Kritik und Lob » had ever been on a team 14 games ov

In December, espnWs weekly essay series will focus on family.In college, when I began dating the man who would become my husband, he told me that his family loved baseball.Okay, I said, treating the news as if hed said they all liked the color blue -- a fine distinguishing characteristic, but nothing that had anything to do with me.No, you dont understand. My brother plays baseball in college, he insisted. I spent my whole life going to baseball games and tournaments.I nodded.Growing up, my father was the only one who liked sports, hed rush us home from church on Sunday so he didnt miss his religious programming. A Dallas Cowboys game.?The importance of my sports knowledge didnt sink in until my then-boyfriends father, Gary, started greeting me at the door on my visits to their house with a baseball trivia question.You cant come in until you tell me what number Kirby Puckett was.Ill answer your question when you can name five Faulkner novels, Id say and duck under his arm.To understand us, you have to understand baseball, Dave once told me over a dinner of burgers at our favorite diner. I shrugged.Whats to understand?The second year we were dating, I started my senior year of college. One of the classes I signed up for was on Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner. I loved Faulkner, whose wild characters and dense prose often made me laugh out loud. But I cared nothing for Hemingway. I hated his female characters and the cold feel of his short sentences. But I couldnt take a class on one without the other, so I signed up.We began that semester with Hemingways short stories, starting with the collection The Snows of Kilimanjaro and then moving onto?In Our Time. I was surprised at how often sports were on the periphery of his writing -- the depressed prize fighter in The Killers, the match fixing in Fifty Grand and hunting in The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.It was something Id never noticed before, how consumed with physical action his characters were, how sport gave them an identity, whether real or imagined, that could in turn devastate and define who they were.I told Gary I was reading Hemingway.Oh, hes my favorite author, he said on one of my visits. I was shocked. I didnt think he read anything besides books on management and Mickey Mantle biographies. He told me his favorite book was Old Man and the Sea, and I rolled my eyes.Hey, I guess Im not an English major, he said, so I cant tell you why I like it, just that I think it means something to me. He smiled, but I could tell he meant it. When I picked up In Our Time, I decided just to read it like Gary would, without prejudice.The Three-Day Blow is everything I hate in a story -- boys going into the woods to talk about women and get drunk. But when I read it that fall, I was 21 and in love with a boy who loved baseball. Reading the story again, I saw baseball in a way Id never seen it before. Upset over a breakup, Nick Adams, a character who became an alter-ego for Hemingway, goes to a cabin with his friend Bill. They get drunk on whiskey and talk about women, but that topic contains mystery and heartbreak. So, they talk baseball. Alternating between love and disillusionment for the sport, their words become metaphors for the other things they cant bring themselves to say. When Nick declares ...baseball is a game for louts he might as well be saying love is a game for louts.Baseball is more than a metaphor in this story. It is a thing wholly and completely on its own, a series of events, small stories, with characters and plot, which give the two boys a common language and experience.When all else failed, baseball was a way to be part of something together -- some way to touch and connect with something great, to believe that whatever else fails, here is a thing that mattered, a place where winning was possible, and hope always prevailed. After all, win or lose, the only guarantee is that there will be more games and another season, another chance.That same semester, during Thanksgiving break, as I began to write my final paper for the class on baseball, Hemingway and love, Dave asked me to marry him under the stars while we danced as Carole Kings Far Away played from the CD player on his Mazda. We went back to his parents house and told them.After hugging me, Gary and my soon-to-be brother-in-law took me to the basement to watch the Twins 1991 World Series video. I laughed, but I watched the whole thing, listening to their analysis and finally memorizing Kirby Pucketts number, 34.Lyz Lenzs writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Marie Claire, Pacific Standard, Buzzfeed and the LA Review of Books. She lives in Iowa, but you can find her on Twitter @lyzl Fake Off White Vapormax .J. -- Marty Brodeur beat the Pittsburgh Penguins yet again. Off White Vapormax Fake . -- Its been a long road back for Sean Bergenheim. http://www.cheapvapormaxtrainers.com/ . - The Washington Redskins have cut defensive lineman Adam Carriker and punter Sav Rocca. Nike Vapormax Outlet . -- Golden State Warriors coach Mark Jackson asked his players a simple question during Fridays morning shootaround: How many of them had ever been on a team 14 games over . Cheap Vapormax Mens . U.S. District Judge Lorna G. Schofield in Manhattan agreed that lawyers on both sides could make their formal requests by Nov. 8. A hearing is scheduled for a day earlier. Jordan Siev, a lawyer for Rodriguez, wrote in a joint letter to the judge from lawyers on both sides that MLB lawyers planned to ask that the lawsuit be dismissed. ESPN Chalks Vegas experts are here to provide analysis and best bets for all Week 4 games, including the Los Angeles-Arizona matchup.Note: All odds courtesy of the Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook as of Friday morning.Home page for all Week 4 gamesLos Angeles Rams-Arizona CardinalsSpread:?Opened Arizona -9; now Arizona -8 Total: Opened 43.5; now 43 PickCenter public consennsus pick: 53 percent ArizonaPublic perception: The public is slightly on the Cardinals side, though the love is fading as theyve let down backers twice this season (and the public was on the Rams more before this line dropped).dddddddddddd ' ' '