In Search of a Hobby

The other day, my husband came home with a sad smile and announced, “I have no hobbies.” He’d been at a meeting making arrangements for him to mentor a prisoner. When the officials wanted to match my husband up with a prisoner, they asked him, “What are your hobbies?” And he couldn’t come up with a single hobby.

I said, “Of course, you have a hobby. You paint amazing watercolors.” He raised an eyebrow and said, “That’s not the kind of hobby they’re looking for.”

So, Calvin is a man in pursuit of a hobby. He picked up a novel for the first time in years. I found him a cool, fast-paced detective thriller. I think he got about half-way through before abandoning it. He doesn’t visualize (how can a gifted artist not transform words into pictures in his head?) so some of the chase/fisticuffs scenes got a little confusing.

Now he’s trying baseball. And since we don’t have cable, he bought an MLB membership—you get to stream baseball games. So, he said to me, “Don’t you want to watch a spring training game with me?”

Me: No.

Cal: Don’t you like baseball?

Me: Honey, I sat through ten gazillion Little League games. I’m baseballed out for the rest of my life.

Cal: Oh. I thought we could watch these together.

So we sat together and I watched some pitcher who’s making $155 dollars (oops, $155 million) to pitch for the Yankees, and I couldn’t help but wonder if I could convince Cal to take up gardening as a hobby—I’ve got scads of weeds that need pulling.

Five Reasons Why I Watch Baseball

So it’s that time of year again, the end of the baseball season. And my guys are watching the games, especially since their favorite team, the Yankees, has not clinched their division.

I, being the ever dutiful wife and mother, watch with them. Okay, sometimes I play Mahjong, but most of the time I watch. But since baseball is not a natural love for me, despite years of Little League and high school ball (and a couple of years when one son worked as an umpire—that was miserable for me), I’ve come up with my own reasons for watching.

1. I like Andy Pettite. He’s a great pitcher and he came back after retiring and an injury, etc. So he’s an inspiration, but that’s not why I like him. I like him because he’s got this great scowl. He scowls at the baseball, and he scowls at the runner—he reminds me of my oldest son who shares the same scowl. “Mwhaha, I am the bringer of the evil slider of strike-outness.”

2. I like Nick Swisher because he still treats baseball like a game. He’s always smiling as if he realizes that he’s getting paid to play a game. He always tries some silly trick that no one buys. Yesterday, he caught a ball and then pretended that he didn’t know where it was. The Red Sox runner gave him a look that said, “Are you a complete lunatic? This is serious major league baseball, not Little League.” Swisher smiled, shrugged, and threw the ball in.”

3. I like that I don’t have to know anything about the game to participate in the family fun. If a strike is called, I can say “that was high/outside/inside/missed-the-corner-of-the-plate” and someone will argue it with me.

4. I like the weirdnesses. Last night a bird decided to watch the game, which was fine. But he wanted to watch it while sitting in the diamond. Not fine. So a grounds-keeper came out with a bucket and chased the bird hither, thither, and yon. Each time the bird would find a new spot on the field. Finally, he settled just outside the first base line. They let him watch the game from there.

5. But most of all, I watch baseball because I like spending time with my family. The same reason my family listens to me blab on and on about writing. So I owe it to them.

Baseball: A Squirrel's Memoir

Although spring is one of my favorite seasons of the year, there is one aspect that I hate. Baseball. I can tolerate baseball on television. I can sit next to Cal and embroider, and we have painless husband-wife bonding time. But that’s not what I hate. What I hate is organized baseball teams. Okay, it’s not that exactly. I’m really glad that Jake is playing on a high school team—good exercise, male war bonding rituals, etc. What I hate is bleacher duty. Freezing my butt off in the stands during the early spring. (How can February be considered spring? It was two degrees above freezing this morning.) I hate marinating in my own sweat and serving as mosquito bait by early summer.

I’d hoped when little league was over that we were done with sports. Little league was its own exquisite torture. Besides three boys on three teams playing at three different locations at the same time, Luke also became an umpire at age 12 when he passed the umpiring exam. And because he was big for his age 6’1” and broad and, therefore, more physically intimidating, he was the behind-the-plate umpire, who got screamed at by parents and coaches alike. (This was New England and they scream at umpires. Yeah, that was fun for me, sitting in the stands and having to keep my mouth shut.) Oops, sorry for that digression.

Now before you think that I was one of those women who was never exposed to sports, who never played, I wasn’t. I played women’s softball. I was the catcher. (I think I was assigned the position because it was the spot where I could do the least damage.) And everything was fine, until there was a play at home base. I got on the bag, crouched, and readied my glove. As the ball came towards me, I caught a glimpse of the runner. She was a freight train. I was a skinny, stupid squirrel standing on the tracks, keeping her from softball glory. But I steeled my muscles and my resolve. I would catch that ball, and she would be out. My teammates were counting on me...Freight-train girl plowed right threw me. I ate dirt. And the idea of balls, gloves, and bats as a fun pastime was forever lost.

Yeah, so baseball has started. Jacob is excited. Let the games begin. I’ll be that mom in the stands cheering the team and yelling, “Go, Jacob. Run over the catcher! You can do it.”

Not A Level Playing Field

Yesterday, the boys and I watched the Yankees hit three grand slams in one baseball game. It was really cool to see history being made. I Facebooked about it and got some comments about the Yankees’ payroll. It’s true that they have a ton of money, and it allows them to acquire great players. And I understand why fans of teams with less financial ability get frustrated. My parents, who are Mariners fans, often call Seattle the AAA farm team for the Yankees because their best players often get taken by the Yankees. Interestingly, many other franchises have the ability to make the same kind of money, according to my daughter’s sports economics class at the university. But they don’t. Why? Because they aren’t as successful. It’s hard to get fans to come when you lose. And it’s hard to get the money to get better players if you don’t have tremendous fan support.

So why am I doing this whole baseball post when I’m not really that much of a baseball fan? I think a lot of this applies to writing and writers. It’s easy for writers to grouse when they see books that make the bestsellers’ list that they deem not well-written. But the truth is that while the playing field is level, i.e., any book can make the NYT best sellers’ list (excepting indie e-books), in another way the field is not level.

Publishing is a business. And individual books sales are greatly influenced by your publishing house. Whether they give your book the editing it needs, the book cover they select (authors get some input, but not final say so), whether they pay for good book placement in bookstores, etc. But those things are out of writers’ control. Yes, you can do marketing, and every writer does, but there are no guarantees.

And like baseball fans and players, writers have to do it for the love it. That’s where the satisfaction and the joy come from. And who knows, maybe you’ll do well—word of mouth is the greatest sales tool. Don’t forget, the Athletics took two out of the three games. 

American Fun

I was not born with a baseball gene predisposing me to the disease. Nor did I develop “baseball disease” as a child or teenager. However, I married someone with two baseball genes and a serious infection. Still, I resisted. I watched the games, but more out a sense of spousal duty than anything else. After all, I subjected Cal to viewing numerous versions of Jane Austen movies, though even I couldn’t get through the 1940 version, which was more along the lines of what would happen if you dumped Pride and Prejudice in a blender with Gone with the Wind—it’s an ugly mess.

Back to b’ball. (What can I say? I can never get too far from books.) Luke has always loved baseball—he must have inherited the gene. Over the years, he rooted for several teams. But in his teen years, he settled on his team. The Yankees. The team everyone loves to hate. I sat through games—it was a good time to paint my nails. After years of games, I caught a bit of the infection. The Yankees are my team. And my team is heading for the playoffs again. Woohoo! (Okay, I admit it’s fun to have a team that’s always winning—I’m not a masochistic Dodgers’ fan, though maybe they have a chance with the Yankees’ old coach.)

Come next week, I’ll be rooting for Yankees, second-guessing Joe Girardi, and yelling at the umpire—All-American fun