When laid out on paper, it makes perfect sense that someone with gymnastics as a favorite summer sport would have figure skating as their winter viewing of choice. Both sports prioritize combining complicated, dangerous skills with some degree of elegance and expression, both sports’ fans and competitors love to argue about that particular degree of elegance and expression, both sports have incredible competitors who made the sport their entire life and who redefine greatness with every competition – and both sports have long, sordid histories of abuse.
The Kamila Valieva saga over this last week brought back nothing so much as the sinking pit in my stomach generated by everything that happened with USA Gymnastics. On the surface, the two situations could not be more different. Kamila Valieva tested positive for a banned substance with no therapeutic exemption and is now subject to the kind of suspicion and doubt that never truly goes away. USA Gymnastics enabled abusers of all varieties to use the elite and pre-elite gymnastics field as their own personal playground. The similarities come when we step away from the specifics, though, and look at the bigger picture, allowing our eyes to slide slightly out of focus as if trying to find that image in the Magic Eye cacophony.
The true commonality is this: What are we willing to do to win? For a long time, in the US, gold medals came at the expense of young women’s lives and safety. We turned a blind eye to what, in hindsight, was so clearly a damaged system, because we wanted to see five smiling faces on top of the podium (and then we wanted to yell at them for not putting a hand over their heart, as if they weren’t thankful enough to a nation that would see them preyed upon). We watched fluff pieces praising the coaches who forced athletes to tumble on broken bones, who scoffed at injury, and who played favorites with the only intention being to create an atmosphere of mistrust, rather than solidarity.
If, before this week, you only knew of Eteri Tutberidze and Sambo 70 through international sports media and commentary, you likely had an impression of the miracle-worker coach and her prodigy students, all achieving things beyond the commonly understood boundaries of the sport. “Revered but controversial” read one headline promoted on Twitter, a reductive but succinct demonstration of the general public’s opinion towards Tutberidze. Headlines like this have been around every Olympic cycle going back to 2014, when 15-year-old Yulia Lipnitskaya stunned everyone in the Team Event in Sochi, every one of them not interrogating the narrative any further than the “fearsome work ethic” and rags-to-riches story of the Russian skating queen-maker.
Under the surface of “we spent a week at Sambo-70 and look at all these baby quad queens!” though, lies a darker story. Even if we put aside the positive test for a banned substance with no use in a 15-year-old athlete other than to increase aerobic capacity, there are the threads of a tale of a coach willing to treat young athletes as disposable. Lipnitskaya, hailed by every English-language outlet as the next great Olympic champion, was out of the sport by age 19 and struggled with an eating disorder. Perhaps relatedly, Tutberidze gave interviews praising how Lipnitskaya could survive on only “powdered nutrients.” Evgenia Medvedeva, the next hailed queen of skating, competed with a stress fracture in PyeongChang 2018 and came in second to Alina Zagitova, who, in turn, has not competed since 2019.
To be frank, I could keep going with the list of skaters Tutberidze coached who burned bright and flamed out. It’s long, and depressing, and if you have any feeling at all, makes you want to give the sport up for lost.
That’s not the answer, though. It’s not the answer in gymnastics and it’s not the answer here. The answer here is accountability -- both on the part of federations, of coaches, and of us, the media and the fans. We have to be better about asking questions: Yes, these quads are amazing, but are the athletes performing them learning them safely and in a way that won’t ruin the rest of their life (which is usually much longer than their sporting career?) Yes, we want to see even more high-flying tumbling and amazing skills from our gymnasts, but can we guarantee that without the added pressure of a system where failure means humiliation, and no amount of success can protect you?
I joke sometimes that my habit of becoming so invested in a sport that I learn all the dirty little secrets keeps me from actually enjoying anything, ever, but the truth is a little more complicated than that. At its best, this sport is one that marries performance and exceptional athleticism. How can one not be drawn in by that? We know that it can be coached at a high level with respect for the athletes, because we have seen it happen. Sometimes, loving something means knowing it can be better, and being that noisy person who tries, even with a tiny platform and a small voice, to extort it to become what it could be.
Where does that leave us today? I don’t know.
It leaves us with an Olympic women’s competition that feels a bit like a joke. If Valieva wins, there will be no medal ceremony, no flowers, no acknowledgment of an achievement that the IOC, WADA, and many other skating federations feel will be nullified in the coming months. If she doesn’t win, blame will be placed on the drama surrounding the previous week -- and scrutiny will fall on her teammates, fellow Tutberidze students who are the most likely medallists, thanks to their technical components. Other skaters will surely be wondering why the rules feel so different this time when in the past, suspensions have not been lifted until skaters could prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that contamination came from an outside source (such as US Pairs skater Jessica Calalang, who couldn’t compete for eight months while waiting for WADA/USADA to clear her for testing positive for a metabolite caused by her makeup).
The fact that Valieva is 15 is being given as the reason for the lifting of her suspension, here. Other athletes whose suspensions have been enforced were above the age of 16, the age where according to WADA regulations someone is responsible for their own behavior and positive drug tests. That just leads us to another question: Why is 15 the senior age in skating? Why is it that someone can compete as an adult and yet not be held to adult rules and regulations? Why is it that in both sports, there is still such a dedication to the outdated ideals of push-push-push until you can’t? Why does it take the greatest athlete in the history of the sport refusing to put herself in danger to create the tiniest bit of change?
At the end of the day, it all comes down to this: It isn’t fair. The Olympic Movement is built on this ideal of fair competition, fair sport bringing the world together. This incident in particular, and the greater demonstration of disregard for universally adhered-to regulations regarding the amount of outside assistance available to athletes, undermines all of that. The house built on sand cannot stand, and an undertow is eating away its foundations -- and they are letting it fall.
It isn’t fair to Kamila Valieva, who went from being “the first woman to land a quad at the Olympics” to “another doping Russian athlete,” at an age where most of us weren’t deemed mature enough to drive a car. It isn’t fair to every other competitor in the women’s event, who now has to wonder exactly how real every competition they saw swept up by the ROC athletes was. It isn’t fair to whoever else medals, to have their Olympic moment taken away from them thanks to something they didn’t do. It isn’t fair to every 13-year-old girl in both Russia and other countries, breaking her body in search of something that might not even be achievable without untoward help.
It could be fair. I still believe that. I still believe that with a few changes, with a few people held responsible, it could be fair. It just isn’t right now, and that makes it hard to enjoy.
Monday, February 14, 2022
Monday, March 15, 2021
post-baseball
My last byline for Baseball Prospectus was on March 20th, 2019. It’s been two long years since I published anything meaningful about baseball, and closer to four since I attended any type of baseball game with any sort of regularity. If I went back in time to talk to my summer 2017 self, who still harbored some moderate-sized dream of working for a baseball team, working “in baseball” in the way that matters to the outside world, she’d be stunned at what’s transpired. Mainly, by the global pandemic, the fact that I moved back in with my parents willingly for three months in 2020, the fact that masks are a thing now, and my burgeoning dice addiction, but she’d also never be able to comprehend where I am with baseball right now. Baseball was my entire life. I dreamed in the game, moved heaven and earth to make afternoon doubleheaders. I drove hundreds of miles without compensation, hoping that this would be the thing I wrote that got me the job. I drank way too much, I lost friends, and I lost jobs thanks to my obsession, and letting baseball take priority over everything else. I was too naive, too stubborn, and too damn young. For a topical reference that will seem hideously out of date for anyone reading this after the late winter/spring of 2021, when Harry said his relationship with William was “space,” that echoed how I’ve felt about baseball for a while. I haven’t really talked about it much - partially because I ditched Twitter for the better part of 2020, and partially because how do you talk about “this game wore me down until I burned out and couldn’t stand to watch two innings consecutively” on the platform where you’ve made your name as someone who talks about...baseball. So, I let it kind of fade away. Answered questions to the best of my ability (or ignored them), that ability severely hampered by not knowing what on earth was going on. In college, I could name the 25-man roster of six or seven different teams at any given point, and that felt important. Now? I’m only really sure that Sean Doolittle is on the Cincinnati Reds because of the excellent “Red Scare” jokes. In some ways, it’s better on the other side. Baseball no longer has any power over me, so I can say what I want. Not that it truly stopped me before, but friends can attest to sleepless nights wondering if speaking the truth had cost me a job, and caring entirely too deeply about that. I still do baseball work, or rather, I’ve returned to doing baseball work, but it’s quiet work, private work, and it’s something that fills a want, not something creating a need. I’m nearly thirty, and it feels weird to consider that in a year I’ll have been publicly talking about baseball for ten years. I’m so completely different from the person I was back then - at first, eager for men’s approval, desperate to be “one of the guys,” and then combative but still bone-crushingly aching for acceptance, and then something of an expert, and now...well, if we define post-modern art, perhaps that’s what this is. I’m now looking at the sport from a post-baseball perspective. At the raw foundation, baseball still fascinates me. The pure interaction of pitcher to batter. The way we’re still learning and growing and defining and discovering the science and art of the game, the way the ball leaves the fingertips and takes on a life of its own. We can’t ignore everything built on top of that, of course, the white supremacist nature of the corporate entity swallowing the game whole, the very misogyny baked into the bones of it, from the miserable attempts at addressing sexual misconduct to the very fact that women are still fighting just to play the game, and while at one point in time I was the person to address these things, and perhaps I will be again, I’ll happily leave them to better voices. If you let something define your whole entire being, at some point, it will eat you whole and spit you out a bone-scarred shadow of yourself. This time, I’m coming back to baseball on my own terms. I think we’ll both be happier that way.
Saturday, July 27, 2019
On Le Tour de France
As le Tour de France crested its final competitive stage for the race overall, a shortened race for the safety of the riders (in that, not enough of them are cyclocross riders to attempt the landslide-obliterated roads across le Cormet de Roselend), the same team won what had been one of the most entertaining Tours in recent memory. One could call that boring, though it wasn't. One could call it expected, but it didn't look like it would be until the entirely unexpected early termination of the previous day's stage. One could call it a footnote, which, it's not, but it's not the headline, either.
The final result isn’t really why we watch this race. There’s the one big prize, of course, the honor of being “A Winner of Le Tour de France” (at least, unless you’re found to have doped and get your yellow jerseys stripped from you like so much laundry), and three lesser prizes, and the prize commonly acknowledged to be given to the favor of the French crowd. We all have our favorites we cheer for, or our villains we cheer against, but for 21 days, we don’t tune in to see just that.
It’s been five years that I’ve gotten back into watch Le Tour, and I’ve cried at the end of every one. The reasons are different - sometimes Le Tour’s been the one thing keeping me sane while I grapple with unemployment, or with a difficult job, or with the various fears and compromises that come with being alive. Sometimes its just that the directors and editors of the Amaury Sports Organization are incredibly good at their jobs, and the sweeping shots of the Alps, of the riders crossing the fields of wheat and sunflowers, of the faces of pain and struggle, men pushing their bodies to places they aren’t supposed to go - you’re supposed to feel something. You’re supposed to, first, want to go to France (something I feel with every bone in my body, a physical yearning for the mountains that could also be fulfilled with a trip to Colorado), but second, to have a purely emotional response to a sport that fundamentally makes no sense.
It’s a stupid, beautiful race. It’s every man for himself, other than the men charged with burning every last ounce of resolve and carbo-gel fueled muscle for someone else. It’s seeing every single little church over the age of 100 on the broadcast and knowing that the riders know almost nothing of what they’re speeding past. It’s something that gets Americans up early, keeps Australians up late, and throws a bunch of people together in a single Slack room filled with more capital letters than the average ransom note.
It’s easier to describe what Le Tour is than why I care about it so much. Le Tour is 22 teams of eight men each racing for 21 days over some of the best terrain - but only some of - in the world for the honor of a yellow shirt and the chance to raise what is essentially a large dinner plate. It’s a race where you can win the whole thing without ever having won a single day, and the single day winner could also be in the bottom half of the standings at the end (and many of them will be). It’s a big ol’ complicated mess that is deeply, deeply French and yet not won by a Frenchman for over 30 years. It’s deeply problematic, has a horrendous issue with sexism (the women’s race organized by the same group was one day long this year and got less than a tenth the fanfare), and yet somehow one of the purest expressions of sport.
Even in attempting to write about it dryly I can’t help but go into the floweriest of language. It’s that kind of a thing, and that’s part of why I love it. It’s a 19-day vacation from the comfort of my couch (well, and for those early morning 200 km day starts, my bed). It’s the fans who line the side of the road, and wishing I were one of them, seeing the peloton go by in a five-second blur. The motorcycle going around the curve in the road, the sky opening up beyond it, the riders a meaningless speck in the helicopter shot of the high valley, or across a wheat field. The feeling of possibility at every start line, when everything is new and five to ten to thirty guys think they might just have a shot. The way it is so easy to completely immerse yourself in this - or you can let it skim by, enjoying the kind of vistas that even few films can provide.
Why do I love this most ridiculous of things? Because it’s there. Because it’s a bunch of mad idiots on bikes who point themselves at some of the highest mountains in the world and say — let’s go.
The final result isn’t really why we watch this race. There’s the one big prize, of course, the honor of being “A Winner of Le Tour de France” (at least, unless you’re found to have doped and get your yellow jerseys stripped from you like so much laundry), and three lesser prizes, and the prize commonly acknowledged to be given to the favor of the French crowd. We all have our favorites we cheer for, or our villains we cheer against, but for 21 days, we don’t tune in to see just that.
It’s been five years that I’ve gotten back into watch Le Tour, and I’ve cried at the end of every one. The reasons are different - sometimes Le Tour’s been the one thing keeping me sane while I grapple with unemployment, or with a difficult job, or with the various fears and compromises that come with being alive. Sometimes its just that the directors and editors of the Amaury Sports Organization are incredibly good at their jobs, and the sweeping shots of the Alps, of the riders crossing the fields of wheat and sunflowers, of the faces of pain and struggle, men pushing their bodies to places they aren’t supposed to go - you’re supposed to feel something. You’re supposed to, first, want to go to France (something I feel with every bone in my body, a physical yearning for the mountains that could also be fulfilled with a trip to Colorado), but second, to have a purely emotional response to a sport that fundamentally makes no sense.
It’s a stupid, beautiful race. It’s every man for himself, other than the men charged with burning every last ounce of resolve and carbo-gel fueled muscle for someone else. It’s seeing every single little church over the age of 100 on the broadcast and knowing that the riders know almost nothing of what they’re speeding past. It’s something that gets Americans up early, keeps Australians up late, and throws a bunch of people together in a single Slack room filled with more capital letters than the average ransom note.
It’s easier to describe what Le Tour is than why I care about it so much. Le Tour is 22 teams of eight men each racing for 21 days over some of the best terrain - but only some of - in the world for the honor of a yellow shirt and the chance to raise what is essentially a large dinner plate. It’s a race where you can win the whole thing without ever having won a single day, and the single day winner could also be in the bottom half of the standings at the end (and many of them will be). It’s a big ol’ complicated mess that is deeply, deeply French and yet not won by a Frenchman for over 30 years. It’s deeply problematic, has a horrendous issue with sexism (the women’s race organized by the same group was one day long this year and got less than a tenth the fanfare), and yet somehow one of the purest expressions of sport.
Even in attempting to write about it dryly I can’t help but go into the floweriest of language. It’s that kind of a thing, and that’s part of why I love it. It’s a 19-day vacation from the comfort of my couch (well, and for those early morning 200 km day starts, my bed). It’s the fans who line the side of the road, and wishing I were one of them, seeing the peloton go by in a five-second blur. The motorcycle going around the curve in the road, the sky opening up beyond it, the riders a meaningless speck in the helicopter shot of the high valley, or across a wheat field. The feeling of possibility at every start line, when everything is new and five to ten to thirty guys think they might just have a shot. The way it is so easy to completely immerse yourself in this - or you can let it skim by, enjoying the kind of vistas that even few films can provide.
Why do I love this most ridiculous of things? Because it’s there. Because it’s a bunch of mad idiots on bikes who point themselves at some of the highest mountains in the world and say — let’s go.
Friday, November 10, 2017
catharsis
It's the everyday indignities of being a woman, right?
There's more than one kind of harassment, you know - sexual being one of the objective-worst, and most pervasive, and the one finally somewhat being brought out to the light - but that's not the only way that there is to take a once bright soul and dim it.
There's the guy who walked into a Dallas diner, sat down at a booth diagonal from me and a female friend, and pulled out his penis. I forget about him, usually, though, compared to the man who became my friend, then became emotionally abusive to the point that I am still scared of what he could do to my career today. That abuse wasn't about sex, or if it was, I was too naive. It was because I was powerless, because I was desperate, because I've been lonely my whole life. He wasn't even the first emotional abuser - because that's most of the abuse I've experienced. Emotional beat-downs, feeling like I have to buy friendships because I'm not worthy of anything otherwise.
There was the truck full of drunk guys on Baylor's campus who cat-called me as I was walking to my car late one night. I'd gone to my sorority little's dorm to borrow her shower, as my apartment's water was off, and so I was dressed quite alluringly in: A giant sorority tee-shirt, a pair of marching-band sweatpants, slide-on Chuck Taylors, with my hair in a beach towel on my head. Those guys somehow recede in my mind, though, compared to the man in the pressbox who would not stop poking me, who laughed at my protestations, who said I was being over-sensitive when I got angry, who made me feel ashamed and worried that my reaction would keep me from covering this sport I love.
I'm lucky, you know? Objectively, the worst thing that has happened to me is probably the guy in high school who, as I was walking to Calculus, came up and draped his arm around me, taller enough than 5'3" me that his hand dangled near where you'd think it would. I slapped him, the only time I acted out in high school close to a teacher and didn't get written up for it. He didn't get written up for it, either, of course. I didn't even remember this had happened until someone told a similar story on Twitter, and then it came rushing back.
I've also had some disgusting comments left in anonymous chat interfaces, emails to any email address questioning my abilities and my worth, accusations of sleeping with no less than five different people to get information, rather than believe that I know what I talk about.
We've all been pitted against ourselves, here. I've been made to feel worthless by the fact that I don't get cat calls. My friends have been made to feel worthless by the fact that they are constantly seen as nothing more than pieces of meat.
I'm not sure what I'm looking to accomplish by this. Some kind of catharsis, maybe. Some kind of peace.
There's more than one kind of harassment, you know - sexual being one of the objective-worst, and most pervasive, and the one finally somewhat being brought out to the light - but that's not the only way that there is to take a once bright soul and dim it.
There's the guy who walked into a Dallas diner, sat down at a booth diagonal from me and a female friend, and pulled out his penis. I forget about him, usually, though, compared to the man who became my friend, then became emotionally abusive to the point that I am still scared of what he could do to my career today. That abuse wasn't about sex, or if it was, I was too naive. It was because I was powerless, because I was desperate, because I've been lonely my whole life. He wasn't even the first emotional abuser - because that's most of the abuse I've experienced. Emotional beat-downs, feeling like I have to buy friendships because I'm not worthy of anything otherwise.
There was the truck full of drunk guys on Baylor's campus who cat-called me as I was walking to my car late one night. I'd gone to my sorority little's dorm to borrow her shower, as my apartment's water was off, and so I was dressed quite alluringly in: A giant sorority tee-shirt, a pair of marching-band sweatpants, slide-on Chuck Taylors, with my hair in a beach towel on my head. Those guys somehow recede in my mind, though, compared to the man in the pressbox who would not stop poking me, who laughed at my protestations, who said I was being over-sensitive when I got angry, who made me feel ashamed and worried that my reaction would keep me from covering this sport I love.
I'm lucky, you know? Objectively, the worst thing that has happened to me is probably the guy in high school who, as I was walking to Calculus, came up and draped his arm around me, taller enough than 5'3" me that his hand dangled near where you'd think it would. I slapped him, the only time I acted out in high school close to a teacher and didn't get written up for it. He didn't get written up for it, either, of course. I didn't even remember this had happened until someone told a similar story on Twitter, and then it came rushing back.
I've also had some disgusting comments left in anonymous chat interfaces, emails to any email address questioning my abilities and my worth, accusations of sleeping with no less than five different people to get information, rather than believe that I know what I talk about.
We've all been pitted against ourselves, here. I've been made to feel worthless by the fact that I don't get cat calls. My friends have been made to feel worthless by the fact that they are constantly seen as nothing more than pieces of meat.
I'm not sure what I'm looking to accomplish by this. Some kind of catharsis, maybe. Some kind of peace.
Saturday, February 11, 2017
prospective perspective
I've been writing about prospects since 2014. That's honestly not that long ago, but in the scale of time I work on, it feels like forever. I've gotten lucky, in that time, to be mentored by some of the best and most giving people out there - both on the evaluation and the writing side of the gigs. For a while, I even wanted to be a scout, thought that would be the culmination of my dreams.
Things change as we grow older, though, including our priorities and our abilities. Evaluation's still very much a part of me, my identity, being the girl who can hang in there with the guys when taking apart a prospect's swing or mechanics or makeup. It's a part of how I approach anything to do with numbers - we can slice and dice, but the game's still played on the field.
However, it's not my home, anymore. There's no future for me in this game on the pure evaluation side, not right now. I'm not going to pretend that this isn't bitter, that this thing I got into for love has turned into this...but it's also possibly time for me to step back, simply because I'm not in it for love anymore.
I'm not quitting, entirely. This isn't some big flounce of a blog post, with complaints about how it's too hard or it's not fair. I'm still going to go to some games, just not nearly as many. I'm still going to write about some prospects, but they might be fewer, and further between. I still love baseball, but I'm just redistributing my time a bit.
Right now, I have the chance to learn from some of the best people in the public industry on the number-crunching and innovation side of the street, and I'd be a fool to turn that down. Added to a real job that requires 45-60 miles of commuting, daily, to which I'd be adding an additional 20 if I were to attempt to go to Frisco every day, a dire need for sleep, and simple economics, it's a clear choice, if not also a painful one.
Even simpler, though, it had become about being ahead, "winning," constantly comparing myself to others and their accomplishments, which isn't a healthy way to be about anything that isn't, you know, an actual competition. Maybe this step back will be good. I'll learn some stuff, figure out my "real" job and the balance of everything, and be able to continue fusing evaluation and analytics in new and exciting ways.
I don't expect anyone to read this blog post and really understand anything. I honestly don't understand it myself - and I still don't have an answer for what I'm trying to get out of this baseball thing. Sometimes, though, you just have to make the rational decision instead of the easy one, and look forward to learning new things.
Things change as we grow older, though, including our priorities and our abilities. Evaluation's still very much a part of me, my identity, being the girl who can hang in there with the guys when taking apart a prospect's swing or mechanics or makeup. It's a part of how I approach anything to do with numbers - we can slice and dice, but the game's still played on the field.
However, it's not my home, anymore. There's no future for me in this game on the pure evaluation side, not right now. I'm not going to pretend that this isn't bitter, that this thing I got into for love has turned into this...but it's also possibly time for me to step back, simply because I'm not in it for love anymore.
I'm not quitting, entirely. This isn't some big flounce of a blog post, with complaints about how it's too hard or it's not fair. I'm still going to go to some games, just not nearly as many. I'm still going to write about some prospects, but they might be fewer, and further between. I still love baseball, but I'm just redistributing my time a bit.
Right now, I have the chance to learn from some of the best people in the public industry on the number-crunching and innovation side of the street, and I'd be a fool to turn that down. Added to a real job that requires 45-60 miles of commuting, daily, to which I'd be adding an additional 20 if I were to attempt to go to Frisco every day, a dire need for sleep, and simple economics, it's a clear choice, if not also a painful one.
Even simpler, though, it had become about being ahead, "winning," constantly comparing myself to others and their accomplishments, which isn't a healthy way to be about anything that isn't, you know, an actual competition. Maybe this step back will be good. I'll learn some stuff, figure out my "real" job and the balance of everything, and be able to continue fusing evaluation and analytics in new and exciting ways.
I don't expect anyone to read this blog post and really understand anything. I honestly don't understand it myself - and I still don't have an answer for what I'm trying to get out of this baseball thing. Sometimes, though, you just have to make the rational decision instead of the easy one, and look forward to learning new things.
Thursday, December 29, 2016
auld
2016 has been a year.
Well, technically, all years are years, and most of them are equal, though this one was not. It was a leap year, and it was a weird year, and it was a sad year. I came into the year with a full time job, lost that job, pretended that I could survive as a freelance writer, came to terms with the fact that a baseball job isn't in the cards for me now, if ever, and finally, with barely any time to spare, found a new job.
In that time, there's also been a lot of writing. Baylor University self-immolated, and I was there to write about it from my unique position as both an informed advocate and an alumna. The Texas Rangers went to the playoffs, and I was there to cover their spectacular flaming out. I wrote about hockey, in my weird way. I got to work with one of the best co-authors a writer could ask for in Russell Carleton on a piece that started out as a "what if" and turned into five parts and counting, tearing apart the murky insides of Major League Baseball's front office hiring. I also took on everything from the absolute bullshit spewed by lawyers trying to keep minor league players from fair pay to major leaguers in Olympic sports. I wrote more, and more regularly, than I thought I could!
Normally, I'd try to write this with the passion and conviction - or at least elegant language pulled out of depression. The above reads like some laundry list of accomplishments, some kind of dry recitation of "please read my work." I mean, it's not that - every writer longs for approval, and applause, and the recognition of the audience - the reassurance that we're not just shouting into the void.
To be honest, this year hasn't been easy. I don't think I've given that impression on Twitter (hell, I know I complain a lot, and a lot more than I should, considering where I'm starting from) but it hasn't. Unexpectedly losing my job took a toll, as did the constant unending grind of bad news in both sports and life across the entirety of the anum. It's sometimes really difficult to take stock of where you are when weighed down with the pressure of everything around you, like you're drowning in the midst of your concerns.
Things are looking up, now, possibly. It's been a year where we've learned to take nothing for granted - not a job, not a life, not a fastball. Maybe we'll burn, maybe we'll emerge refined.
all my best,
kate
2016 Best Of, by yours truly:
The entirety of my writing on Baylor, but particularly "How the 'Baylor Bubble' explains the college's rape scandal." at Fusion.
"The Perils of MLB's Sorting System" with Russell Carleton, at Baseball Prospectus
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
"The Women's Version of Baseball is Baseball," at Baseball Prospectus
"The 7,500 Apprentices," at Baseball Prospectus
"Which Olympic Events would Baseball Players Be Best In?" at FanRag Sports MLB.
"Squishy Managerial Factors and what makes managers good," at FanRag Sports MLB.
"Take a Loss, Save a Bullpen," at Baseball Prospectus.
"The Joy of Adrian Beltre," at Baseball Prospectus.
My favorite writers in 2016:
Sam Miller, both at Baseball Prospectus and ESPN; Levi Weaver, of WFAA and everywhere else; Emma Baccellieri at Baseball Prospectus; Ryan Nanni on Twitter; Spencer Hall; Jarrett Seidler; Meg Rowley; Jen Mac Ramos; Corinne Landrey; Carolyn Wilke at FanRag Sports NHL; Mallory Ortberg, late of the late The Toast; the great Jessica Luther; and so many more.
I can't hope to both list everyone, and all my favorite pieces from everyone, but these people are great, and well worth reading.
Well, technically, all years are years, and most of them are equal, though this one was not. It was a leap year, and it was a weird year, and it was a sad year. I came into the year with a full time job, lost that job, pretended that I could survive as a freelance writer, came to terms with the fact that a baseball job isn't in the cards for me now, if ever, and finally, with barely any time to spare, found a new job.
In that time, there's also been a lot of writing. Baylor University self-immolated, and I was there to write about it from my unique position as both an informed advocate and an alumna. The Texas Rangers went to the playoffs, and I was there to cover their spectacular flaming out. I wrote about hockey, in my weird way. I got to work with one of the best co-authors a writer could ask for in Russell Carleton on a piece that started out as a "what if" and turned into five parts and counting, tearing apart the murky insides of Major League Baseball's front office hiring. I also took on everything from the absolute bullshit spewed by lawyers trying to keep minor league players from fair pay to major leaguers in Olympic sports. I wrote more, and more regularly, than I thought I could!
Normally, I'd try to write this with the passion and conviction - or at least elegant language pulled out of depression. The above reads like some laundry list of accomplishments, some kind of dry recitation of "please read my work." I mean, it's not that - every writer longs for approval, and applause, and the recognition of the audience - the reassurance that we're not just shouting into the void.
To be honest, this year hasn't been easy. I don't think I've given that impression on Twitter (hell, I know I complain a lot, and a lot more than I should, considering where I'm starting from) but it hasn't. Unexpectedly losing my job took a toll, as did the constant unending grind of bad news in both sports and life across the entirety of the anum. It's sometimes really difficult to take stock of where you are when weighed down with the pressure of everything around you, like you're drowning in the midst of your concerns.
Things are looking up, now, possibly. It's been a year where we've learned to take nothing for granted - not a job, not a life, not a fastball. Maybe we'll burn, maybe we'll emerge refined.
all my best,
kate
2016 Best Of, by yours truly:
The entirety of my writing on Baylor, but particularly "How the 'Baylor Bubble' explains the college's rape scandal." at Fusion.
"The Perils of MLB's Sorting System" with Russell Carleton, at Baseball Prospectus
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
"The Women's Version of Baseball is Baseball," at Baseball Prospectus
"The 7,500 Apprentices," at Baseball Prospectus
"Which Olympic Events would Baseball Players Be Best In?" at FanRag Sports MLB.
"Squishy Managerial Factors and what makes managers good," at FanRag Sports MLB.
"Take a Loss, Save a Bullpen," at Baseball Prospectus.
"The Joy of Adrian Beltre," at Baseball Prospectus.
My favorite writers in 2016:
Sam Miller, both at Baseball Prospectus and ESPN; Levi Weaver, of WFAA and everywhere else; Emma Baccellieri at Baseball Prospectus; Ryan Nanni on Twitter; Spencer Hall; Jarrett Seidler; Meg Rowley; Jen Mac Ramos; Corinne Landrey; Carolyn Wilke at FanRag Sports NHL; Mallory Ortberg, late of the late The Toast; the great Jessica Luther; and so many more.
I can't hope to both list everyone, and all my favorite pieces from everyone, but these people are great, and well worth reading.
Friday, December 23, 2016
So here's the thing.
I got caught between circumstances. Right after I graduated college, I could have done a baseball internship. I know this, because I did three months of an unpaid internship, but in social media. I did this while also writing twice a week about baseball, working a different internship, and living with my parents. I also didn't know enough about baseball to even be considered for a bird-dog scout job. I was just learning, but I was also using my time up.
Now, I'm older. I'm almost too old to be on my parents' insurance, I've got rent and bills and a car that won't pass inspection, but I know my baseball. Not well enough, obviously, but I like to think I've learned something in the three years between when I graduated.
I live a life of incredible privilege. My parents have been able to help me out - both right after I graduated, and when I was suddenly laid off from my full-time job. My friends are incredible, and even if I couldn't keep my apartment, I know I'd be able to find somewhere to live. What does that say that even if I, with the incredible luck, privileges, and inherent connections I have thanks to my work for Baseball Prospectus, cannot see a path where I would be able to survive on an internship salary, to the point that I don't even apply?
This is the thing, then - I'd like to work in baseball. It sounds really stupid to say that out loud, because we're never really supposed to articulate our "dreams" but I'd like to work in baseball. I like to think that with a little more experience I'd actually be good at it. For now, though, that door is shut to me. It's shut to me because despite what I do have, I don't have enough. It's shut to me because I'm a little bit older, a little bit later, a little bit less of whatever it is. You may say I'm the one that closed it, but even if that is true, I only closed it because if I didn't, it would swallow me whole.
Sure, some of this goes back to my inherent lack of self-confidence, maybe, the reluctance to even apply; but some of it is pure self-preservation - if I've already done the math, and I already know the answer, then why try to fool myself into other things?
I know it's possible to live off credit cards, borrow against a tomorrow you hope will happen, but that's not the reality I want. So yeah, I'll continue to fight with what weapons I have - my words, which have very little weight, but I do what I can. I do believe that there is a future out there where someone can figure out just a little late, someone who doesn't fit the pre-determined mold who has a mind that sparks when the information is provided. I just don't believe it's there for me.
I got caught between circumstances. Right after I graduated college, I could have done a baseball internship. I know this, because I did three months of an unpaid internship, but in social media. I did this while also writing twice a week about baseball, working a different internship, and living with my parents. I also didn't know enough about baseball to even be considered for a bird-dog scout job. I was just learning, but I was also using my time up.
Now, I'm older. I'm almost too old to be on my parents' insurance, I've got rent and bills and a car that won't pass inspection, but I know my baseball. Not well enough, obviously, but I like to think I've learned something in the three years between when I graduated.
I live a life of incredible privilege. My parents have been able to help me out - both right after I graduated, and when I was suddenly laid off from my full-time job. My friends are incredible, and even if I couldn't keep my apartment, I know I'd be able to find somewhere to live. What does that say that even if I, with the incredible luck, privileges, and inherent connections I have thanks to my work for Baseball Prospectus, cannot see a path where I would be able to survive on an internship salary, to the point that I don't even apply?
This is the thing, then - I'd like to work in baseball. It sounds really stupid to say that out loud, because we're never really supposed to articulate our "dreams" but I'd like to work in baseball. I like to think that with a little more experience I'd actually be good at it. For now, though, that door is shut to me. It's shut to me because despite what I do have, I don't have enough. It's shut to me because I'm a little bit older, a little bit later, a little bit less of whatever it is. You may say I'm the one that closed it, but even if that is true, I only closed it because if I didn't, it would swallow me whole.
Sure, some of this goes back to my inherent lack of self-confidence, maybe, the reluctance to even apply; but some of it is pure self-preservation - if I've already done the math, and I already know the answer, then why try to fool myself into other things?
I know it's possible to live off credit cards, borrow against a tomorrow you hope will happen, but that's not the reality I want. So yeah, I'll continue to fight with what weapons I have - my words, which have very little weight, but I do what I can. I do believe that there is a future out there where someone can figure out just a little late, someone who doesn't fit the pre-determined mold who has a mind that sparks when the information is provided. I just don't believe it's there for me.
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