Dallas is a little darker tonight with the passing of Richard Durrett, ESPN writer. I only got to meet him twice, but the impression he made in those two times was incredible. Every single thing I've ever heard about him was that he was a kind, wonderful human being, who was also a talented writer and reporter.

As someone still struggling to get started in the sportswriting world, it means an incredible amount for someone I respect to even acknowledge me. Durrett did more that that, the day Joey Gallo was promoted. He knew my writing, knew my expertise, wanted to know my opinion on prospects and the farm system. He listened to me, and seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say. His work represents what I want to do, and all of Dallas/Fort Worth will be lessened by the loss of his voice.

Additionally, thoughts and prayers to his family, especially his wife and young children.

Thoughts on an Incident

Every time something like the most recent Ray Rice thing, or the countless examples before that, comes up, I have to question what I choose to do with my life. I choose to cover sports, a culture that endorses victim blaming, a culture that says that smoking pot deserves more punishment than raping someone, a culture that constantly finds ways to defy the amount of social progress and change seen in a lot of the world around us. 

Do I, by covering it, add my signature? Do I, in my silence because I find no words to speak, sign off on this? Am I tarred with the same brush as the legion of Facebook commenters who see nothing wrong with how their heroes act off the field when I stop typing because I am too tired to add relevant discussion? 

As a woman, I am outraged. As a human being, I am horrified. Making the victim of an assault…apologize? Apologize for what? For existing? For trusting someone enough to marry them? For "her role in this," her role being knocked out by her husband? How is this possible? How is this allowable? 

Maybe "making" isn't the correct word. Maybe "encouraging." Maybe "coercing." Maybe simply "allowing." Maybe it's even love, a love as I don't know it, as she married him after the abuse occurred. Maybe it's something I can't understand that makes her feel like she needs to apologize, not for him, but for herself. 

Maybe I'm too sensitive. Maybe I'm not allowing for time or place or circumstance, because God knows I don't know what it's like to be a professional athlete. Perhaps, in condemning the culture, I'm offending the good, upstanding, excellent human beings I know exist within it. That's what happens, though, when such atrocities like that are allowed to exist. 

I just know that there are fewer things that hurt more than being told through actions yet again that if anything were to happen to me while I was doing my job as a sportswriter, it would be my fault because I allowed myself to exist within the sacred sphere of sports. 

Prose on the Subject of a Joseph Gallo Homer.

I tend to do my best to stay away from the flowery prose of my youthful fictions, especially in the spotlit world of baseball. Turns of speech-like phrase have their place, but not when attempting to describe the future proclivities of a middle reliever to the world, especially when one is not paid by the word, or even by the average length of words one uses.

There are some occurrences, however, that call for every bit of flamboyant language I still have left in my soul. Watching a 20-year-old hit a baseball 450 and more feet may not seem, to the average reader, like one of those occasions, but it so very is.

To watch Joey Gallo hit a baseball out of a park is to watch ever-improving poetry in motion. It is to watch controlled violence, awareness, and sheer gut-wrenching power put into action, with the result of that action being a dent on a scoreboard possibly thought un-dentable. It is to put aside the rational thought, and think with the same part of the brain that imagines "Mitch Moreland Left-Handed Relief Pitcher," to think "Joey Gallo in Arlington 2015."

It is giggle-inducing. It is nearly not-safe-for-work. It is incredibly amusing. It is jaw-droppingly marvelous. It is all and none of those things, because with Gallo, it is also nearly routine.


[HR: Gallo 2 (12, 2nd inning off Ortiz, 0 on, 0 out; 8th inning off Hagan, S, 0 on, 0 out).]

Portfolio

A convenient list of some works published under the name Kate Morrison

WFAA.com (or the BaseballTexas mobile app)

• Texas Rangers Top-15 Prospect List
•  The Adventures of a Minor League Writer in a Major League Press Box
• Early Thoughts on the RoughRiders
• Minor League Look: Knuckleball Edition
• Questions and Answers about Nomar Mazara and Jorge Alfaro
• An example of the fortnightly column "Minor League Mailbag."
• Texas Rangers game story, July 21, 2014
• Texas Rangers game story, June 22, 2014
• The Impressive Frisco Debut of Joey Gallo and Alex Gonzalez
• Prospect Look-In: Major League Relievers

Published on WFAA.com, non-baseball

• World Cup Fantasy Ends, but Soccer is Here to Stay in America
• A Small Tale of a Huge Impression

Our Daily Bears

• The Daily Bears Report

Contact Kate at unlikelyfanatic@gmail.com for unpublished works.

On "Taking the Fun Away."

"Deal with it."

"Oh, it was only a joke."

"You just want to take all the fun away."

-responses to a request to tone down the misogyny

I am tired of it being assumed that I am "taking things too seriously" and that I "have no sense of humor" when I fail to be amused, and am indeed insulted by the constant objectification and degradation of women on a great number of sports websites.

This post has been a long time in the making. When I started this blog, I never thought I'd be making any kind of "feminist" statement, until I did, in defense of Sloane Martin (defense? statement of solidarity? personal hashing out of feelings?) A lot of what I said then is still true now. A few important things are not.

I have long prided myself on having a particularly "thick" internet skin. I may rant about my frustrations with the general population of these electrons in private, but until recently I accepted that if I wanted to talk about sports with sports-intelligent people, I'd have to just deal, I'd have to just accept the constant belittling of my gender, the ever-present deluge of judgements and assumptions.

I grew more and more uncomfortable with both the unthinking behavior I was surrounded by, and the outraged response by some when asked to, for instance, stop posting nearly-nude images of women as "rally images" (and those images were then ranked and stripped of all humanity by the hordes, who reduced women down to "would/would not.")

The final straw on the proverbial camel's back came just the other day-after seeing the opinion of their female fans held by one baseball club, a friend of mine was insulted and then mocked when she asked that members of a website behave themselves a little more like human beings.

Silence, in many cases, is implied agreement. I cannot let myself be silent anymore.

Any Expectations

Writing about the minor leagues, for me, takes a blend of unimpeded optimism tempered like eggs with the bitter honesty of realism.

Take, for example, a 23 year old second baseman who (as of this second) has one more home run than year on this earth. He's walking 11.9% of the time, and striking out 22.1%, the latter of which is not insignificant, but appears much nicer when placed next to the K% (30%!) of his teammates. He has moderately decent defense at second base. The 24 homers and .254 BA look okay, and promotable, and even supportable, except that these numbers are coming out of class-A Hickory.

Rambling On.

This past week, I've been struggling with a pretty serious case of writer's block. None of my loosely thrown together processes have worked, at all, and I end up staring at the same sentence over and over, before wearily hitting delete, again.