Although there are outliers, like my hometown, where Ames and then the local attempt at a department store folded and people were having to drive long distances to get basics. Walmart did fill a gap in that community.

I wish him well, because I'd like to see something more artistic than the current practice of building speed for jumps with occasional arm motions.

My wife: If you ever get me a chocolate diamond, it better be milk chocolate.

Other than the fact most WalMarts are pretty lax about prosecuting anything but major theft...sure, sure.

This is a weird topic for me. I support any couple of any mix that relates and wants to make it work.

While I'll never be rich, I make more in a public interest law job than my spouse does in her private practice job. So you never know.

Well, yes, if it's based on gender-based inequality.

I know a guy who wouldn't look at a woman who didn't have a credit score of over 800. Typically they also had to be stereotypically hot. And he saw this as proper first date (or before) conversation.

As a man from a blue collar background who went on to get degrees, I was less enamored with this. Being educated made me even less attractive in my hometown, and I had thought such things were impossible.

Size (and travel cost) is a huge problem. Regional leagues always are seen as "inferior" but it goes back to my idea of a lot of local teams. Maybe the champion of the NY-Penn league moves onto a US Women's Champions League against the other five regional winners?

My (female) spouse is a huge sports fan. And she watches at home, because bar patrons and owners tend to be alarmed by the way she screams, throws things and, occasionally, runs laps up and down the hallway to burn nervous energy. Nothing pink or fluffy needed.

Agreed. It's nothing to do with selecting the team. It's about using some jingoistic "but Americans have to support America!" argument about putting livelihoods on hold or losing out on earnings to subsidize the league's ownership or advertising budget.

Well, I made 25 up based on the idea of having a couple of divisions. I don't let factual analysis get in the way of posting.

sure, WNT. But here in WNY we had teams with national team players from the US and other nations that failed. It's a combination of lack of interest in the individual players vs. USA USA and the fact the league always tries to go "major" from day 1, imho. And I played high school soccer poorly, so of course I'm an…

I shall name you a commissioner in my new league, as you have matched my ideas pretty closely.

Yeah, but I'm just cynical. I'd prefer they shoot for 25 really cheap 1000 seat teams that verge on semi-pro. Let the stars that want go elsewhere. Build internally. And use a Euro-style relegation/promotion system to build toward that top-flight series that can have larger budgets and attract stars, in venues that…

I'd even shoot lower than WNBA. Minor league baseball, maybe, at the A or AA level might be comparable. Don't expect top players, but offer a cheap family venue and at least college-level play.

It can work, but on an Arena League level (or even smaller, like whatever that fat qb played in) and not as an immediate major pro sport. Start small and build up.

Yep.

Rochester at Buffalo, AAA game, about 2003. It was pretty empty and we were sitting on the wall by the home bullpen, on the right field side just past first base. We were drunk and one friend spent the entire game heckling the Rochester players. We had no connection to Buffalo, other than living there for school, so I…