My 10-year-old XY TD can’t wait to see Pitch. He wants to watch it because it’s something that’s never been done before, a woman pitching in MLB.1 He doesn’t see a girl. He sees himself. In her. The underdog2,3 misunderstood, not wanted or liked, basically alone with too few allies, too different to have as smooth a ride through malehood as his peers.
- Or, as Dude pointed out to me last night because we’re both kind of fascinated with XY’s reaction to the series (whereas 13-year-old XX is so not) (she already knows she’s a badass), a 17-year-old girl struck out both Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in an exhibition game and a woman hasn’t been in the MLB since. ↩
- “A girl will never be able to throw hard enough to compete with boys. It’s biology and we can’t change that.” My dad told me a girl would never be able to throw a curve ball because their elbows are constructed differently from a boy’s. I don’t know if that’s true. I’m not interested enough to find out. But I was kind of shocked to hear it from someone else. ↩
- I introduced him to Rocky last year. He’s now a devoted disciple of underdog movies. He gets it from his mom. ↩
that compels people to reflect and grants epiphanies like a fairy godmother?