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.

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.

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.

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.

wrung

I'm sitting outside, I've had a fresh cup of coffee, the sun is shining and I'm even wearing a jacket. I should be able to put some good and fun words on paper about something I love, either the Dallas Stars and Rich Peverley or The Great British Bake-Off, but instead, I can't. Every sentence that comes from my fingers is flat and insipid, and my head feels both fuzzy and empty, like a washcloth wrung out to dry and left to hang stiff.

It's been a difficult few months for yours truly - getting unexpectedly laid off, having false hope abound, losing money and time and friends. Supposedly, all this nonsense should have resulted in epic writings, book-length musings on the nature of stress, and whether or not we need to change ourselves, and not the slow diminishing of my ability to spell and write and move people with my words.

The sun plays across my eyelids as I stop typing and stare upward at the porch roof, and then bounce off onto one of the websites that counts as a distraction for me. I'm empty right now, a vessel used and poured out, and while in the movies, this is when I'd "go crazy! Spend the rest of my savings on a vacation and just get out of town for a while!" I can't do that, because this is real life, and real life means not knowing how much longer I'll have to rely on those savings to pay my rent, or how long I'll need to keep eating meals at my parents' house to not buy as many groceries, and we don't always get what we want.

I mean, sometimes we do, but we don't know that we don't want it. I wanted out of my previous job, which was a bad fit in all directions and was actively making me sick from a different kind of stress, but then I knew I had a paycheck coming in every two weeks, could save money and occasionally spend it, and didn't have to obsess over what came next. In the long run, sure, it's great that I'm out of there, even if being laid off three months ago means that every day that goes by I worry about whether or not I'm unhireable for one reason or another.

"You're 25!" you say, not unreasonably, but then you go on. "You should be taking risks! You should be living! Move somewhere! Go out to bars!" But what am I supposed to do when I sign an 11-month lease assuming that I'll be here for another 11 months and then have everything fall apart in my hands, like when a child tries to pick up a sandcastle? Where's my trust fund buying me a new car so I can drive across the country like "living my best life?" Where's the fairy godmother (or godfather, I don't discriminate) making it so I can pursue my dreams instead of sadly accepting the status quo while still ranting about it?

I'm a pragmatist, so sue me, but I've always been one with a creative's soul, and that creative soul is drying up like the lakes of California. It turns out that that nothing lasts forever, you know?

An Open Letter to the Baylor Class of 2020

Dear the Baylor Freshmen of the class of 2020,

By now, you are a few months into your career at what I previously thought was one of the best universities in the state of Texas, if not the United States. You’re fresh-faced and ready to take on the world, if you’re anything like I was, full of belief and passion and maybe a little indecision and uncertainty.

For your sakes, I hope you have the college experience I did. I hope nothing worse crosses your path than a semester on three hours of sleep, or one episode of drunk cat-calling by frat boys at 2:00 AM the day before DIA.

You should know, though, that the university does not love you back. Your professors might, your mentors might, your librarians and bosses and support staff might, but the university, as personified by the Board of Regents and those who haunt the hallowed halls of power, does not love you back. Approach all you do with this understanding.

If you are a collegiate woman, you have a 27% chance of being touched or violated sexually without your consent, most likely by someone you know. If you are Baylor student (and so many other universities, but I did not attend those universities, and my heart is not breaking at their failure to comply with the law) then you will not be helped by your university, even now. You may find a sympathetic ear in the counseling center, you may have a professor you can confide in, you may tell no one and hope it all goes away. If you go to the university, though, they will not help you.

I had an incredible experience at Baylor University. I learned so much more than what was taught in the classrooms - things like critical thinking, and sisterly bonds, and how to walk on my own two feet without needing to fear failure. These lessons I learned, from my incredible professors and my family of friends, are why I am so absolutely furious to continually learn about another University failing at every single step. I had such a special Baylor experience that it ruins me to know that there are people out there, most of them young women just like me, who had that brutally ripped away from them under the same bell tower that I studied.

“To err is human, only God is divine!” You might reply, if you’re a firm believer the the power of sunshine and giggles, with no human authority questioning instinct at all. We all err, yes. We all sin, yes. To continue to definitely err in the face of such allegations, though, is more than we should be able to bear as a society, much less as a supposedly God-fearing university.

I wish I could tell you, Baylor Freshmen, to buy in. I wish I could tell you to buy in to what you’re reading in emails, what you’re being told in Chapel, what the University wants you to believe.

Don’t, though. Resist the clarion call to sit and do nothing. It’s clear now that nothing with change without full-on shoving, so shove away. You are freshmen, I know, and you feel you are both limitless and ever-so-limited. Work within those limits. You are the change.

Know that I am out here rooting for you to be the beginning of something better.

As long as stars shall shine,

A 2013 graduate.

what's next

What is success? 

In baseball, success is both easy and incredibly difficult to define. Success is a certain number of home runs, a certain batting average, a certain way of creating outs. It's both one thing (winning) and every thing. 

In life, it's much harder than that to define success. I used to think I'd found some measure of success - first writing locally, then getting to write at Baseball Prospectus, and then...and then...but the problem with "and then" is that there's the question of "what's next?" 

I've been stuck on "what's next" for over two months now, since I was laid off from my rent-paying job precipitously and have had to make do with a set of circumstances I've handled both well and not well enough. I'm in that precarious position where I can make do for right now, but I can't make do forever, meaning I've had to turn away from opportunities I never thought I'd even be able to think about. My whole life is in limbo right now, which feels like the opposite of success. 

In some ways, I've failed. Without getting into specifics, I'm not brave enough to make what I want happen, and I'm not good enough to get other options presented to me. I spend too much of my time sitting on my couch, staring at the TV and/or crying, alternately. I'm too uncertain to network properly, and I'm too plainspoken to not put this stuff on the internet, when my current situation should probably call for care and quiet. 

I write, but I'm not a successful writer. I'm no one's favorite, and I don't have a big enough name to argue back. I'm too established to be up-and-coming, but I'm too unknown to be established. 

This was going to be a...whatever I write on this blog is - about Pitch and being a woman in baseball. About success in failure and how incredible (and how easy it is to be cynical about) a story where a woman is the main character, a sports story where a woman is the one we're supposed to care about, a sports story where she's not the sidelined chick with three lines. Maybe I'll still write that, but right now, I feel like the sidelined one. 

Even now, at a point where it's better for women writing sports than any other point in history, it feels like we still fall prey to the curse of "there can be only one." Some of this is internal, yes. When you're trained throughout your entire life to treat every day like a battle for superiority of some kind between you and your fellow women, it's real easy to bring that into your writing. Some of it is external, though, the self-same notion that women can't be good at this. 

Of course, there's always the what if - what if the reason I'm stuck on "what's next" is because I really am not good at this? I can't even write a coherent and clear ramble on Twitter about failure and success without twisting it into a rant about how fair life isn't, so maybe this isn't the thing for me. 

Here's the thing, though: It's really difficult to not focus on that when "what's next" seems to be flashing in front of your eyes in neon letters. It's hard not to push the words out of your hands because you have to, not because you want to. It's impossible to slow down and let things come to you because you have to keep reaching and keep grabbing and losing and trying to get to that mythical whatever is next.