Category Archives: Sports

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My happy season

happy season

Thanks to the game last night, my happy season is back

As a Met fan, baseball season often turns into something of a sports Bataan Death March (no, not really but you get the point). For years, my happy season was football season. I am also a 49er fan. (I was born in San Francisco and grew up mostly on Long Island but spent a good deal of time in the Bay Area). By winning their game against the Rams, my happy season is back!

When I was a little kid, I was daddy’s little girl all the way. He loved the Mets and 49ers, so I did, too. He also loved the Oakland Raiders and I grew up loving them as well (that ended when they left for Los Angeles). He may also have been a Jet fan but I hated the Giants and Jets (I have no idea why). I only think he must have liked the Jets because I found a bunch of glasses with the Jets helmet on them. I gave them away.

Last week, I went out to watch the Niners play because I couldn’t watch it at home and I was pretty confident they would win because of who they were playing. This week, I was grateful I could watch at home because I don’t like to watch big games where my team isn’t in the best position. I wasn’t convinced they could win yesterday.

And what a game! I know it is too violent and have mixed feelings about the game in general but football can be a beautiful game. Last night, it was amazing! Now, I may not feel that way when they play the Cowboys (I hate the Cowboys!) but right now I am super happy.

Squirrel Montana & Moose Wilson

I love watching sports and getting all worked up over the games. I feel like it is very cathartic. During the pandemic in 2020 when there were no baseball games, I didn’t think it bothered me but I wasn’t sleeping well and then baseball was back. After watching one game and getting all worked up, I slept like the dead. As the narrator in Fight Club said, “Babies don’t sleep this well.” I think that movie offers a lot of insight into what people get from watching sports.

When describing the fights in Fight Club, the narrator says, “When the fight was over, nothing was solved, but nothing mattered. We all felt saved.” Watching sports is kind of like that for me. I get really into it. I love and hate passionately but when it is over, it doesn’t matter. If my team wins or loses, nothing in my life is different. I am different.

There is a quote that is often attributed to the Dalai Lama, “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.” In addition to the pain we all experience, life is annoying. There are so many things that happen in our lives that just add aggravation. When I first watched Fight Club, the thing that attracted me to the story was the everyday annoyances we all experience that lead to violence. I was working as a temp at the time. Between the annoyances that accompany that job, dealing with the Metro, looking for a full-time job, etc. I could relate to the need to blow off some steam. No, I never got violent because that’s what I have sports for.

I watch and get really into the games. I ride the roller coaster that is a baseball season for Met fans because it is so cathartic. It’s also why my cats are named after athletes. Joe Montana and Mookie Wilson. Both had a huge impact on my youth.

Watching horror movies and reading scary books provide a similar experience. For many people, and this is one reason this genre is so popular, these stories give us all a chance to face our demons in a safe environment. The killer is always defeated (even if only temporarily) and the emotional release is great. Now that I am thinking about it, and it may have already been obvious to you, that is why people ride those roller coasters I referenced in relation to the Mets.

Back to life, back to reality

The holidays are officially over and people around here are taking down their holiday decorations. That makes me sad, as it does every year because it is so dark here so early. Having said that, I need to get cracking on my resolutions. One is to work harder on my writing but the other is to work against genocide. You can read more about both goals here.

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Hey, MLB, get your S*&% together!

Mets

Being a Met fan is hard

I am a Met fan, New Yorker, and a Democrat — in that order. I would never vote for Chris Christie but I like him more than Christine Quinn. I agree with Quinn on just about every political issue but she was a Met fan and she switched her allegiance to the Yankees because her partner likes the Yankees. I just can’t trust that. I can appreciate Christie because he is also a fan of the Mets and that takes a lot. It’s hard to be a fan of the red-headed stepchild of a baseball team in New York.

Last week, the Mets signed pitcher Max Scherzer and I was elated. Finally, an owner who cares about the team. Of course, the universe was paying attention and it was all Don’t get too excited, Met fans. Sure you signed a great player but what if there is no season? When I heard about the lockout, I felt like Neo in the Matrix must have felt when Agent Smith asked “What good is a phone call if you can’t speak?”

So, what good is a great pitcher if you can’t play? The problem is being a Met fan is so much a part of my DNA that I am not sure how to not be a fan. This is how the season usually goes for me. They start off strong and I get all excited. Then, sometime around the All Star break (before, of course), they collapse. Some years, they make a comeback and I think they just. Might. Make. It. Then they collapse again and break my heart.

This is why they call us “crazy cat lady”

A woman got herself in trouble for trying to breastfeed a hairless cat on a Delta flight from Syracuse, NY to Atlanta, GA. Ainsley Elizabeth, a flight attendant on the flight said, “This woman had one of those, like, hairless cats swaddled up in a blanket so it looked like a baby. Her shirt was up and she was trying to get the cat to latch and she wouldn’t put the cat back in the carrier. And the cat was screaming for its life.”

Even the cat knew this was not something that is supposed to happen. What the hell, lady? I have two cats and I love them but I have never, ever even considered trying to breastfeed any of them. People like this are why cat people are often thought of as being “crazy.” Thanks a lot. The woman on the plane was apprehended by authorities at the airport when they landed. I can only hope the cat went to a better home.

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If you build it, he will come

Trump

This is the most personal thing I have ever written.

I just rewatched Field of Dreams. I am not sure how many times I have seen it before but enough to know large parts of it by heart. It has always choked me up because it is a beautiful film and I love baseball. My reaction was different tonight was different. For the first time, watching Ray Kinsella reconnect with his father, John, hit me on a very personal level.

My relationship with my father, John Gill, was the most important of my early childhood. I lived and died by what he thought of me. I was a Met fan because he was. I loved the Niners because he did. It is possible that I volunteered on Democratic campaigns (starting at age 8) because maybe it was what I thought would make him appreciate me. I am not going to lie. I am feeling a bit rudderless right now. Who exactly am I?

There is something that happens to you when the one person from whom you get your sense of self and self-worth rejects you completely.

It took years of mental and physical abuse for me to turn on him. I mean years. Even after he tried to kill me, several times, I wanted to go home to his house.

I took the hurt of that early rejection and I mummified it in a coating of anger. Anger is a secondary emotion, hiding something else. That hurt was so deeply buried that I thought my anger was a primary emotion. I had (and have) plenty of real reasons to hate my father. He beat me, tried to kill me, sent private investigators to follow me. He made me feel unsafe in my own head and when I had nightmares about him, I soothed myself with you never have to get married.

This facade fell briefly when I came back to his (and my grandmother’s) house. I found dozens, if not hundreds, of letters from writers he had helped. My first reaction was that old rejection he helped all these people and he never helped me. I went back to hating him almost immediately. How can you feel sad about his death? He was an awful person. He was but that isn’t the point.

When Ray reconnects with his father, I cried because that reconnection was something I have always craved. Something I have always longed for. Even if I didn’t know it. Watching that scene made all that anger and hate fade away.

You don’t forgive people because they deserve it, you forgive them because you do. This anger has been eating me up for most of my life and I just cannot hold onto it anymore.

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The real problem with Donald Sterling

This was originally published on Liberaland.

The normal reaction to Donald Sterling’s racist comments is outrage and disgust;  but my issue isn’t with what he told his mistress but rather how he treated people before, and how he was allowed to get away with it.  Like Cliven Bundy last week, there is so much wrong with what Sterling said that it is hard to know where to begin.  Remember he told his multi-racial mistress that he was ok with her having sex with African-Americans, he just didn’t want to see their

West's silhouette serves as the current NBA logo.

West’s silhouette serves as the current NBA logo. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

photos on Instagram. From soup to nuts, that is a crazy rant, but what’s even crazier is that not only were people not surprised by his racism but the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was scheduled to give the NBA team owner a lifetime achievement award this Saturday.  Yes, they have rescinded the offer. but why did they make it to begin with? In fact this would have been his second NAACP Lifetime Achievement Award.

Donald Sterling is a very rich man.  He has made a lot of his money in real estate and his history of racism and discrimination is well known.  The Department of Justice (DoJ) sued him in 2006 for refusing to rent to non-Koreans in Koreatown to African-Americans elsewhere in Los Angeles.  In 2009, he paid $2.73 million because he discriminated against African-Americans, Latinos and families with children.  That same year, Clippers Elgin Baylor sued him for wrongful termination and alleged Sterling wanted a “team full of poor, black boys with a white coach from the south.”

The chapter of the NAACP that was poised to award Sterling claims they asked him about the lawsuits and comments and took him at his word when he denied allegations of racism.  They are also revisiting how they vet candidates for awards and returning donations he gave.  And President Obama’s comment, “When people — when ignorant folks want to advertise their ignorance, you don’t really have to do anything, you just let them talk. And that’s what happened here,” was perfect but still misses the point.  Sterling’s comments and attitude are not the real problem.

The real problem is not that the owner of a basketball team is racist, though that is unacceptable.  Donald Sperling’s racist comments and actions were condoned and he was celebrated after they were well documented; that is the problem.

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I Am Convinced Being a Met Fan Has Taken Years Off of My Life

metfan

I am a Met fan. Not sure why I always say “Met fan” vs. “Mets fan” but the real point is why does anyone support a team that sucks and cares so little about either winning or treating their fan base well? No one can tell. Must be some sort of masochism.

Yes, it’s true, I am a Met fan.  Not really sure why though.  When I do comedy, I like to say that I am not a Met fan because I am from New York.  I am a Met fan because I hate myself and it’s a pretty reliable way to be miserable for at least half of the year.

In this respect, the Mets do not disappoint.  I had written off this season (and probably all until Fred Wilpon either dies or sells the team) and I was not surprised by their fuckupery de la semaine that happened this week.  You see the Mets traded outfielder Marlon Byrd to the Pittsburgh Pirates this week.  Normally, this would not be a big deal.  Late season trades like this happen all the time.  The timing of this trade, however, was problematic as it happened the day the Mets had set aside to be “Byrd T-Shirt Night” at Citifield.  Fans who showed up all got Byrd t-shirts but he was no longer a Met by then.

OOOPS and OUCH!  The Mets had to shell out for t-shirts with actual Met players and gave everyone free tickets to another game.  Wow.

The Met front office stupidity is epic.  I feel like most of my life has been spent watching the Mets trade decent or great players away and the deal always goes down the same way.  I see someone from their front office make a perfectly reasonable case for why they traded player x to team y (they wanted too much money, they didn’t like New York, etc) only to have the very next person come on be that player explaining how they loved being a Met.  Three examples come to mind.  When they traded John Olerud, they said it was because his wife missed Seattle.  He then told the world how much he and his wife loved living in New York.  After explaining the Dave Cone wanted too much money, Cone said he would have played for free just to play in NY (particularly painful because he went on to play for the Yankees — double OUCH).  And then there’s the more recent trade of José Reyes, I don’t know what the official reason the Mets gave was but Reyes said that he didn’t feel wanted by management because they never approached him.   This cuts to the heart of my problem and the question I would ask Wilpon, do you even talk to your players before you trade them?  No?  Clearly.  And clearly you should start.

Now, I have other problems with Wilpon.  He lost a ton of money to Bernie Madoff but was also held responsible for the Ponzi Scheme and forced to pay $162 million to the victims’ fund.  Is it a coincidence that he paid $162 million and there are 162 games in a baseball season.  I don’t think so.  And Citifield was built as a monument to Jackie Robinson (and Ebbets’ Field).  I get that Robinson was a transformative figure for sports and society and love what he did for both but this is a MET stadium.  Honor him, sure.  Wilpon was a huge Dodgers fan, I get it.  It doesn’t have to go over the top with it.  As awesome as Robinson was and great his achievements were, his monument should be elsewhere.  Maybe not the home of the most incompetent team in baseball.    And the stadium was built to accommodate Reyes’ style of play and he was traded the same season it opened.  Wow.

The Wall Street Journal compared the relationship Mets have with their fans and Yankees have with theirs.  For the Yankees and their fans, it is a long, stable marriage.  For the Mets & Met fans, it’s a tumultuous affair.  We love our team, we hate them.  I agree but today I am feeling like it is also an abusive relationship.  They beat me up this week but during the off season they will apologize and come Opening Day, I’ll be back for more.

 

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