A few weeks ago I read an interesting post by Alex at Bronx Banter in which he talked about how his girlfriend has become a baseball fan, mainly because of the joy the game brings him. My first reaction was to leave him a sarcastic comment, which can be found near the bottom of his post, but recently I've been thinking more about it. Just how has my sports obsession influenced my wife? Not much.
A quick word about Leslie. While she might not be a fan, she is an athlete. She grew up playing basketball, and the main reason that we've never played one-on-one is that I'm quite sure she'd beat me and tell all of her friends. And then she'd tell all of my friends. This would be unacceptable.
And so, player yes, fan no. A couple of months ago she picked up my copy of ESPN the Magazine, the one with A-Rod on the cover. She looked at it for a second or two, and announced, "You know, Alex Rodríguez is about a hundred times better looking than Derek Jeter." Probably not the first thing I would've noticed, but here's the troubling thing -- her comment made me jealous, and not for the reason you might think. I wasn't bothered that she was telling me about another good looking guy, I was bothered that she thought he was better looking than Derek Jeter, my favorite player. I'm not making this up.
Also, when we talk sports, certain things get lost in translation. Just yesterday I was telling her about how Jeter finally snapped out of his slump, but I wanted to focus on how cool it was that the Yankee Stadium crowd was urging him on, cheering for him to get a hit and snap his hitless streak. Here's how the conversation went:
Me: Remember I told you how Derek Jeter hadn't gotten a hit in forever?
Her: Yeah.
Me: Well, once he got up to, like, twenty-five straight at bats without a hit, the Stadium crowd started booing him.
Her: What? That's ridiculous! Why would they do that?
What I Thought: They booed him because he wasn't hitting, which is their right since they essentially pay his salary (even though I would never boo a player), but that isn't really the point.
Me: Umm, well, I guess because it had been a really long time since he had gotten a hit.
Her: .....
What I Thought: Well, is it really their right? No one boos at a bad movie. They don't boo the actors in a bad play. It would be rude. Maybe fans shouldn't boo players... No, wait a minute. Of course they can boo if they want. This is baseball, isn't it? Focus, damn it, focus!
Me: Well, the cool thing was that in his last two at bats that game, when the game was already decided, the crowd got completely behind him, with a standing ovation and everything, chanting over and over, "Let's go Jeter! Let's go Jeter!"
What I Thought: She's gotta like that. That was one of the coolest things I've ever seen. I mean, come on, they were chanting his name! It gave me goosebumps!
Her: I'd just say, "F-you fans!"
What I Thought: Well, maybe she doesn't have to like that.
Me (weakly): Well, it was just one of the coolest things I've ever seen. (Gaining confidence.) The game was already decided, and they weren't rooting for him to get a hit to help the team win, they just wanted him to get a hit for himself, just to snap the streak.
What I Thought: Well?
Her: Uh huh.
What I Thought: Am I speaking a foreign language?
Me: So what do you want to do for lunch?
Leslie and I have been together almost six years now (I often marvel at the coincidence that we started dating smack dab in the middle of the greatest Yankee season of all time), and I've dragged her to countless baseball games, football games, basketball games, and even golf tournaments, and she's persevered through them all. During our first summer together she even woke up with me at five a.m. to watch the British Open -- if that isn't love, I don't know what is. And although she hasn't allowed her life to be dominated by the trivialities of sport, there are moments when my influence cannot be denied. Like when her friend's son wanted to name their new baby Carlos, and Leslie and I laughed because the baby's name would be Carlos Delgado. Or when we were watching a play and one of the characters was named David Wells. Or when she tells me that I should really read Seabiscuit because she absolutely loves it. Or even when she peeks over her magazine as Gary Sheffield or some other new Yankee comes to bat and she says to me, "I don't recognize him... he hasn't always been on the team, has he?" And my heart swells with pride. At least until she breaks it again by telling me that he's better looking than Jeter.
Comments