>> This past weekend, the Red Sox were in Kansas City, and so I was wearing some Sox gear while out on the town on Friday night. I ended up running into not one, but TWO girls in their mid-twenties who were extremely knowledgable Sox fans; it was incredibly bizarre.
Girl 1 was probably the most knowledgable female baseball fan I've ever talked to in my life. There wasn't a single topic I threw at her that was over her head- we discussed everything from "Jonathan Papelbon's reluctance to throw his split-finger in big spots is ruining his effectiveness as a closer" to "Mike Lowell left more years and more money on the table when he re-signed with Boston in 2007, and the Sox have done nothing but try and get rid of him since." It was an eye-opening 20 minutes, I'll say that much. Unfortunately, I had to cut the convo short, since I was supposed to be playing wingman, and this girl looked like Charlyne Yi, only with a liiiiiittle bit of an acne problem. (Before the girls jump all over me for being a dick, please understand that as a wingman, you have to respect the wishes of your pilot, and my pilot wasn't interested in being introduced to the girl who played Martin Starr's stoner girlfriend in Knocked Up. Personally, I would've sat there all night chitchatting with the Asian female version of Peter Gammons, but Maverick was telling me we were going to another bar, and Goose had to listen.)
Girl 2 was born and raised in Connecticut, so she knew a lot about the history of the Sox, and could hold a pretty decent baseball conversation, though not nearly as well as Girl 1. Plus, every few minutes, she would remind me that she was, in fact, a 25-year-old girl, and not some grizzled 57-year-old with season tickets at Fenway. On one hand, she was smart enough that I was comfortable enough in telling her that "Marco Scutaro only signed a 2-year contract because he's just holding down the fort, and remember the name Jose Iglesias, he's gonna be the starting shortstop within the next few years" and I still had confidence that she would know what I was talking about. On the other hand, her response was to squeal "Oooooooh! That won't be hard, it's just like Enrique Iglesias!" So it was an interesting dichotomy. However you look at it, it was a weird night, meeting two diehard female Red Sox fans in Lawrence, Kansas within three hours of each other.
>> The latest song in my life that has crawled into my brain and won't leave until I listen to it on repeat for at least 20-30 minutes per day for a week: 'Warm Heart of Africa' by The Very Best, also featuring my boy Ezra Koenig from Vampire Weekend (and that is the first and probably last time you'll hear me use the words 'my boy' when describing someone who hasn't worn a pair of non-skinny jeans in his life.) Just a fantastic song. Since I indirectly discovered the song from the show Community (did you know that the black guy from that show, Donald Glover, takes indie pop songs and raps over them on the internet? Me neither) it immediately becomes the second-best thing from that show to positively influence my life.
Number one being Alison Brie, obviously. Holler.
