Non-Linear, Non-Analytical

Every few weeks, I have this idea to write about baseball in a non-linear, non-analytical way, to relate the game to myself as we all do, as far removed as we pretend our emotions to be. I sit down, wait for my computer to decide that Blogger is a thing I'm allowed to open (it's mercurial these days, in the way that five-year-old Macs earn the right to be) and then stare at the blinking cursor on the bane of a writer's existence, the blank page.

I've loved baseball, the sport, since I was a small child. The Ballpark in Arlington (its only proper name, insurance companies be damned) looms large in the fragmented memories of my youth, flashes of Pudge and Rusty and all those names of baseballing yore, glimmers that I built my past upon. Even as a rebellious teenager I'd let myself enjoy baseball, though I'd be loath to admit I was a "sports fan."

This baseball thing has taken many forms. From childhood building block to teenage guilty pleasure to collegiate superstition – I watched maybe four Rangers games in 2011, because I was convinced that I was the reason they lost, which is something which maybe speaks more to my state of mind than to the state of the club at the time– baseball's been a constant, the way that loneliness or worry have been.

Now, baseball's newest form is that of "job," which sounds worse than it is. I love the sense of height that analysis gives me, the excuse to not talk to anyone and only focus on the game. I get a rush (and don't think anyone else doesn't) when watching talent manifest itself on the field of play and having a reason to watch baseball is always more than worth the hassle of getting there.

But this is all talking around the point I originally set out to make. I, like so many others, suffer from varying amounts of depression and/or anxiety. Sometimes, this is easy to forget, when I'm standing under a sunny sky, and sometimes it's so very present that it would be easy – nay, pleasurable – to cease existing, if just to get away from the undefinable weight of being.

Baseball, somehow, helps. (Me, at least.) It's hard to type that, to put that into black and white text, without it looking stupid and childish and, well, aren't you a little old for that, and isn't that a little simplistic, but no. Baseball helps. Maybe it's that I'm willing to throw more of my brain into baseball, giving myself less room to think about how I've never had any friends, I can't find a job, clearly I'm worthless and useless and things would be simpler were I to not which are all very real things that are slightly painful to put into actual words, and by hiding them in an excessively long sentence maybe y'all won't read them.

People ask me "Why baseball? Why throw yourself at something that is more of a fight, more of a struggle for you than for most?" Maybe it's because I like the challenge. Maybe it's because in some sense of deluded self-importance I want to matter, even through something as minor as a byline. Mostly, though, it's because it genuinely helps.

Baseball moves in its rhythms, its patterns, its set ways in which things can surprise you. It's the most unpredictable of the predictable, and if teasing out the sense from all the random noise is what gives life colors (even briefly), then cling to it I will.

Mo'Ne Davis is Awesome.

Yesterday, my Twitter timeline was blown up with Vines and stories about Mo'Ne Davis, the 13-year-old pitcher with Philadelphia's Taney Dragons, one of the American teams to advance to the Little League World Series in Williamsport.

Davis, who will be going into the eighth grade, throws a fastball that touches 70 MPH and a curveball with good break and depth. Her (yes, in case you hadn't heard yet, her) pitching is one of the main reasons that the Dragons will be heading to the World Series, and she can also hit a bit, too. She's very good, and not just "for a girl."

Obviously, she's an awesome story. Not only is she throwing gas, but she's throwing strikes, and has much more refined mechanics than many of her fellow pitchers. Her pitching, and story, has been covered by much better writers than I, which leads me to the purpose of this post.

My Little League team 20 years ago had two girls who were awesome, so pardon me for not being blown away by girls being good now.

— Jesse Spector (@jessespector) August 11, 2014

My immediate response to this tweet is "Oh, so because you personally knew two (out of how many) "awesome" Little League girls, that means sexism in sports is over?"

I respect Jesse Spector's writing. He's one of my favorite baseball follows, and not just because he is responsible for many of Holly Holl's scarier photoshops. This, however, shows the blindness still exhibited by many sportswriters.

Davis is only the 18th girl to make it to the LLWS since girls were allowed to play Little League. Even now, even though girls are allowed by law to participate in Little League Baseball, there are stories of girls being cut from teams for "not being good enough," despite being demonstrably as good as or better than some of their male teammates. Girls who want to play baseball are still told "Oh, I'm sure you'd be happier playing softball" and are shuffled off to the sport that many (including many sportswriters) consider inferior, a topic I hope to address in the future.

Just because 20 years ago you knew awesome girls playing baseball doesn't mean that every awesome girl who wants to play baseball now gets the chance to. Raising up stories like Mo'Ne Davis (and Kayla Roncin, and the other girls in baseball) means that maybe, just maybe, that little girl who was raised throwing with her brothers will also get the chance to play baseball with them.

Just because girls have been legally allowed to play Little League baseball for 40 years doesn't mean that it's time to stop celebrating their accomplishments, and the accomplishments of women in sports everywhere. .

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.