About moombamimi

When I was seven years old, I was the only girl on my little league team. This was during the mid-seventies, before the days of equality, and before the days of T-Ball, so we actually had to swing at pitches, and field grounders, and catch the (very) occasional flies. AND WE KEPT SCORE!!! I played shortstop, and my dad, a hard-core Sox fan, came to practice one day to check things out and talk to my coach. “How's she doing?" he asked. “Not bad,” my coach replied with an approving nod. My dad’s not a fan of mediocrity, and he believed from the moment I opened my blue eyes that I was destined for greatness, so “Not bad” assaulted his grand design for my life like a fastball screaming out of Beckett’s right hand. “What do you mean, Not bad? Does she miss grounders? Blow double plays?” “No, Mr. Loftus. I didn’t mean she’s not good. She’s good.” “Then why didn’t you say she’s good? Why did you say, Not bad?” “I guess I just meant playing with Mimi is, well, different.” “Different, how?” (Even though he doesn’t practice, my dad has a law degree. Can you tell?) Finally, coach found the example he needed. “Let me put it to you this way. When Jimmy’s playing shortstop, and the batter hits a grounder, he catches it, throws it to first, makes the out, pats his glove two times, then leans forward, perched for the next play. When Mimi’s playing shortstop, and the batter hits a grounder, she catches it, throws it to first, makes the out, then does a cartwheel!” Look, I never claimed I wasn’t a girl – I’m just a girl who loves baseball! A girl who LOVES BASEBALL, who understands the game, the subtleties, the nuances, the strategies. A girl who loves Fenway Franks, who can catch a bag of peanuts whipped at her from the aisle, and who hates Budweiser unless it’s drunk while seated in a hard green chair on the third baseline. A girl who borders on schizophrenia during those games when she offers advice to Mike and Dustin and Big Papi, and then SCREAMS at the TV set when they don’t listen to her, because if they had JUST LISTENED TO HER. A girl who sometimes laments being a girl, ‘cause she coulda been a contender. A girl who loves baseball, and who can write. It started at that inspired beginning where I played the game because I loved it, despite the initial sneers of those snot-nosed boys, and infused a little of my own spirit in the form of a cartwheel, to season tickets on the third baseline thanks to my dad’s vision that created NESN, where I cheered Yaz, and then Jim Rice in left field, to a lifetime of hopes raised oh-so-high through the years of near misses (’86 vs The Mets anyone?), to jumping up and down in my living room when they did it…they finally did it. And then…they did it again. Boy, does it feel good to be a Red Sox fan! Baseball is a great connector. It’s different from other sports, because there’s just so much to it. You can’t take your eye off the field for a minute, or you’ve missed something essential. The pitcher shook off the call for the fourth time in a row – doesn’t he trust the catcher? The right fielder started to move closer to the warning track because this batter loves to hit sliders. The rookie at the plate needs to calm down and realize that he’s actually making the pitcher nervous, so if he would just trust the skills that got him here in the first place, we’d have a grand slam on the scorecard! There’s no other place where you can buy a single ticket, show up at 6:30 PM for a game, settle into a seat, and by the middle of the third have made a friend. Throughout my years of dedication to the Sox, I’ve been a loud-mouthed spectator, a living room coach, a barroom commentator, and a fantasy owner. So, what do I want? Simple. I want to be part of the game. By the time I met Mrs. Yawkey, she was past her New York model prime, but I was an adolescent who admired her business acumen, her baseball savvy, and her razor sharp wit. To me, she was the Sox, and she proved that girls could – no, should be part of this game, too.