Good thing the training paid off before she killed him.
I thought it was awesome, in a aren't-elite-athletes-nuts kind of way, until I got to:
When he wants to bat, he pushes aside the sofas to form his personal playing field. He steps inside the net, suspended from the ceiling. If Amber is busy, he hits off a tee.
If she is free, she feeds balls into the pitching machine. Amber stands behind an L-Screen, the kind used to protect batting-practice pitchers. Still, line drives sometimes rip through the screen.
"I know she's taken a few in the helmet," said Mickey Hatcher, the Angels' hitting coach. "But that's part of the game."
Sure, the reporter probably oversimplified for amusement value. But holy smoke, that goes a lot beyond "supportive spouse".
Let's hope she has a good pre-nup, since I'm sure that once he's well-and-truly famous he'll want to date models and start a newer, posher family. A good idea: if you will be financially dependant on someone else (and particularly if they're angling for fame) get some legal protection.
I did not see the Berber carpets in those photos.
I kind of think it's awesome too. But I would never agree to it in a million years. You could read it as the poor wife deferring to her rich superstar husband or as wife rolling her eyes at but tolerating her husband's ridiculousness.
Growing up, the living room of my two-bedroom apartment in Manhattan had in it: (1) a tent, (2) a small jungle gym; and (3) a trapeeze hanging from the ceiling. So that probably predisposes me to the benign interpretation.
Let me rephrase that, Ogged: I think it's extremely likely. More, I think that a look at the lives of sports and entertainment celebrities would bear this out.
Consider the Beatles. Consider that Joy Division guy. First wives--average-pretty, grew up in ordinary circumstances. Once the famous got famous, it was off with the old and on with the new, although Joy Division guy seems to have hung himself rather than actually go through with the divorce--and even as a professional hater-of-dumping-your-starter-wife I think that's a little excessive. Hell, consider famous academics, again mostly-but-not-exclusively male. Famous people who are married to average, non-famous people often, often, often ditch them after the fame has become established.
I thought it was cute.
Let's hope she has a good pre-nup
You're kidding -- are you really that unaware of how family law works? Pre-nups come in when the richer spouse wants to protect their assets when marrying a poorer one. It's to modify divorce law that tends to be more generous to the poorer spouse over the richer one. Child support payments are directly based on income. In cases where one spouse has materially contributed to the career advancement of the other, payments out of those high-powered career earnings are almost always in order. The only protection she needs is having the judge read a copy of this article. Pretty solid evidence she deserves some of his earnings, I'd say.
And, says I, whenever you enter into a serious relationship you should have a financial/legal/social exit strategy. It is to be hoped that you won't have to use it, but letting yourself get dependant on someone just makes the relationship (I think, at least) more likely to implode. And who wants to be the weak partner, anyway?
9: I stand corrected on legal terms, but one does hear of a lot of cases where people marry and then don't get good child support or a reasonable share of the assets. They may be unusual in actual fact, but when I read about those situations, my blood runs cold and I start wanting to pre-emptively consult lawyers. (Kind of like I find myself reflexively thinking that I wish it were possible to get a pre-emptive abortion now while they're still legal instead of having to wait--tediously--until I might actually get pregnant by mistake.)
You could read it as the poor wife deferring to her rich superstar husband
Not really, since the reason they moved into the batting cage was that they couldn't afford to finish their house on his minor league salary.
It's not uncommon for close family members of athletes to take on supportive/coaching roles--look at the Williams sisters and their father, for example. Ought he to be off pursuing a high-powered career of his own?
I read the article quickly: is it clear that she's a stay-at-home mom? Because certainly it's not just the batting cage as a house that makes her vulnerable, but the idea that she's giving up her financial independence.
. Ought he to be off pursuing a high-powered career of his own?
He did: he produced two of the best tennis players in teh world.
is it clear that she's a stay-at-home mom?
She's not: she's a school teacher, I think.
p.s. that doesn't mean ogged's not a bad misogynist.
In addition to helping Reggie with batting practice, Amber is an elementary-school counselor in Fort Cobb, and she cannot be gone all season
16: Well, thank goodness for that! Still, I wouldn't want to be in her shoes, and only partly because the noise of batting would send me crazy inside a day.
the idea that she's giving up her financial independence
Once again, family law basically prevents situations where parents with kids who sacrifice their own career for their spouses lose financial independence. Exceptions would be when your spouse truly manages to hide or protect their income (very hard, involves bank accounts in the Cayman Islands and mansions in Florida), or when you spouse actually doesn't have much money (much more common). You can also go on the run from a court-ordered obligations, but that has become far more difficult to do over the past 15 years or so.
I don't think there's any way to think that her decision to bust her butt helping her husband possibly become a millionaire is more economically rational for both her family AND for her in the event of a divorce than it would be for her to bust her butt trying to make $10,000 extra as a slightly higher paid teacher.
(Of course economic rationality isn't everything -- it can be bad for a relationship to sacrifice your career for purely personal reasons, e.g. it makes you unhappy and that negatively affects the partnership).
Anyway, this is my impression from my own second-hand knowledge of the system. I'm pretty sure I'm correct, but if a true working divorce lawyer wants to step in and give their impressions that would be great. My impression is a divorce lawyer would *love* to be taking her side in a divorce if five or ten years from now her millionaire runs off with a model.
The noise of batting would be grounds for divorce. But otherwise.... it's hard not to take what you're saying, somewhat uncharitably, as a maxim against marrying anyone who might turn out to be wildly successful. And I see what you're saying, but surely it's better than marrying someone who isn't going to be wildly succesful. It's not as though only the rich and famous ever get divorced.
Once again, family law basically prevents situations where parents with kids who sacrifice their own career for their spouses lose financial independence.
Coughbullshitcough. You're probably right in the case of someone who turns out to be rich, like a pro baseball player, but a non-working spouse doesn't get anything close to having been made whole for lost career opportunities and so on in a typical divorce.
It's not just the finances, actually. It's the feeling that your spouse is going to be around a lot of cheerleaders and groupies and famous people and you're only ordinary and so marriage is less likely to last than even an average one--I couldn't handle that. I'd feel like I was being played for a sucker--give birth, do childcare, live in awkward places so that it's convenient for spouse, and then when spouse gets bored or decides someone else is prettier you're out on your ear.
The money is important, though.
Maybe Emerson and I could debate: The No Relationships Policy vs. the No Serious Relationships Except With A Real Exit Strategy Policy.
will certainly will chime in here shortly, but I think LB's right. If my parents divorced, my mother would be screwed because she's not going to get the past 29 years of being a stay-at-home-mom back, even if she gets the house.
On the other hand, marcus seems to be correct that when one spouse is a superstar millionaire, even if the person has a job that allows them a decent living, their fortunes are going to be tied the superstar.
, but a non-working spouse doesn't get anything close to having been made whole for lost career opportunities and so on in a typical divorce.
I suspect that such compensation might not be possible. Which is to say that this might be a problem unrelated to divorce law.
(If I may threadjack, because I just have to tell someone, I just made the best sandwich in my personal history of sandwich-making, even though I thought it would be icky--thin-sliced firm tofu sliced sauted 'til crisp-edged in olive oil, layered with mayo and fancy mustard, on wheat bread.)
What surprised me was the size of the unfinished main house. For a minor-league athlete (really, for someone who isn't already fabulously wealthy), that looks like a scary financial overreach. It seems like it would have been better for all involved if the main house were maybe half as large and expensive and thus could actually be finished.
I think it's awesome, and that Frowner's a pessimist. The thing is, they're sharing a life: it's mostly his, but she has a role in it. Look at it this way: most minor-leaguers spend six months of the year on the road; in the six they're at home, most of their days are spent at the gym, at the batting cages, or working with personal trainers in off-season seminars (core, hand-eye coordination, &c.). Instead of being away from his family, he's decided to spend more time with his wife and child. I think this makes Frowner's pessimism more unwarranted than normal.
One more quick fact: they obviously decided to do this as a together activity, as he could've just used a ball feeder (cue obvious joke) or ball bucket (cue obviouser one), but has his wife feed him balls (cue Funny Farm one) instead. I don't see this as any more of a sacrifice than, say, my daily conversations with my wife about medieval hermeneutics, or hers with me about turn-of-the-century evolutionary theory.
(By the by, my "jabs" at Frowner were meant jovially. That didn't seem to translate.)
28: Aw, SEK, thanks for caring!
I maintain that fame changes everything for most people, and I maintain that this is born out in the lives of famous people.
(In fact, when I heard Immanuel Wallerstein speak a year or so ago, I was astounded to see that he was accompanied by a woman his own age who appeared to be his wife.)
Which is not, may I add, a statement about people who aren't famous, or even about every.single.famous.person.ever. But god bless the child who's got his own, that's what I say.
And of course I'm a pessimist! But remember [Frowner misuses favorite debatable study] that pessimists see things more clearly than regular folks. The veil of maya may obscure your thinking, but not mine.
Is it really the case, as Frowner contends, that that phenomenon plays out even with academics? I mean, I fully expect that the conferral of my degree will precede by at most a week or two my being surrounded wherever I tend by a sea of nubility, but famous professors don't quite have the fame that famous baseball players do.
One more quick fact: they obviously decided to do this as a together activity
This is a good point. Where one spouse has a crazy-unusual job, bending your lives to fit the job may be a practical and actually family-supportive solution. I'm thinking of Madeleine L'Engle and Jean Kerr making choices about where to live (city apt., etc.) and/or how to raise the kids (late bedtimes OK!) because of their spouses' nontraditional hours (actor and drama critic respectively).
I've seen parents do this for kids, too. It gets pretty complicated though -- how does Kid #3 feel when all his/her waking hours are spent being dragged to Kid #1's sporting events, training sessions, injury rehab, etc.? Or what happens when a whole family is built around a career/aspiration (e.g. Olympic dream) and then the person decides they don't want that dream?
I thought this stuff when I saw John Roberts's kids dressed up for the Supreme Court picture. Making all kinds of assumptions, I know, but it bothered me. They looked like props.
32: It's pretty lucky that Serena Williams (say) didn't really want to become a neurobiologist but had to go to her sister's tennis matches.
But I think the kids were just dressed up because their dad was going to go be Chief Justice. Like Easter, but with more pastels!
They looked like props.
That's because John Roberts is that authentic Face of the Left.
31: Well, I read some statistic somewhere on the internet (and it's a statistic that I like to pretend to believe but really do not) about how the vast majority of academic marriages end in divorce.
And I was heartbroken when I realized that Eric Hobsbawm had left his wife for a grad student. So that has to count for something.
And Ben, I believe the way it works is that you have to marry first. Then after your wife has spent her career managing a drug store in Podunk, ND while you teach at ND State-Podunk you should start hooking up with your advisee. Only then should you leave your wife. So the sea of nubility may be a ways off for you. Sorry.
Now's the time for you to seduce your advisor's wife, w-lfs-n! (Or husband. We're Democrats.)
Academics and athletes also move a lot, which must be hell on a marriage, especially when one partner instantly gets a new set of colleagues/friends, but the other doesn't. Which is to say that a high divorce rate doesn't tell us that there's a high trade-in rate.
ogged's relationship with Michael Moore foundered because Moore was always off giving speeches in distant states.
speaking of academic spouses not having friends, does anyone know how one goes about finding a (non-virtual) book group or whatever to join?
37: Or that the academic married another academic, which can mean either one person giving up her (generally) career aspirations to stay together, or a marriage where two people are not actually in the same town.
does anyone know how one goes about finding a (non-virtual) book group or whatever to join?
1. Call the local UU church
2. Look at the local Whole Foods (or equiv.) bulletin board
3. Check with the local library (many community groups that aren't affiliated with the library may rent space there)
4. Ask at bookstores (either a chain with a staff member who's been there for 12+ months, or an independent if you can speak to the owner/longtime staff)
I don't have any clear or morally defensible reason for warning you away from the Great Books (tm) groups, but fwiw...tread carefully.
This is why I'm avoiding marriage until I'm wildly famous -- I don't want to be with some boring ordinary person! I want to cut straight to the glamor!
It's a shame that something like librarything doesn't offer social networking/book groups. Seems like it would be perfect. Make your millions, Katherine!
39: With absolutely no knowledge at all, I'd look at Craigslist -- it seems like the sort of place book groups might organize.
A family that plays together stays together. Leave it to you people to cast a suspicious eye on such a heartwarming story.
In other baseball news, this was Jerry Remy just now while announcing the Red Sox game, to play-by-play guy Don Orsillo: 'Have you heard about this new show, where a 30-year-old guy has to choose between, you know, there's girls in their 20s, and cougars...I got a feeling a cougar's gonna win this one.'
39: You can also try meetup.com; it also lists book clubs.
Hey, I think I just overheard that, too, except it wasn't the Red Sox but tennis coverage.
Now that I think about it, there's another thread connecting academia and professional sports.
A family that plays together stays together.
Heh. I don't know, Frowner may be misidentifying the source of her reservations. Or else I'm going to redirect, just because I'm bored. Just musing.
The difficulty with such marriage or relationship arrangements is that one partner's life is defined by the other's. Obviously. As long as both parties are cool with that, no problem. It works better when you're younger, I suspect.
Anecdotally, I dated (was with) a musician for some 7 years, and he was lovely, it was lovely, while we were both in college, living apart. For the 3 years after that, living together, yeah, my life began to revolve around his; he lived and breathed music, 24/7. So I worked with him, went to practices and to gigs, helped write music and so on, discuss, discuss, discuss.
After a year or two, I stopped going to the gigs: I knew the songs inside and out, the scene was always the same. There were always the other band members' girlfriends, who attended because ... why? They told me on occasion that they were keeping an eye on their respective men, and I'd be wise to do the same. Ick. I was starting to fill out grad school applications.
After a while, the boyfriend started emptying his pockets when getting home after a gig: slips of paper with girls' phone numbers on them, tucked into his front pants pockets while he was onstage (lead singer). I admit it, it bothered me; I chose not to start going to gigs again in order to defend my territory or something utterly weird like that.
So I'd not want, in 10 years, to be this woman who pitches to her husband, unless she's just really, independently, into baseball.
I alerted the Unfogged community to "Age of Love" weeks ago, but was ignored as usual:
http://www.unfogged.com/archives/comments_6990.html#569457
Also, everyone should cheer up. The divorce rate for the highly educated has been plummeting -- for women with a BA or more it appears to be down around 16-17% within the first ten years of marriage. Since that's when most divorces occur, that's very good news. (Less well educated is another story...but most people around here fit the BA+ demographic).
Shit, what I wrote was very long. Sorry.
The point was to be similar to SEK's over there: "professional athletes share academics' engulfing commitment to their trade."
And so with anyone whose career or avocation is her or his life.
13: The Willitses are staying in a hotel in Anaheim during the season, but Amber and Jaxon will go back to the cage this summer. In addition to helping Reggie with batting practice, Amber is an elementary-school counselor in Fort Cobb, and she cannot be gone all season.
So she does have a job. The article doesn't give any indication of how much she may or may not have sacrificed her career to support the family.
By the way, is it rude to publicly disapprove of their naming their child Jaxon?
Come over here and pitch to me, mcmc.
Look, I'm not just your commenter, you know; I have my own time-wasting internet stuff to do.
Talking of dumping pre-fame wives, did anyone else notice that Salman Rushdie's fourth wife has just dumped him? Not even worth hanging around to be Lady Rushdie?
It's kind of awesome.
I have to bitterly wonder/point out that if the NYT were to write an article about a couple where the husband had arranged his entire domestic life around his wife's inconvenient professional obsession, the tone and focus of the piece would be quite different. Here, it's presented as cute, but goddamn, that's a hell of a marriage there, and she deserves shitloads of credit.
Also, Ogged's bad and misogynist regardless of what he thinks of this article. Obvs.
Also, I hate to agree with Ogged the misogynist, but 37's kinda right. It's easy to disapprove of the man (or less often, woman) who relies on a supportive spouse through the early, struggling years, and then later there's a divorce, and surely there are people who really do just "trade in" for a younger, hotter new partner. But. It's also probably true that often the emerging successful person *has* "outgrown" the person who's invested their entire identity in someone else, and who would want their partner to stay with them merely out of gratitude and pity? Or, if the "lesser" spouse now wants to devote her/himself to an exciting career, it's going to be a little more difficult for the successful, and now very busy, person to be as all-consumingly supportive as their partner was.
(Which is, of course, distinct from the question of ripping off the spouse on the divorce settlement, which is fucking shitty.)
I think probably I'm agreeing with the other women that it's generally a bad idea, I imagine, to devote onself single-mindedly to "supporting" someone else's growth. Even though, at the same time, I find the partnership in this story rather charming, and hope that the particular personalities of these two people means that it'll endure.
That's not at all what ogged said in 37.
God, Teo, is it your personal role in life to police everything I say on this site?
No, it isn't what Ogged said in 37. I began by saying I kind of agreed with 37, and then went on to offer my own, independent, riff and elaboration of why. But if it makes you feel better, I'll say for the record that I can pretty much be assumed never to be speaking for Ogged, or repeating what he's said without in some way twisting or changing it.
I do think that B makes an important point, though: there is almost no act that one cannot justify if only one wants it enough.
54: Maybe that gig on Top Chef is working out really well for her and she wants to trade up.
B usually is right, and is right here.
As a massive baseball fan, I think it's cool, and as a romantic, I think it's adorable and I hope to hell they stay together, and as a cynic I hope she gets half his future contract value.
Also, dude's got a 380 OBP. Pretty hot for a career minor leaguer.
60: No, no. My point is that there's no act *I* can't justify.
Huh. One of my closest friends is cousins with Rushdie's wife. I'll have to ask him about this.
64: Get a number, too, alright?
61, that actually sounds about right:
She has since branched out from modelling into acting, hosting an Italian television show, starring in a soft-porn movie and writing an Indian cookery book. She also hosts a reality cooking show, Top Chef, on American cable TV[...] But there were hints of trouble as far back as last year, when Ms Lakshmi complained to a New York Post reporter that she was "frustrated" by her husband's lack of support for a movie she was producing.
The article also describes him as "self-centered" and her as "dull."
The article also appears to be from the Daily Mail, so... take that with whatever grain of salt you feel necessary.
Salman, please pack your knives and go. Hehe.
The article also describes him as "self-centered"
I don't find that particularly difficult to believe.
Why would you marry someone who's been married three times? It's not going to work!
OT: Bérubé has a nice post talking about some of the parenting-a-child-with-disabilities issues discussed in the thread the other day.
Although nobody better put that over-the-top compliment of this place as the new hovertext.
Awesome. Maybe someone will start rethinking that "girls games" vs. "boys games" nonsense.
B's got the serious commentary; I was just thinking that an article about dressing up online was just about perfect for these guys.
Well that too.
Also, where are Becks's updates about Vegas? Dammit.
Also, where are Becks's updates about Vegas? Dammit.
She recently changed her facebook status to note that she was covered in stripper sweat.
79: Yes, I noticed that and commented on it over there.
75: It isn't really anything new, though it may be newly commented on. My favorite part of playing old Nintendo RPGs like Dragon Warrior was reading the strategy guides for the illustrations and stat sheets and whenever I bought armor and stuff for my characters I made my little brother go around killing d00dz to rack up my EXP and GPs while I drew awesome illustrations of my characters, e.g..
Now she's "a gay man. a drunk gay man."
Stripper sweat possesses a curious transformative power.
I've seen strippers that could turn a fellow gay.
Tune in to the series premiere of That's Batty! On UPN.
Video game fashion rocks. I love games that give you a lot of control over your character's outfit.
test
Woot! That was posted from a Helio Ocean, which is sweet indeed. Though you should all not be fooled by damn consecutive J months into thinking your contract expires in June, instead of July.
That was posted from a Helio Ocean
Bastard.
Good points by Parsimon and B. Rich and famous, or poor and struggling, maintaining your own sense of self is key!
Great. When I find my password for that account, I'll be able to pick up that and the announcement of your betrothal to Jodie Foster. Is it Cingular, because I can't find it on the website.
What kind of fanboy are you? Helio is its own company. All I emailed you is that it's sweet, I was about to buy it ($100 off in-store), but my contract expires in a month, so I have to wait.
It's not tied to a specific cell company?
It uses Sprint's network, but the plan's are Helio's own and you sign your contract with them.
Rich and famous, or poor and struggling, maintaining your own sense of self is key!
Sense of self is a little overrated. People are always trying to lose themselves in something larger, there's a reason for that.
"Tune in to the series premiere of That's Batty! On UPN."
Jeffrey Tambor will play the next door next door neighbor. It'll be great.
99: I agree that there's a reason people long to lose themselves in something larger. Escapism is a beautiful thing, in its way. But one day you wake up and that thing you lost yourself in has changed or grown restless or whatever else and you're ultimately left with yourself anyway. If you were good with that from the beginning, it's less of a blow.
Well, like everything else, it's a balance. "If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? If I am only for myself, then what am I?" That's all the Talmudic wisdom I have for the day.
In response to Katherine's 39, Librarything does indeed offer bookgroups, and I know that many members have used it to organize non-virtual groups as well.
whenever you enter into a serious relationship you should have a financial/legal/social exit strategy
Never get into a land marriage in Asia!
it's hard not to take what you're saying, somewhat uncharitably, as a maxim against marrying anyone who might turn out to be wildly successful.
I know lots of people who haven't a chance of being wildly successful. I can't guarantee that any of them will hang themselves like that Joy Division guy, but who knows just how wildly unsuccessful they'll turn out to be? I'd be happy to introduce you to any of them, Frowner.
The floors are covered with Berber carpet. The dining room table is adorned with a vase of flowers. There are no closets.
That's the part of the story which struck me. A friend of mine restored an old house from the studs up, but failed to add any closets. Thank god for armoires and cardboard boxes.
Pulaski is in Virginia, not West Virginia.
75. My seven year old son gets very upset when his sister changes the costuming of his skater on his Tony Hawk game. He doesn't spend hours selecting it, but he definately cares about the "look".
75, 107: Bloxorz needs a similar feature.