Lessons about Life and Baseball

“Life is not fair.”
Conan O’ Brien (among others possibly but don’t you just love Coco?)

You know what else is not fair? Baseball. That is the lesson I have learned this week. Now, I’m under no illusions or false pretenses that this life is some kind of perfect meritocracy. There will always be people who get opportunities whether they deserve them or not because they have the right last name or wear the right clothes or know the right people or get signed in the first round. But sometimes it’s hard to just accept that as truth. Some sense of justice cries within us that things MUST be fair. If we work hard, we SHOULD be rewarded (and amply). No one seems to be listening.

Nik called me last night to tell me that one of his good friends on the team (and one of my favorites) was being sent down to a lower team and he would be leaving in less than 24 hours. Brutal! And the thing is, he was doing just fine. Not getting too many innings but doing pretty well with what he was given. AND he got knocked out of his spot by-- okay, I considered being mean just then, but I’m trying to give that up so-- someone who is not doing as well. BIG bummer.

Other events have taken place recently that factor into my declaration that baseball is unfair. But in the interest of propriety and not making very unneeded enemies of the Yankee higher-ups, I will hold my tongue (not easy friends). As I mulled over the unfairness of it all, I started to think about how fortunate Nik and I are. I mean the guy plays a game…for his job! It’s not easy and it’s definitely not glamorous but he’s doing what he loves (as his dear fiancé toils away like a slave laborer, mind you). He’s living the life of so many little league dreams. Few people ever get the chance to be under the bright lights, to strike out seven batters in five innings and walk none (braggart? me? Never… shame on you) while thousands of people watch and cheer. So, I guess life (and baseball) are unfair. But I’ve also realized that that unfairness often works for our good and manifests itself in the amazing opportunities we take for granted.


This is Conan saying life is not fair (at Dartmouth Commencement if you must know).

One is the Loneliest Number

It is a truth that we probably didn’t need a song or a Tom Clancy novel (?!-thank you Wikipedia) to tell us.

I spent Memorial Day weekend visiting Nik in Savannah, Georgia. We were together for almost two and a half whole days! (which, if you’re keeping track at home, is the longest we’ve been together in two months). Oh, the life of a baseball WAG. But this post isn’t to whine because isn’t that just such an unbecoming activity? It is to enlighten your mind about the scheduling conflicts every ball player and his lady must endure.

There are pretty much three options a WAG can choose at the beginning of every season. One, she can stay wherever she is, working or going to school or doing just whatever she wants to do. That is the option I chose this season. By that I mean that is the option the cruel, hard world forced me to accept because we no longer barter. It was a sad day when that system ended friends. So I have basically become an indentured servant of the man. Only time will tell how long my period of service will last.

I digress. Another alternative is adopting the home team and city as your own. You try to find a part-time job if that’s the kind of thing that tickles your fancy. Or you can do nothing, but on a minor leaguer’s (is that a word? It looks awfully strange) salary, you will most likely also be forced to –gasp!-work. So you hang out by yourself during the (sometimes nine day!) road trips and get your honey during home stands. The last and most glorious option is to make like your SO (read: significant other) and adopt the life of a traveler. He goes on the road, you go on the road. He’s playing at home, you’re staying at home. Oh that the day might come when that dream becomes a reality.

But here’s the rub to those of you who aren’t initiated in the ways of baseball waggery. During the season, no matter what you choose, your player is not your own. For all intents and purposes, (until three years ago I thought that phrase was “for all intensive purposes”—what does that even mean?) he is owned by his team. You have but little claim on his time and so you take what you can get and are satisfied or annoyed with the result depending on your general disposition and hormones and things of that nature.

For the life of a baseball player is just so much more involved than one would think. This is like a spoiler alert if you’re waiting with breathless anticipation for Nik’s day in the life of post (but, let’s be honest, by the time he writes that you will not remember this so it’s all good). Most days, Nik sleeps in until 10 or 11, wakes up and then goes to lift. He eats lunch and then has to be at the field for practice around 1. The game starts at seven. You see where I’m going with this? The game finishes at 9:30 or ten then it’s off to eat again and back to his apartment. And it starts all over again the next day. There are reprieves aka no lift days when he doesn’t have to be anywhere until just five hours before the game or, my favorite!, days when he pitches. On pitch days, he doesn’t have to be there until 2 ½ hours before the game if he’s at home and four hours if he’s away. Brilliant. So even when you’re together as much as possible, you’re still alone an awful lot. And isn’t one just the loneliest number?

Hahaha.

Happy Birthday Erin!

I know I’m late and a terrible friend but I must take this opportunity to wish a blog happy birthday to Erin Kelly Moore (a blog happy birthday is the only kind that matters really). She turned 23 on Monday. I didn’t write this on the day of her actual birth because she and I were out to sushi to celebrate and then I unsuccessfully attempted to scan a picture of us to accompany this post. What a disappointment am I to my fellow Gen-Yers? We’re supposed to be addicted to technology and I can’t even scan a picture. Pathetic.

Erin and I after birthday sushi Monday.

Anyway, the good Lord saw fit to spare our families and associates from our shenanigans for five long years but once we hit kindergarten, no one could stop us! Erin still has a report card in which our teacher wrote that “Erin and her friend Rachel are extremely loquacious.” And that’s how we knew some impressive vocabulary at age six.

This is actually my birthday...my seventh to be exact (I finally got the picture to work).

We were in all the same classes through elementary school except for fourth grade when Erin decided to abandon me for North Carolina. But that didn’t last long. The Moores wisely realized they couldn’t live without me. In middle school, we spent the hour before school eating breakfast together and watching “Saved by the Bell” or MTV videos. My, that Zack Morris was handsome!

Erin’s home became my second home in high school. I knew the passcode to get in and spent almost every weekend there. In fact, Erin’s family once left for vacation while I was still asleep. I woke up, enjoyed a delicious bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and watched TV. We went on vacation together a couple times and just generally had incredibly wild times that I will not discuss right now because I’m saving them up for a future book deal – “Moore Johnson: The outrageous adventures of a very sober girl and her very drunk friend.” That’s just a working title mind you.

Since we were five years old, Erin has always been there for me. Brightening my day with text messages that say things like “I think a lesbian colony is in order,” helping me find my pimp name, forcing me to exercise, aiding me in my obsession with “Boy Meets World.” She’s been there for the get-togethers, the hook-ups, the break-ups, the mistakes and the triumphs. She was one of my first friends to meet Nik, she was there for the proposal and she’ll be standing by my side at the wedding in October (she’s much more deserving of the maid of honor title than my deadbeat sister).

Erin, I love you! Happy birthday. I know we’ll be celebrating it together for years to come.

Erin's 21st birthday. Good times.

The Letters we Never Send

I think most people have heard or gotten the advice to write letters to people that will never be sent. It is a cathartic process for us to say what we want and need to say but can or should not. It’s usually reserved for cases that call for venting or extreme honesty. Well, today friends, I am writing one such letter. Although, I guess by putting it up on the Internet it could indeed find its way to the person it’s meant for…whoops!

I do not know this person’s name but I think a description will be sufficient for this address.

Dear Skankyface,
Thank you for shamelessly hitting on and trying to flirt with my fiancé. It validates my choice in men and let’s me know that he’s still got it! And I totally agree that he looks REALLY intimidating doing his pick-off move: ) And you know what else? Thank you for having the self-respect not to outright offer to show him your ta-tas or anything of the sort. That’s more than I can say for some other minor league groupies. Bravo to you. Also, it was super nice of you to ask specifically for him by name and wait outside for 20 minutes while he showered. You must be a really dedicated fan. And we can always use more of those!

Love,
Rachel aka the future Mrs. Nik Turley

Black Cats, Broken Mirrors and Your Fiancé

What do these all have in common one might wonder. Survey says... they are all bad luck if you happen to be Nik Turley. Despite his protestations, I am pretty well convinced that I am his bad luck charm. But let’s start at the beginning.

I have never been superstitious. In fact, when I was seven a black cat crossed my path on Halloween. I looked at it curiously and thought this could be a good omen. I mean how many black cats cross people’s paths on Halloween night?!? I considered myself lucky to be the recipient of such chance spookiness.

Fast forward 14 years and my how things have changed. Baseball players are notorious for being superstitious. Just ask Wikipedia. And it rubs off on you no matter how ridiculous it may seem. Nik is a perpetual wood knocker. As in he says something he “shouldn’t” and in order not to jinx it must frantically search for wood or an acceptable substitute to knock on. I have seen that boy knock on tables, an easel, a door, the floor and even the faux wood paneling of a car. As we dated, I learned what things I could and couldn’t talk about with regards to baseball. You have to walk a very fine line, my friend. So being exposed to all this superstition has 1.) made me think baseball players are strange and 2.) somehow made me superstitious. How does that happen?

And now I find myself in the position of believing that I am bad luck to my fiancé. Think I’m crazy? Well, let’s just look at the facts. Nik has pitched eight games. All of his games are available to listen to online. Guess who was listening to/watching his four worst games (in terms of ERA)? That’s right, yours truly. The other four games when he did his best, I was unfortunately (or actually fortunately for Nik) otherwise occupied and could not listen or else only caught the end of the action thereby allowing him to succeed.

What is a girl to do? I’m torn. He’s pitching again Friday so I have two days to think about how to proceed. Nik insisted that I’m not bad luck yet gently suggested I should just watch the computer update the stats instead of actually listening to the game. Very encouraging. Well, this has officially gotten out of hand because I was going to deliver an ultimatum to end this post but I can’t because I’m too scared it would jinx him.


This is the Angels rally monkey also known as a superstition albeit an adorable one.

Friday Night Fights

Well, it looks like the bad blood trickles all the way down from the bigs to A-level ball. This is Nik's team (Yankees affiliate) getting into a bench-clearing brawl with the Greenville Drive (Red Sox affiliate).

Now, as a person who worked with sports media, I feel there is a certain level of discretion and decorum that should govern the facts and details that are released about what goes on behind the scenes. Suffice it to say, the catcher that Nik's teammate Slade goes after in this video is a punk. Big time. In fact, Nik got in trouble the last time he pitched to the Drive for threatening to hit the kid in the head the next time he came up to bat if he kept running his mouth. I don't condone this behavior but...you tell him babe! Also, they play this team something like 15 more times this season--can't wait to see how that goes.

Pop Songs and Looking Back

This post is about Avril Lavigne. You know, tiny Canadian who used to go around splashing in mall fountains. That girl. She’s back if you haven’t heard. Back with a catchy little diddy called “What the H-E-Double Hockey Sticks?” (I’m a role model, you know. Can’t be caught swearing on the interweb). So anyway, surprising as it might be, this song has really got me thinking.

The chorus, (inspirational really) if you haven’t heard it, goes “all my life I’ve been good but now oooohhh what the he*l. all I want is to mess around”… there’s more but it’s immaterial at the moment. What praytell could this possibly make me think about you may wonder. If you don’t know Avril’s story, she recently got divorced and, to me, this song is to her ex-husband telling him what he already knows, which is that it turns out she wasn’t ready to settle down and she just needs some time to have fun and embrace youth and go buckwild and all that. Well, as a gal that’s about to get hitched, this song sort of put me into, let’s call it, feverish wondering.



Let’s be honest. Ever since Nik and I got serious and decided this relationship was going to lead to marriage, I’ve been on the train to Old Fogeytown. I thought I had come to terms with this but now as the actual arrival at the station draws ever nearer, I am a little terrified that I will become irredeemably dull. There’s a myth out there that says that as soon as you say I do or I wed or Yes Please you become an infinitely more boring person. Married people try to say this isn’t true but 1) let’s look at the facts and 2) what else would they say?

So as I listen to Avril I think, did I see and do everything I wanted? Did I spend enough time picturing my life married to someone British? These are the tough questions one has to answer as one embarks on the epic journey of married life.

I don’t want you to think that I’m having serious doubts or second thoughts, I’m not. I am looking forward to marrying Nik with all my heart, and I am more excited about it than I’ve ever been about anything. I know it will be amazing. But this questioning, this looking back and wondering, seems to be the natural product of every life-altering decision we make. And we’ll always be at least a little disappointed by what we didn’t accomplish or experience. How could we not? Life is full of so many opportunities that we have to miss some of them. And the human mind has an unlimited capacity to dwell. So I guess it’s all just a part of life. The trick is to learn to override the dwell function and let go of the missed opportunities in order to embrace the things that really matter, the chances that you do take and the opportunities you do seize—like marrying the love of your life.