a home run in Game 1 of the ’96 ALCS series (which tied the game and helped send it into extra innings where New York eventually won the game and the series), the entire baseball world talked about it. And rightly so; that play changed history.

But Johnny Macchione, Wednesday’s beer-tosser, really only changed his history. As far as the game goes, his actions changed nothing. So let’s not talk about the real Johnny Macchione . Let’s talk about the hypothetical one. Let’s talk about the faux Macchione who hypothetically failed to learn his lesson from this incident. Let’s suppose he found his way to the Wrigley bleachers for Game 7 of this year’s NLCS series against Philly –

(What? Don’t look at me like that. It could stlll happen.)

Let’s also pretend that the game is 4-3 in the bottom of the ninth and the bases are loaded. And let’s say the hypothetical Macchione – nine innings worth of Miller Lite in his belly – dumps yet another cup onto Victorino and this time, he misses the catch. What then? The MLB rules stipulate:

Rule 2.00 (d) Spectator interference occurs when a spectator reaches out of the stands, or goes on the playing field, and touches a live ball. On any interference the ball is dead.

Rule 3.16 When there is spectator interference with any thrown or batted ball, the ball shall be dead at the moment of interference … if spectator interference clearly prevents a fielder from catching a fly ball, the umpire shall declare the batter out.

It seems pretty clear that no matter what happens to Victorino, the runs would not be allowed to score (unless the ump falls asleep on the play like Rich Garcia did in the afore-mentioned Yankee-Baltimore series). So for the home drunks, beer dumping isn’t a good RBI assist strategy. Assuming the umps will make the right call, what if a surprise beer dump happens when the home team is on the field?

What if it’s the top of the ninth in our hypothetical game and the Cubs are ahead 4-3. Let’s put Victorino at the plate now. He pings a laser down the line or off the ivy or anywhere close to a fan and the drunkard dumps something on the fielder trying to retrieve it. That too, is fan interference. And that too would should result in a dead ball. Victorino heads back to the batter’s box. For fun, let’s say Victorino then strikes out.

Is this hypothetical Macchione a hero in Chicago? What if that play gets the Cubs into the World Series where they eventually win? It happened to the Yankees in 1996.

For the record, I am not suggesting any Cubs buffoons try this. No one would want the Cubs to win this way. I don’t even like it when outfielders raise their hands instead of digging for the ball among the outfield ivy. Earn it, people. What I’m asking is: Would a hypothetical Macchione be as revered for an impeccably timed beer dump as, say, Steve Bartman was for his attempt at a foul ball in 2003?

There you go Cubs, all the reason you need not to let Victorino hit it anywhere down the line.

One in 75. This is the ratio of average professional baseball players to elite ones.

In Major League Baseball’s 133-year history, 17,056 players have come and gone. From that, only 229 of those players are in the Hall of Fame (about 1 of every 74.5).

Yes, the roster sizes, number of teams and players churning up and down the farm system varies on an almost unquantifiable level, but for the sake of this hypothetical, let’s say that there are 25 players on a major league roster, multiplied by 30 teams …

… Hey! Don’t skip the math stuff just to get to the glossy pictures. Embrace the numbers.

Where was I? Oh right … 25 players multiplied by 30 teams equals 750 players currently playing baseball.

And no, I haven’t forgotten about the mere 16 teams in 1917 or 12 teams in 1897 or the dearth of players a century ago as compared to today. But this is a hypothetical, remember? If you trust that the overstuffed rosters of today cancel out the lack of expansion teams from yesteryear, then will too.

If one out of every 75 players makes it to the Hall of Fame and there are 750 players in the league right now, then the law of averages suggests there are 10 future Hall of Famers active in the league today. This suggestion is made more compelling when one considers what the Steroid Era will do to these averages (if anything).

Sidelines looks at the 10 most likely active players to make it into the Hall of Fame. Obvious Cooperstown-bound players like Alex or Ivan Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez and Andy Pettitte become less obvious because of their involvement with steroids. I’d still bet some of them get in, but I’d bet on the following 10 before any of the afore mentioned.

Fun facts about these 10 players: Six of them have played on the same team throughout their entire MLB careers. All but two of them played on one team for more than half of their careers. Half of these players played for either Seattle, a Canadian team or both at some point in their careers.

In no particular order:

Ken Griffey Jr.
Career highlights: 13-time All-Star, 1997 AL MVP, 600+ HRs
“The Natural” gets my vote because a) he made backwards baseball caps acceptable for grown men and b) because anyone who can ruin the lives of annoying sign-holders deserves special enshrinement.

Pedro Martinez
Career highlights: 8-time All-Star, 3-time AL Cy Young Award Winner, 3,100+ Ks
If Randy Johnson scared hitters stupid, Martinez – from 1997 to 2003 – just made them look that way. He was angrier than Greg Maddux, but just as smart. And then the year after his peak … he (and his wee friend) won a World Series.

Albert Pujols
Career highlights: 8-time All-Star, 2-time NL MVP, 2001 Rookie of the Year
Not even a gross last name can slow this guy. At his current pace, he’ll reach 500 homers by April of 2012, at the age of 32. Barry Bonds hit his 500th on April 17, 2001 three months before his 37th birthday and 15 days after Pujols made his MLB debut.

Mariano Rivera
Career highlights: 10-time All-Star, 3-time saves leader, 500+ career saves

The guy hasn’t started a game in over 14 years and at some point in all that time, you’d think someone would have convinced him that “Panama” was a better song to enter the ninth inning to than “Enter Sandman.”

Ichiro Suzuki
Career highlights: 9 seasons: 9-time Gold Glove Award winner, 9-time All-Star, 1999 AL MVP, 1999 Rookie of the Year
If the Hall loves two things it’s consistency and guys with silly names. But if the Hall loved three things, I’m sure the third thing would be Asians. So Ichiro’s at least 2-for-3. What? Did you think I was suggesting Ichiro had a silly name? Not cool, dude.

Derek Jeter
Career highlights: 10-time All-Star, 1996 Rookie of the Year, 6 World Series Appearances
If players were elected to the Hall of Fame based on past girlfriends, Jeter would get his own wing. As it stands, the people he’s dated are just a fringe benefit of being the face of the most recognizable franchise on Earth … and that’s nice too.

Trevor Hoffman
Career highlights: 7-time All-Star, 2-time season save leader, 575+ saves
I could go on about longevity and the ability to pitch in “high-stress” save situations year-after-year. But really, it’s simple: Hoffman is the all-time saves leader. Saves are recognized as a meaningful statistic (for now) and you can’t have the all-time leader in a meaningful stat excluded from the Hall of Fame. That would be stupid.

Roy Halladay
Career highlights: 2003 Cy Young Award Winner, 6-time All-Star, 4-time season leader in complete games
As of this writing, Doc Halladay is still a member of the Toronto Blue Jays, a team he’s been on for his entire 11-year career. If he gets traded to a contending team … well, then 11 years in medical school would not have gone to waste.

Chipper Jones
Career highlights: 1999 NL MVP, 11-straight playoff appearances
What jumps out at most people about Jones’ career is that nothing about his career really jumps out. He’s been solid for 16 years in an era where the Braves dominated the NL. And although the pitching staff of those teams were the motor that kept those teams humming, Jones was the chassis … or maybe the seats. Car seats are highly underrated.

Randy Johnson
Career highlights: 10-time All-Star, 5-time Cy Young Award Winner, 9-time season strikeout leader, 300+ career wins, 4,800 career Ks
Why is the Big Unit already as good as enshrined in Cooperstown? Because dead birds don’t get a vote.

Tip o’ the cap to Craig Robinson at Flip Flop Flyball

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Photos courtesy of Yahoo! Sports, Flickr

Boston baseball fans will tell you they have a sixth sense about their brethren. They’ll tell you they have inside information of their beloved team and the players connected to it that is otherwise unavailable to those foreign to Red Sox Nation. They’ll tell you they patiently waited out David Ortiz‘s horrific spring slump without boos or jeers because they knew – they just knew – Papi would turn it around. Without telling you that they know more than you, Sawx fans will tell you they know more than you.

Don’t believe ‘em.

These formerly nasty and hardened baseball elitists are melting faster than Greenland’s glaciers. They’re softening up like campfire marshmallows and they’re doing it twice as quickly. And if you don’t believe me, take a look at the ovation Fenway Pahk gave their former Rookie of the Year, Nomar Garciaparra, in his return to the place he spent 8 1/2 years being the face of the franchise.

“Backwards ramoN” earned two batting titles in 1999 and 2000 for the Red Sox, hit .323 for the team and .377 at Fenway, the highest average in that park of any active player with at least 1,000 at-bats. And for that, on Monday night, the Boston faithful were faithful to something besides Boston. Garciaparra tapped his chest, tipped his cap and looked around the familiar field as Bostonians showered one of the most popular Red Sox in the last 20 years with a one-minute standing ovation.

But this is Boston. Short of New York and Philadelphia fans, are there any more brutal louts crashing the games these days? There didn’t used to be. And Garciaparra is different than Ortiz’s struggles. For starters, he’s still on the team. Garciaparra left town a villain, right?

Remember?

Two months after sending Garciaparra to the Cubs in 2004, the Red Sox won the franchise’s first World Series in 86 years. His former teammates voted to give him a World Series ring. Curt Schilling noted that if it were not for Nomar, the Sox may not have been in a position to win at all that year. At the time, the decision to give Garciaparra a ring felt like a parent deciding not to ground their child for missing curfew for no other reason that they’re just relieved the kid is home safe. It’s over. Let’s do all we can to put it behind us. Even just two months after his departure, No-mah’s history with Boston was being rewritten.

So let’s rewrite the rewritten parts and look at the end of Garciaparra’s run in Beantown:

• After initially agreeing on a four-year, $60 million deal, Garciaparra wanted an $8 million signing bonus that would bring the total value to a Derek Jeter-ish $17 million per year. The Red Sox weren’t feeling it.
• In the offseason prior to 2004, Boston tried to get Alex Rodriguez, who at the time still played the same position as Garciaparra. Ain’t nothin’ quite as maddening as the guy you’re dating eyeballin’ another woman.
• Stories were written claiming Garciaparra felt that throughout the 2003 season management instructed the grounds crew to rough up the dirt at shortstop so it would be tougher for him to make plays.
• Because of his impending marriage, he refused to shave his head with most of his teammates during the 2003 ALCS (this one seems reasonable, but it’s just another example of the erosion that went on between Nomar and Red Sox fans).
• During a 13-inning grudge match with the Yankees in July 2004 (weeks before he’d be traded to Chicago), Garciaparra poutingly sat on the bench while teammate Pokey Reese made a number of crackerjack plays in his place.

But there he was on Monday, almost five years later, decked in Oakland’s gold and green stepping out of the batter’s box to acknowledge a throng of fans acting as if he retired in July 2004 instead of being catapulted the hell out of town. I’d expect that nonsense in San Diego or Kansas City or any place else that has easygoing fans satisfied with just having ever had a good player, even for a fleeting moment. But Boston? This isn’t the Boston I know. Where were the “NoMore Garciaparra”  or “Mr. Mia Hamm” signs? Something … anything. A 60-second standing O? That’s soft. Wicked soft.

“They’re crazy fans,” Terry Francona, manager of the Red Sox said on Monday. “But they’re so wrapped up emotionally in their team and people that have been a part of their teams.”

Francona’s right – to a point. They’re appreciative of the “good guys” of Boston’s past. But by the time Garciaparra left, he wasn’t considered one. And he’s never been back since. With Garciaparra, nothing about his situation with Boston changed except time.

And apparently it’s precisely that which has softened up Red Sox Nation.

Go HERE for the video of Garciaparra’s return to Fenway.

I always said if I ever made the Lakers, I’d take an extra aggressive dive into the L.A. cheerleaders in my first week. Well, unseeded Michael Llodra must have had the same thought during Wednesday’s Wimbledon second round. Since there aren’t any dancers in the tournament, Llondra was compelled to collide with 15-year-old ball girl Erin Lorencin and the judge’s high chair. VIDEO

The injury was bad enough that after his next serve – 20 minutes into the match – Llodra was forced to retire. Lorencin, not quite as hurt as Llodra, barely knew what hit her.

“I don’t remember much,” Lorencin said. “I was really confused. I was very shocked. I really didn’t expect it to happen. It is really embarrassing. My little brother was very pleased and laughing.”

World No. 34 Tommy Haas, the winner of the Wimbledon warm-up Queen’s Cup tournament, waltzed into the third round, but not before tossing a little extra tennis the Centre Court fans’ way. He volleyed with a ball boy and ball girl Chloe Chambers (without collapsing on either of them) to provide the cheated crowd with a bit more tennis.

In honor of Llodra’s early exit, Sidelines looks at the five best sideline collisions after the jump. Cheerleaders will be involved as often as possible.

5. If he didn’t get this girl’s number, there’s no hope for him

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4. (tie) Shaq goes cougar diving

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That’s a 300 lbs. guarantee that you’re gonna spill your beer

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3. Note to Clippers: Check Blake Griffin’s coccyx
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2. Devin Harris stole my move!

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1. Jeter comes up bloody

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