Erica Westly

Softball can be just as entertaining as baseball; it’s basically the same thing. It’s fun to watch teams score and it’s fun to watch a pitcher work herself out of a jam, and even quiet innings have a certain swift satisfaction. I didn’t know about softball from my informal sports education my father gave me as a kid—or baseball education: Baseball Is The Greatest Sport, you know. Specialists. Of course, I guess he really meant that the baseball of perhaps the 1960s was the Greatest Sport, since baseball is the sport that can /never/ change…. And I agreed to be a loyal little camper, lol. So I never asked questions about girls, lol, but now I think making sport an exercise in masculine separation makes it far less fun. And once you separate once—keep the girls out—somehow you also can’t let the other team be men like you, you know—or even your own team. “They” ought to make high-percentage plays 100% of the time, and if you get runners on and don’t score, it’s always that your offense dropped the ball, so to speak—not that there was good, clutch pitching…. It just stops being fun; it just becomes legalism, you know.

Anyway, it’s a good story she tells about the girls, you know, although sports writing, like a color commentator’s yarns, have very little to do with a game itself, which is a rather quiet thing, you know; though stories, of course, entertain as well.

…. Though my grandfather actually used to mute the commentary when he watched a Mets game, which is a perfectly valid choice; though I think he actually kinda felt affronted that they employed sportscasters for everyone else’s sake, you know, which is obviously just psychic self-harm, not anything I’m alien to: just now practically, I was adding to one of my “Zig” reviews, but I confused the two Zigs and crossed the wires: Zig the Salesman and Zig the Thriller Character, you know. (The sales review started bringing up gun battles and literary genres.) And that was pretty much the end of my gratitude exercise, you know. I’d been like, I can do more than just watchfully keeping out the bad thoughts; I can seek gratitude; I can figure out what’s good about these circumstances, and what good things I embody right here right now…. Then the “Zig” wires crossed, and I was basically like, Beam me up, Jesus. There’s nothing worthwhile on this plane of consciousness….

Jesus: Not even fastpitch? It can be like your tennis bitches from Russia, only more American…. Look, I can do it too— (does wind up)

…. Midcentury journalist: Sure, that broad doesn’t know how to play softball like a man, but she’s still an elegant lady prancing around her drawing-room, er, softball field. I hereby give them permission to be humiliated by men for no pay.
Angry cracker: Goddamn it, those goddamn liberals aren’t persecuting the women enough; now they’re playing a game outside! Only men can play a game outside! (throws down paper in disgust) Women are only allowed to play games in the bedroom—and not with me, you damn broad! (jumps up and down) (his face turns purple)

They didn’t even have to mention about the cracker; that’s just fact. The planter sexism is in the documentary record. The cracker sexism, is just, in the air we breathe. It’s on the internet, a millennium later, you know.

…. A lot of this book was very quiet—quietly enjoyable.

It is true that the chick is like, Here are the bad things that have happened to us, (yeah, ok) and here’s how you have to interpret and classify sports in order to please me (yeah, no).

But a lot of it—a LOT of it, was just quietly instructive, you know. And at least she didn’t do the Bella Swan, you know—just roll over and actively look for an opportunity to be passive, and get killed! You know.

(shrugs) And I think people should have been better to her, you know…. Of course, I don’t run the world, but women do have more potential agency than they’re taught to have, even today (today agency for women is like optional/maybe/controversial, although it’s been unambiguously negative before, right), and also, I don’t know, just a lot of exclusion/hyper-aggression in the world. If you make the turn (in your car), the person in front of you honks and gets angry; if you don’t turn, the person behind you honks and gets angry….

(shrugs) It’s a lot. People will never get over themselves—and that’s what aggression is, Here I am, and I cannot get over myself—if they can’t take themselves less seriously and be happy, to understand the reason for things, you know: and you can’t do that if you exclude.

You just can’t; it’s a contradiction, and it’s not a poetic one either. It’s the kind that doesn’t work.

But yeah…. Softball is supported, sometimes, and played sometimes, and eventually, people will have to realize that it has more than 3% of the worth of baseball, you know. And that’s a good thing. We’ll get there, you know.

…. And yeah, for something so neglected, I’d say that Erica does a good job of not losing her mind, you know: and even documenting the opportunities that softball players have: the college games are most famous, but there’s also the international/Japanese games, sometimes the Olympics, and also the domestic pro games.… (altro)