Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It’s a doggy dog world.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

Washington Post’s Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Let me file that under fuck it.

The choice is between normal and crazy.

Bark louder, little dog.

“Joe Biden deserved better than he got from some folks in his own party.”

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

I also would like a pony to improve my balloon juice experience.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

It’s easier to kill a dangerous animal than a man who just happens to have different thoughts/values than one’s own.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Sunday Evening Open Thread: Sisters in Sports

Sunday Evening Open Thread: Sisters in Sports

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Kelsie Whitmore always wanted to play in the major leagues. She did not always want to admit it.

“Are you sure?” people would respond after they asked what she wanted to do.

Even at an early age, she knew what they really meant: “You know you can’t do that, right?”

They would — and still do — tell her how hard she would have to work, as if a girl who played baseball with the boys from the moment she started Little League didn’t know that already. She knew they thought she probably couldn’t do it. In fairness, they had never seen anyone try.

can’t do that, right?”

They would — and still do — tell her how hard she would have to work, as if a girl who played baseball with the boys from the moment she started Little League didn’t know that already. She knew they thought she probably couldn’t do it. In fairness, they had never seen anyone try.

Whitmore was never afraid that that skepticism would make her question whether she belonged. As the first woman to start a game in the Atlantic League, an independent circuit, she had never exactly blended in. But she has stood in the same outfield as former major leaguers, tracking and catching the same flyballs. She has taken leads against former major league pitchers, inching toward second base, watching for the same tells as the guys, scoring on base hits just as they do. She has faced elite pitching and velocity, struck out, adjusted and done better next time.

She understands that it has been generations since anyone has seen a woman pull this off, that their doubt isn’t personal but empirical. So, starting young, she changed her answer.

“I just want to continue playing baseball,” she would tell anyone who asked about her hopes and dreams.

“Oh, you mean softball?” they would counter.

“That’s probably the statement I’ve probably heard most in my life,” Whitmore said. “ ‘Baseball? You mean softball?’ ”…

Reader Interactions

46Comments

  3. 3.

    Alison Rose

    I love all of these stories. I just wish it weren’t 2022 and we’re still getting “the first woman to…” articles. But still awesome, and I love the picture of Pickett greeting the little kid :)

  9. 9.

    Yutsano

    @Alison Rose : ​ The Americans with Disabilities Act was passed in 1990. Disabled athletes who can still compete on a national level are still looked at as oddities at best. We’re making progress and I am so grateful to that old lion Edward Kennedy for getting the ADA passed. But you’re right in that there’s so much further to go.

    It’s also why I want to get a really expensive looking car like a Mercedes. Then I get out in my wheelchair and make them wonder how I got it. It’s fun even in my current vehicle.

  12. 12.

    Brachiator

    @Alison Rose :

    I love all of these stories. I just wish it weren’t 2022 and we’re still getting “the first woman to…” articles

    I know what you mean. Still…

    YEA!  HOORAY!

     

    @zhena gogolia:

    Where is everyone today?

    Maybe more people are making up for the pandemic and doing more travel. Also, more parties. Certainly, partying has been big with neighbors on my street.

    Also, a few more folk than usual with Uhaul vans, moving out of the area.

    I injured my knee, and for a while was too medicated to do much Internet stuff. Getting better I have been catching up with some work-related stuff. Feeling quite proud at being productive.

  13. 13.

    Brachiator

    @NotMax:

    Is that, here today, gone to Maui?

     

    ETA. Related, unrelated. I think I read that the Magnum PI reboot has been renewed and will be on NBC next 2 seasons. Going back to the original Hawaii 5-0, I always thought it cool that you had a string of TV shows on the islands. You had to have production facilities, crews, etc. Don’t know if it ever brought significant revenue to the state.

  14. 14.

    Steeplejack

    @zhena gogolia:

    Jeez, I dunno . . . maybe put off by the only active thread for eight hours being 280 doom-and-gloom comments on the “constitutional crisis”?

  18. 18.

    zhena gogolia

    @Steeplejack: We’re watching (for our sins) the remake of Father of the Bride with Andy Garcia on HBO. I like Andy Garcia, but this is not showing him to best advantage. There has been one laugh-out-loud line by Chloe Fineman so far. I will commend them for having a plot that turns on cultural differences between Cubans and Mexicans. But that’s not really enough to carry it.

  20. 20.

    Steeplejack

    @zhena gogolia:

    I’m watching A Caribbean Mystery, a Miss Marple outing from 2014 on the Brit-centric lesser PBS station. Julia McKenzie is not my favorite Marple, and of course I’ve seen it before, but it’s the best of tonight’s slim pickings, and it’s packed with faces from the usual BritBox repertory company..

    I can’t watch Endeavour because I haven’t seen the previous two episodes yet. They’re waiting for me on PBS Passport.

  21. 21.

    zhena gogolia

    @Steeplejack: OMG I forgot about Endeavour. It’s Sunday! I wonder if I can get it on Amazon. Last week the CPTV streaming wouldn’t work, but it was on my Amazon for some reason.

    Ah, yes, Caribbean Mystery. Poor Oliver Ford Davies.

  24. 24.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Open thread? I started watching Mystery Science Theater 3000, starting with Space Mutiny (haven’t finished it yet, but plan to), and Robot Rumpus, the Gumby episode. It’s pretty funny at times, but it’s very clean humor and I don’t always understand the references in the riffs

  25. 25.

    Steeplejack

    @zhena gogolia:

    Holiday schedule muddling. All day Thursday I felt like it was Friday, or should be, and things have been vague since then. The TV schedule is a weird mix of “business as usual” on some stations and “special programming” on others. Seriously, does anyone need an Everybody Loves Raymond marathon? Rhetorical question.

  27. 27.

    zhena gogolia

    @Steeplejack: I’m recovering from a hip replacement and staying home all the time, so I’m really in a total daze. Plus for some reason all our friends have showered us with food, which is nice, but it’s a little disorienting to eat other people’s cooking every night.

  28. 28.

    Steeplejack

    @zhena gogolia:

    Well, you said the first two episodes were good, so this one should be all right. I’m probably going to binge all three in the next day or two. Just renewed my annual WETA membership last night and confirmed my Passport log-in information.

  30. 30.

    zhena gogolia

    @Steeplejack: It feels like the old Endeavour. I don’t know what happened last season. They seemed to be trying to be avant-garde.

  32. 32.

    Steeplejack

    @zhena gogolia:

    See, your normal schedule has been disrupted, which muddles things further. And the strange food, which of course you feel obligated to eat, if only to get it out of the fridge.

  33. 33.

    Geminid

    @Honus: It’s spelled S-t-a-n-a-r-d-s-v-i-l-l-e.

    But we pronounce it “Standardsville”! Not like those gentrified folk in Free Union.

    And we’ll git ‘er done, too!

  34. 34.

    Steeplejack

    @Brachiator:

    Yes, there was a dreadful Steve Martin remake, which was a milestone on his road from “edgy hipster comedian” to “the beach house isn’t going to pay for itself.”

  35. 35.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @zhena gogolia:

    Good advice. I’ll try to stick with it. I found it interesting how they kept the very late 80s (and catchy!) theme song well into the late 90s during the show’s run

  36. 36.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Brachiator:

    @Steeplejack:

    Fun fact, the Steve Martin one actually had a sequel, Father of the Bride II

    I think Steve Martin starred in a few of those types of remakes. I remember Cheaper by the Dozen from 2003, which also had a sequel

  39. 39.

    Ruckus

    @zhena gogolia:

    For 11 yrs I traveled 8-9 months a year, eating out for every meal 5-6 days a week. Eating other people’s cooking does get to be somewhat old rather soon, even if it’s great food. On the plus side I didn’t have to make my bed or wash dishes near as much…..

  40. 40.

    NotMax

    ‘@Brachiator
    One reviewer’s delve into compare and contrast.

    Well, of course, the story isn’t entirely timeless and universal. While each movie has the same basic premise—a man struggles with his daughter’s decision to leave the nest as well as the more concrete stresses of her wedding—each is also a clear product of its time. And watching all three movies recently, as I did, it’s clear the franchise can’t outrun our shifting mores on marriage forever. Source

  45. 45.

    JAFD

    Trying to finish up project before event later this month. Then will be packing up all my stough – building’s getting renovated, new flooring, kitchen, baths for apartments – so’ll have to vacate for week in September. First world problem, but not something to be glad about – I mean, I’d be happy to stay in this place in current state until I’m carried out feet-first…
    Happy Fourth of July, fellow jackals, regardless.

  46. 46.

    Brachiator

    @NotMax:

     

    One reviewer’s delve into compare and contrast.

    Interesting stuff, though a bit of overkill for these light comedies.

    Their older daughter and the bride, Sofia (Adria Arjona), has been given 2022-friendly politics: She was the one to propose to her husband-to-be, and in the end of the movie, he takes her last name.

    The last name thing is not that uncommon in Hispanic marriages.

    It seems like Sofia and her fiancé would be the types to have a Zoom wedding instead of rushing things if you ask me, but the movie can’t resist tradition for too long, and things of course culminate with a ceremony.

    I don’t know. Weddings still happen. Traditions bend, but don’t break. A friend’s daughter recently got married and the story of their nuptials might make another entry in the Bride series. Because of Covid, they first got married via Zoom. But both families also wanted a traditional wedding. The groom is Indian American and the wedding was big and spectacular, with the celebration spread out over three days.

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