Apparently some idiot on the staff of the LA Times wrote a nasty article about the WNBA. And superstar Diana Taurasi wrote an informed, intelligent response. Read it here.

My mom was always a Taurasi fan and a WNBA fan. Every year she drags people from her alumni groups to see a game. And every year they go, “Wow — we didn’t expect the basketball to be this good.” My mom the missionary, converting NBA fans to WNBA fans.

And almost every Storm game, there’s at least one Seahawks player. They don’t have to be there, do they? They know a good game when they see one.

Diana’s letter is getting so much great publicity, my mom says.

Diana’s a 2-guard, she tells me. Part of the backcourt. I don’t know what that is but I do love backyaView »rds, so…

Go read it.

My mom refuses to discuss last night’s game. You can read about it here.

After she came home, we ran into our neighbor James. He asked, “How are you?”

Cathy: “Depressed. The Storm Lost.”

James: “Umm…I don’t follow sports. Is this a tragedy? And what about Gracie here? She doesn’t care about winning or losing.”

Actually, I do. You should see me at the dog park. I dive for balls and run with them. If I were a basketball player, I’d grab the ball, don’t let anyone else get it and run like hell. And then I’d pass to someone taller who could shoot.

My mom thinks the Storm fought valiantly. She thinks Sue Bird played brilliantly: Sue turns away from whoever’s guarding her, just like I do when three dogs are trying to steal my favorite stick.

After Sue Bird, Cathy admires Yolanda Griffith. She likes Tanisha Wright’s improbable scores, Camille Little’s solid consistency and Sheryl Swoopes’s smoothness. She loved the last reguar season game, when the coach turned the game over to the bench players (but the Storm still beat Atlanta).

You have to realize my mom didn’t know what a point guard was ten years ago. Now she’s a fan. That’s nice…but that’s about the same time she got the First Dog. And that’s how I ended up here. That’s what’s really important.

My mom Cathy discovered basketball about 10 years ago. At first she didn’t know what a point guard was, but now she’s a die-hard WNBA fan.

Here she is, dressed appropriately for a Seattle Storm game in the WNBA shirt she bought when she first saw a game in 2004, and the dorky Storm cap she bought in 2005. She’s posing with our neighbor Diana just outside Key Arena where fans mourn a 7-point loss to the Connecticut Sun.

Diana played college hoops so my mom always asks her to explain the finer points of the game.

Big deal. As far as I’m concerned, Diana’s only virtue is she’s co-owner of my awesome dog pal, Bailey. I get so excited when I see Bailey out walking with one of her owners. My mom pulls on my leash and yells, “No jumping!” Yeah, right.

My mom always gives me a pre-game walk around the neighborhood. She wears her Storm shirt and cap and we greet all the other fans who are similarly attired. I’m embarrassed to be seen with her in public in that outfit, so I do my business quickly and give her that special “Let’s go home” tug on the leash.

“Where else can I wear that t-shirt?” Mom says. “I’ve got half a dozen free ones from the Storm and other t-shirts from events in New Mexico and….”

Ever hear the saying, “Whoever dies with the most toys wins?”

I don’t know about toys, but at this rate my mom Cathy will eventually die with the most t-shirts. In the arena of dressing for comfort, she’s the big winner.

It’s a tough time to be a dog. My mom Cathy is a dedicated WNBA fan. So she feels she ought to keep an eye on the college scene, because some of those players will be drafted into the league this May. She likes Candace Parker of Tennessee and Sylvia Fowles of LSU. She likes Rutgers because it’s, well, Rutgers.

UConn? Alas, everyone who comes after Diana Taurasi will suffer in comparison, if not in basketball, in personality. Cathy loves mavericks.

But mostly Cathy likes to watch an upset. She loves seeing a team come out of nowhere and take on the reigning champions. She’s not too optimistic this year…just hoping we don’t see another UConn vs Tennessee again.

See…even the dog learns more than she ever wanted to know.

Here’s the kicker. My mom Cathy didn’t start following sports until Christmas season of 1998. Cathy was not a tomboy. As a child, she avoided sports. She liked to dress up. She hid from her high school and college gym classes.

“In those days,” she recalls, “gym teachers were a bunch of sadists.”

She moved into her house in Florida and, while waiting for deliveries, began to watch the games. She also adopted Keesha, the First Dog. So in Spring 1999 she finally learned what a point guard was…and she took her first dog obedience class, too.

Thank goodness.