I’m not going to vouch for this post. I’m just going to wonder how it is a Jewish girl with no brothers and a father who only watched golf could become obsessed with baseball in the last decade of her life. And that the decade just so happened to correspond with the years during which she became an agent…
And this is where I might lose you if I haven’t already. But I see baseball as a metaphor for agenting. First, there’s the pitch. You know as you’re on the phone describing a book to an editor if you’ve hit the sweet spot, or if they’re just going along, yeah, yeah, send the motherfucker, they seem to be saying through a thinly veiled lack of enthusiasm. Then, once the book is out, a number of things can happen. You can get on first base with a modest offer, you can get a double or a triple with some decent money, or, happy day, you can have a grand slam when you hit it out of the ballpark. And, of course, you can strike out, return the dug out head hung in shame.
Idiotic? Sure. But baseball’s also about hope, about chances and stepping up to the plate, it’s about the beautiful arc of a ball and the ringing crack of a bat. It’s about grown men in uniforms and caps. Uniforms and caps! And the grace of an athlete moving through air. It’s about the loud mouth of a collective New York. And last night, the full moon over the stadium, the lights in distant buildings twinkling like stars, my two best friends, and a hot dog.
Filed under: Agent |
Betsy Lerner 
The scene you’ve just set is what I love most about baseball: the sights, smells, sounds, tastes. A sensuous feast.
Can’t cheer for your Yankees though.
Dodger dogs for me and mine and kleg lights blasting through palms.
I love this analogy, even though I’m no sports fan. I do like to read about athletes and behind-the scenes stories of any sport. I just watched Jerry Maguire for the first time a couple of nights ago, and was surprised by how deep and caring (for a Hollywood movie) the agent-client relationship could be.
Or maybe Hollywood made it seem more caring than it actually is? Anyhow, when I was a teenager, I briefly had a talent agent who was trying to make me “the next Brooke Shields.” My BS meter caught on to him after a few disappointments, and I ditched him.
Beautiful! The memory, thought, segue into beautiful opening shot.
Ah, just heard that glorious sharp crack. You hit it into the stands! Thanks. This is lovely.
Isn’t it one word, motherfucker?
Fuck, yes. Thank you.
I HOPE this is not THE LAST DECADE of your life…
I also agree that motherfucker is one word.
I’m a fan of hyphenation (mother-fucker) for everyday usage, reserving the all-one-word spelling to convey rapidity of speech: “Lookathatmotherfuckergo!”
… and I thought I was a pedantic motherfucker …