You know those shirts that say: “Chicks dig the long ball”? Those shirts point out a cruel irony in my life. Because while chicks may dig the long ball, guys don’t dig chicks who dig long balls. Well, at least not at my level of digging. Apparently it is intimidating to teenage boys if you know more about sports than they do. Who knew? In college, I used to get into power struggles with my boyfriend over whether I liked him more than I liked Duke basketball. Jackass wanted to go to the Mall. I wanted to watch basketball. He cheated, whereas Duke just lost basketball games. You’d pick basketball, too.
I met Seth when I was 24 years old and he was 22. We worked at a book publisher together. We started dating and I remember one of the things I liked about him was that he wasn’t a Twins fan. Seth’s mom liked to tell the story about how she had to quit taking him to Twins games because he would always cheer for the other team and it would embarrass her. For unexplained reasons, Seth liked Ron Gant and cheered for the Braves for a time. I love unexplained sports crushes. I was obsessed with Charlie Leibrandt for parts of my youth. That defies explanation.
While Seth and I share a love of basketball, we hadn’t really bonded over other sports. That is why it came as a complete surprise when Seth purchased Major League Extra Innings for me for my birthday prior to the start of the 2008 season. Yah! Every Milwaukee game televised in my home in Minnesota. While I had persuaded Seth to go to County Stadium and later Miller Park earlier in our relationship, it was probably because a lot of beer was involved.
With the help of Tivo, I watched every televised game that year and in 2009 and so far in 2010 (although I sort of skipped a few painful losses. See also Fox Sports Game of the Week can suck It.). Seth would warn everyone: DO NOT TELL RACHEL THE SCORE OF THE BREWERS GAME. SHE IS TIVOING IT. He would shield me from scores on SportsCenter and tell me to cover my eyes and ears if something was about to reveal the score. Seth accepted the fact that I had adopted Ryan Braun as my summer boyfriend, and did not wince when others asked how my boyfriend was doing. How would you feel if your wife repeatedly told you, “Not now, my boyfriend is batting.”?
Seth has sat through endless Brewers games over the last three years; has fist bumped me when Prince homers and consoles me when the bullpen can’t hold a lead. When people ask him if he is a Brewers fan, he just shrugs and says: “Not really, but my life is way better when the Brewers win.”
Prince homered twice.
Rangers 7, Brewers 2
Game played 6-13-10
Seth rocks!!
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