Lesbian Life Lessons and Baseball
By Yvonne Zipter

Oh, happy day! My girlfriend Kathy told me recently that, as a past group-ticket purchaser, she could soon buy Cubs tickets for the upcoming season, and she is now ordering some for an outing by the queer mentoring program she runs. Hallelu, hallelu! This means that, before you know it, spring training will be underway, Pat Hughes—Voice of the Chicago Cubs—and Ron Santo will be playfully bickering on the air waves, and I will have a personal audio transmission device grafted to my head so that I can be transported from my bland office to the thrilling confines of Wrigley Field, if not in body, then at least in mind.

It is, I've been led to believe, old-fashioned to be a baseball fan. Sports fans today—the so-called MTV generation—need something faster moving, like basketball, or more violent, like football. Personally, I enjoy the zenlike pace of baseball, but if you yourself are not a fan but are a lesbian, you should know that there are life lessons to be learned from this underappreciated sport.

Perhaps foremost is the opportunity to gain valuable experience with serial monogamy—a state you are quite likely to undergo as a woman-loving woman. Repeatedly. If it's not clear to you how serial monogamy and baseball intersect, consider this: no sooner than I have gained a passing interest in or become deeply committed to a Hesop Choi or Turk Wendell then that player is traded to a new team, and I must start all over again. But take my word for it: this is a far less painful way to learn about serial monogamy than actually going through it with another woman, since so far never have I adopted a cat or shared deep secrets with a Mark Grace or an Eric Young.

This does, though, bring up the next lesbian lesson of baseball: heartache. This is especially the case if you are a Cubs fan. Because no matter how promising the team looks at the start of the season, it is best to be prepared for a letdown. True, the Cubs and I have never quibbled over emotional unavailability or who's turn it is clean up the doggie doo, but it is still wrenching when they are winning 15-0 in the sixth inning, manage to let the other team tie it up in the ninth, and then lose the game in extra innings. I wonder if I could get the Cubs to go to couples counseling with me...

You also learn a great deal about lesbian time, as a baseball fan, which is particularly puzzling when you consider there are no lesbians playing professional baseball. But that's a subject for another essay. For now, consider that it's very hard to make precise plans for after a baseball game, since you never really know how long they will last. And though games may claim to start at 1:20, there's a bit of a fudge factor involved since the national anthem precedes it, and how long that takes depends on whether you've got a nervous amateur singing or a seasoned professional. Time itself, takes on new dimensions: a single pitch can drag on for what seems like hours and homeruns are over so fast you can easily miss them while you're paying the beer-here guy.

And while we're on the subject of time, perhaps the most obvious thing to be learned from baseball is patience, and when your last World Series win came in 1909, you've got plenty of time for that tutorial. If you've ever been in any kind of a relationship—whether with a dog, a seedling, or a woman—I don't need to tell you how important patience can be.

Finally, baseball illustrates how important communication is. If your girlfriend is signaling bunt, and you mistake that for a signal to poke fun at her for being just like her neurotic/overbearing/spacey (pick one) mother, well, sister, it doesn't matter if you slide or come in standing up: there's a good chance you're going to be called out.

And there's so much more: the art of spitting, how to apply makeup under your eyes, playing hard-to-get, as in a rundown. I sometimes wonder, though, whether maybe I'm a little too wrapped up in baseball. Let me ask you this: right before a climactic moment of passion, do you cry out, "It might be! It could be! Is it! Homerun!"?

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