Blondes vs. Brunettes
A football game of a different type for a great cause
Sep 12, 2017, 7:00 am
Whether it was a blonde or brunette, the competition on the field was fierce. Quy Tran photography
Red Sox vs. Yankees, Oklahoma vs. UT…..these rivalries don’t have anything on Blondes vs. Brunettes. We compete on and off the field. Literally. Every year in dozens of cities two all-female squads consisting of Blondes and Brunettes battle it out in a game of flag football. We can’t pull hair, so they give us flags. But we do some good with our hate. The game helps raise hundreds of thousands in the fight against Alzheimer’s disease.
Going into my second season of Blondes vs. Brunettes, I am on Team Blonde (thanks to Loreal blonde dye). It’s pretty exciting to be part of such a great charity and event. All our teammates and coaches play for their own reasons. For some of my teammates the fight against this terrible disease is deeply personal.
For months leading up to the big game, we train for this. Blood, sweat, and tears. I poured my soul into each practice, and so did everyone else. On the first practice one girl broke her finger and one of our receivers took an elbow to the forehead, blood gushing. You would have thought we were playing for the AAC championship and we were not even to the big game yet.
Two weeks before the game I’m playing corner in the red zone. We had about five minutes left of practice to finish this last drive. No way I was going to let them score on my side. As we lined up I saw one of our top receivers in my zone. Picture a Crossfit enthusiast, coming at me full speed. Whistle blows, play starts, quarterback drops back and looks in my direction. The QB starts to scramble, looks in our direction, but I am all over this receiver. I can see her frustration not being able to get open. I am also frustrated. Seconds felt like an eternity, running all over the end zone. Finally, the ball is thrown. Our bodies are running together as one towards the center of the end zone. I take one step to the right, she immediately stops and reaches left for the ball. Her body’s momentum carried her into mine. We both ended up on the ground. But the good news is… so did the ball. I broke up the play. I got up, but after a few steps my adrenaline wore off and my knee gave out. I dragged myself behind the end zone, to get out of the next play. My coaches and teammates had to help me off the field.
With only two weeks until the game, my knee was swollen and I was in pain. At this point I was unsure if I could even play in the game. I spent the next two weeks rehabbing, trying to get back onto the field to play. My recovery came along great and the trainers at UH actually thought it was just a knee sprain. I insisted I was ready for the game, even though I had to wear a giant knee brace.
Finally, game day was here. I warmed up with my knee brace and although it did hurt at times, I stood up strong and said “put me in coach.” I got my chance to go in for a few plays in the first half and I painfully shook it off. I went in again in the second half, but I was frustrated since I wasn’t full speed or playing all out, like I know I can. Putting all that aside, I realized what was most important that day. We came together as a team, cheering each other on, pushing our teammates to keep the drive up until the end. It was such a close game and the team’s camaraderie helped pull together the win that day. The Blondes took the win by one touchdown in the end, to make it three years in a row.
Yet another amazing game and season of Blondes vs. Brunettes football. It turns out I had been trying to play on a completely torn ACL and partially torn meniscus after the MRI results. But it’s OK, I have seven months to recover. I’m coming back from a torn ACL next year, Adrian Peterson style.
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Through 20 games, the Houston Astros have managed just six wins and are in last place in the AL West.
Their pitching staff trails only Colorado with a 5.24 ERA and big-money new closer Josh Hader has given up the same number of earned runs in 10 games as he did in 61 last year.
Despite this, these veteran Astros, who have reached the AL Championship Series seven consecutive times, have no doubt they’ll turn things around.
“If there’s a team that can do it, it’s this team,” shortstop Jeremy Peña said.
First-year manager Joe Espada, who was hired in January to replace the retired Dusty Baker, discussed his team’s early struggles.
“It’s not ideal,” he said. “It’s not what we expected, to come out of the shoot playing this type of baseball. But you know what, this is where we’re at and we’ve got to pick it up and play better. That’s just the bottom line.”
Many of Houston’s problems have stemmed from a poor performance by a rotation that has been decimated by injuries. Ace Justin Verlander and fellow starter José Urquidy haven’t pitched this season because of injuries and lefty Framber Valdez made just two starts before landing on the injured list with a sore elbow.
Ronel Blanco, who threw a no-hitter in his season debut April 1, has pitched well and is 2-0 with a 0.86 ERA in three starts this season. Cristian Javier is also off to a good start, going 2-0 with a 1.54 ERA in four starts, but the team has won just two games not started by those two pitchers.
However, Espada wouldn’t blame the rotation for Houston’s current position.
“It’s been a little bit of a roller coaster how we've played overall,” he said. “One day we get good starting pitching, some days we don’t. The middle relief has been better and sometimes it hasn’t been. So, we’ve just got to put it all together and then play more as a team. And once we start doing that, we’ll be in good shape.”
The good news for the Astros is that Verlander will make his season debut Friday night when they open a series at Washington and Valdez should return soon after him.
“Framber and Justin have been a great part of our success in the last few years,” second baseman Jose Altuve said. “So, it’s always good to have those two guys back helping the team. We trust them and I think it’s going to be good.”
Hader signed a five-year, $95 million contract this offseason to give the Astros a shutdown 7-8-9 combination at the back end of their bullpen with Bryan Abreu and Ryan Pressly. But the five-time All-Star is off to a bumpy start.
He allowed four runs in the ninth inning of a 6-1 loss to the Braves on Monday night and has yielded eight earned runs this season after giving up the same number in 56 1/3 innings for San Diego last year.
He was much better Wednesday when he struck out the side in the ninth before the Astros fell to Atlanta in 10 innings for their third straight loss.
Houston’s offense, led by Altuve, Yordan Alvarez and Kyle Tucker, ranks third in the majors with a .268 batting average and is tied for third with 24 homers this season. But the Astros have struggled with runners in scoring position and often failed to get a big hit in close games.
While many of Houston’s hitters have thrived this season, one notable exception is first baseman José Abreu. The 37-year-old, who is in the second year of a three-year, $58.5 million contract, is hitting 0.78 with just one extra-base hit in 16 games, raising questions about why he remains in the lineup every day.
To make matters worse, his error on a routine ground ball in the eighth inning Wednesday helped the Braves tie the game before they won in extra innings.
Espada brushed off criticism of Abreu and said he knows the 2020 AL MVP can break out of his early slump.
“Because (of) history,” Espada said. “The back of his baseball card. He can do it.”
Though things haven’t gone well for the Astros so far, everyone insists there’s no panic in this team which won its second World Series in 2022.
Altuve added that he doesn’t have to say anything to his teammates during this tough time.
“I think they’ve played enough baseball to know how to control themselves and how to come back to the plan we have, which is winning games,” he said.
The clubhouse was quiet and somber Wednesday after the Astros suffered their third series sweep of the season and second at home. While not panicking about the slow start, this team, which has won at least 90 games in each of the last three seasons, is certainly not happy with its record.
“We need to do everything better,” third baseman Alex Bregman said. “I feel like we’re in a lot of games, but we just haven’t found a way to win them. And good teams find a way to win games. So we need to find a way to win games.”