Tennis

Serena. WOW. I'm very surprised but--not really. I can appreciate her tennis but I am not a fan of hers because of this sort of nonsense. She has a reputation for being a sore loser--in post-match conferences after she's been defeated, she never gives credit to her opponent, it's always "I had a bad day" or whatever. When I was at the Open listening to the commentary on their special closed-circuit radio thing, they mentioned this tendency several times, saying that Serena herself has admitted because she's the youngest in her family, she has an entitlement thing going on, but that "being aware of the problem and doing something about it are two different things." Indeed. Venus used to be a little petulant but has gotten much better since she, well, grew up. It's about time Serena did the same. Watching her behavior the other night toward that lineswoman--you just cringe. Dropping the F-bomb? Screaming that you're going to "take this [expletive deleted] ball and shove it down your [expletive deleted] court?" Serena, this is TENNIS. The gentleman's sport. You simply DO NOT act that way. Don't give me that garbage about McEnroe being your hero--when people think of McEnroe, they don't think of his amazing ability or his titles, they remember the tantrums, the obnoxiousness. A pathetic legacy for such a good athlete. Is that how you want to be remembered? I can't even imagine how uncomfortable Kim must've felt. Serena was losing anyway, what a way to divert the attention from the victor and of course now she can say "I only lost because of a technicality."

Ugh. Very glad the US Open gave her notice. $10,000 fine, plus $500 for the earlier racquet nonsense, plus they might strip her of everything she's won at the Open this year. I agree with the first two penalties--not sure how I feel about the latter, and I do not think she should be banned from future tournaments. But I do hope this serves as a wake up call--NOT. COOL.

There is no team/like the best team/which is our team/right here!

My cousin Colin is in town--he's the son of my aunt Suzy, youngest sister of my dad. (He's the older brother of Roslyn who visited in July.) He's just finished a contract playing at Foxwood's--he's a sax and keyboard player. He's been here about a week and has been enjoying his first long stay in NYC thoroughly. He pronounced Lori's and my apartment "sick" and wants to move here immediately. We hung out on my fire escape the first night he was here, talking about tennis (he wants to scrape together money to take his mother to see Wimbledon) and our family.

We had a blast yesterday--we went into Central Park to play a pickup game of softball with some friends of mine. Although I certainly enjoy softball, I find it frustrating compared to the experience I had in Little League (hardball)--the ball in softball is SO BIG and logey--it's difficult for me to hit it out of the infield, I have no power. Whereas in hardball, the ball moves so much faster and is lighter--I used to hit home runs in hardball. *Sigh.* Anyway, so we had a BLAST although our team sucked. The last time (which was the first time) I played with these people, there was a guy on our team who played first base. Generally you stick the tallest person on the team at 1st, since the ball is thrown to first so often. As the game progressed (I played shortstop), I noticed he was flubbing a lot of catches, even easy ones. Um, if you can't catch, maybe you shouldn't be playing that position--since there's something like a 50% chance the ball will be thrown to you! It irritated me because I just know, the assumption was--he's big and he's a guy, he MUST be a good athlete! [sarcasm] Whereas a small female like me has to prove themselves constantly. Believe me, I see this all the time, in any sort of co-ed athletic situation.

So this time around, I told Colin "as soon as they start sorting out positions, call first base." Which he did (Colin is 6'3", with an amazing wingspan. Perfect for first). This guy kind of muttered about that, then explained to the rest of us that he had some sort of back problem and couldn't really throw longer ranges, so he couldn't play third or short--he wanted to play second. Uh, second is a pret-ty high traffic position--maybe you should be in right field? Well, I was pitching and stopping quite a bit of traffic myself (grabbed several line drives as well as some mean grounders--Colin and I got to do several variations on the Cousin Out :) Me fielding it and throwing to Colin, Colin fielding while I covered first, etc. Awesome! Nothing like a little Green cousin teamwork!)

Anyway, so we had a runner on first, so the play was to second. Grounder to me, I turned around and tossed it, a nice easy toss, to second--and the guy dropped it. This happened a couple more times, and you can imagine my annoyance. So I just stopped trying for the force at second, and would throw to first instead. You're supposed to try for the lead runner--but it doesn't help if the second baseman can't catch! (Anyway, more importantly than getting the lead runner, is the need to get the sure out.) After a couple of innings of this, 2nd baseman comes up to me and requests that I throw it to him as carefully as possible--he has a hard time bending over because of this back thing. I just give him a non-committal smile--dude, are you nuts? This is softball, not croquet, I don't have time to carefully set up a throw to your chest! Again, WHY volunteer for 2nd base? That's a very high-traffic position. Seriously, right field would've been so much easier for him. Honestly I have no problem with people who aren't good--I help the non-athletic girls all the time and have great patience with them (in fact one of the girls on my team was VERY new to softball, and absolutely tiny. When she picked up the bat, it was clear she'd never held one before, so I jogged over and gave her a quick batting lesson. Line up your knuckles, don't rest the bat on your shoulder, bend your knees a little bit to stay loose and most importantly--keep your eye on the ball. She got wood several times and actually recorded two hits!) It's someone who thinks he's better than he is (and is seen as such because he's a guy) and pushes himself into a position he can't play. Just play in the outfield, dude.

But I have to say, as little as I enjoyed the actual pitching (I have a hard time with the underhand pitch with the arc--I am used to overhand, and it's just not easy for me), I LOVE being that close to the batter! I *am* a scrappy little infielder, and the first time I stopped one of those line drives, the guys on the other team were ragging their batter FIERCE. "OOOh, she DENIED him. She stopped him COLD. 'The bank is CLOSED, your bus pass is NO GOOD.'" I could not stop laughing. I love it when guys give each other shit.

Of course when we batted, I had much more difficulty with that. I can certainly hit the ball but again, I can barely get it out of the outfield. Thank God I can run--if it weren't for that, I would never get on base. Then I started bunting and got on base several times. I even got to slide a few times! Of course both times, it was a force play so I really didn't NEED to slide--no tag to avoid--but I had to show off ;) And besides, that's why I wore those jeans (which are FILTHY today).

We got trounced, naturally, but it was all in good fun. (Although next time--BLOOD. Oh yeah.) Afterward we went out to grab a beer and eventually Colin and I drifted away to get food, and had a grand old time rehashing the game and discussing tennis.