EDITOR’S NOTE: While writing this, I pulled experiences from my personal life and applied them to a general public. My intention was not to say that all women don’t know, appreciate, analyze and watch baseball. My point I was addressing was the fact that it’s a privilege to have a significant other with the same interests – including baseball. I know a ton of women who know and love sports for all of their lives as much (or more) than I do. So yes, if I were to write this again, I would simply say how excited I am to enjoy a baseball game with my girlfriend.
I am a man.
My girlfriend – or my significant other – is a woman.
These two things share a whole lot in common: we like the same music, the same TV shows, food, the list goes on and on.
But sports? Not really, at least not when we first met.
When a guy first meets a girl, he sweeps her off her feet with his charm and God-given good looks (fortunately for me, I relied on my clumsiness and unromantic moments and she still stayed with me). While trying to impress the lady, he usually leaves out his obsession with sports as a conversation starter.
Most girls don’t want to hear that, we know better.
A majority of men, however, love hearing the crack of the bat, the smell of the spring grass and the sound of a ball slapping a well-manicured palm of a glove. We naturally absorb the sights and sound of the game of baseball.
And if we aren’t at a game experiencing those refreshing sensations, we sit in front of a computer, frantically searching the web for Buster Posey injury updates and Pablo Sandoval weigh-ins. We are always on twitter waiting for something, anything, to come back from spring training.
My point? Most men constantly yearn for baseball knowledge.
Most women, on the other hand, do not.
I started going out with my girlfriend in mid-August, months before the Giants won the World Series in 2010. She first witnessed me as a mild baseball fan on the outside, yet completely involved inside (because the Giants were losing a lot of games that month, hence my uninterested exterior).
Then September came around and things began to change. The Giants were going to the playoffs and I was more than ready for the ride. I opened up my Giant heart and there was magic inside.
Not just the kind of magic that won the Giants a World Series, but the fact that my girlfriend (who barely watched baseball before she met me) was sitting next to me, learning the basics of baseball as the Giants won the championship.
She was also with me along with the ride, getting excited when I got excited, and feeling bummed when Aaron Rowand started. She was what most fans classify as a “band wagoner,” but did I classify her as such?
Heck to the no.
The idea of me, a baseball blogger who sometimes speaks with too much statistical jibber-jabber, having a woman sit next to me asking the simplest of questions like “who is #18?” and “what position does ‘blank’ play?” makes me remember what it was like for me when I was just learning the game.
I loved it. She made me feel like an encyclopedia, which is pretty cool.
Slowly these questions I received from her evolved and became more in-depth, such as: “What does ERA mean?” and “what’s a balk?”
I saw her becoming genuinely interested in the game of baseball. A dream come true for (I’m assuming) all men.
I’m not here to brag about how cool my girlfriend is for attempting to understand baseball (okay, that’s partially it), I am simply grateful for all girlfriends, wives and significant others everywhere for hopping on the Giants bandwagon on behalf of their men respectively.
The fact that I have a girlfriend who reads every post on this blog and understands almost all of what I’m saying, is a really big deal. I hope more women out there read this blog due to their significant other’s influence because I know those men appreciate the effort.
The game of baseball is not violent or physical like football or boxing, but shows a finesse and consistency most women can appreciate.
Anyway, my rambling point is that women like my girlfriend are probably the greatest thing a guy could ask for: someone to share a whole lot of interests in (luckily for me, baseball just so happens to be one of them).
And if you are a woman reading this, I give kudos to you. Woman like you make men like me feel pretty darn spoiled. And for those of you who have been involved in sports your whole lives, even better.
I’m a woman. And I’ve been a sports fan ever since I was a little girl. And I wasn’t drawn to sports because of a mutual interest in cupcake-making.
This kind of biased point of view is why so many woman are turned off by sports. Because men like you say that they don’t belong.
And talk about bandwagon? If you didn’t get into the Giants’ 2010 season until September, then you are the definition of a “bandwagoner”.
It’s because of men like you that I can’t spout my sports knowledge around the water cooler at work. You are so threatened that a woman might actually have better sports knowledge than you, that this would threaten your idea of what being a “man” means.
Hopefully you can open your eyes around you a little more when you’re at sporting events and observe the women fans who are there for the game, not because baseball reminds us of designing the perfect cupcake.
Oh …. gee …. and some women actually can WRITE about baseball too!
Your “appreciation” of your GF’s interest fails to note the growing legion of women who can and do write about baseball, quite well thank you very much!
(Oh, and I can tell you what the free safety is supposed to do in a Cover 2 defense, also)
You totally had me until “The game of baseball is not violent or physical like football, but shows a finesse and consistency women can appreciate. Like cupcake making…” Gotta throw in some humorized sexism there at the end so the bros don’t think you’re a fag! LOL
Also, why don’t you discuss men taking up some of their partners’ interests? Since that seems to be the pinnacle of commitment for you it would have been nice to hear you thoughts. Baseball blog or not, fundamentally, you posit this as a post about relationships but you only discuss the relationship in terms of what she does for you. What do you do for her???
You sir are an incredible sexist.
My girls grew up loving baseball, and some of the bets baseball writers in America are women.
I notice you said on Twitter your intention was “simply to support the fact that girls who didn’t care for sports for most of their life are now taking interest.” I think that’s where people are turned off by this, myself included. I’m female and I’ve been positively infatuated with baseball since I was a little kid. Yes there are plenty of females (and males) who aren’t sports fans, but you made it seem like the majority of females don’t care about/know nothing about sports and only will make an effort to please a guy. I’m sure that wasn’t your intention, I’m not accusing you of anything, just letting you know how it comes across. Get with the times, dude – more than 45% of MLB, NFL and Nascar fans are female. We know, analyze, watch, obsess over and live and die over sports just as much as men can/do, and it has NOTHING to do with impressing or making you guys happy.
LOL WOMEN BE SHOPPIN AMIRITE?
right on, brah
HOORAY for sweeping over-generalizations!
Hooray!
Hooray!
Wow, this is some patronizing bullshit. Let me see if I’ve got this right:
1. Women do not like sports, unless they have the beneficent guidance of a dude to enlighten them
2. Women especially do not like violent sports because all that fighting gives them the vapors
3. Men should not talk about sports on a first date; you know this because one time you didn’t talk about sports on a first date and said date resulted in a relationship (QED, right?)
4. You like it when your girlfriend flatters your ego by not knowing as much as you
5. Women like making cupcakes
6. More women should read your blog to make their boyfriends happy
Respectively: no, hell no, the plural of “anecdote” is not “data”, ew, fuck you, and also fuck you. Gosh, I wonder why women are less likely to be sports fans than men? Could it be because male sports fans are often condescending and sexist as hell?
I don’t know what your post is supposed to accomplish, anyway, apart from bragging that your girlfriend likes your team and your blog. I guess this is supposed to elicit a chorus of “Wow, you’re so lucky! I wish I had a girlfriend like that!” No one cares that your girlfriend likes baseball, dude. Plenty of women like baseball and learned advanced stats without the help of boyfriends, on account of having functioning brains and stuff.
Funny you mention that. I was actually just planning to make a dozen peanut and Cracker Jack cupcakes in preparation for my fantasy draft. In a keeper league I (a female! not even kidding!) have dominated for several years running.
They’ll be decorated with our scoring categories. And they will be incredible.