Well-worth Reading

I want to have another Trump-free morning.  And this fits the bill as effectively as anything.  In fact, it's another baseball story -- but please don't run from it.  It's a total joy.  And not what you might otherwise think from that description.

This is an article by Daniel Brown, a sportswriter in Northern California for the Bay Area Mercury News, writing about his biggest competition at another local paper, Susan Slusser, who's the beat sportswriter for the San Francisco Chronicle.  And she's a formidable competitor at that -- accomplished, driven, tough, and yet so admired that in 2012, in this male-dominated field, she became the first woman to be elected president of the Baseball Writers Association of American.

One other thing:  the two are married.

This is a hilarious, endearing, wonderful, interesting, fun, loving and gracious article.  It's titled, "Help! I married my dreaded baseball rival (a love story)."

He writes openly and happily about being regularly scooped by his wife, and shamelessly using her name to develop a rapport with athletes who he knows adore her for her "fairness, accuracy, accountability, comic timing and ferocious work ethic."  Among several examples, for instance, he writes, "If I drop her name, players bounce up. I once approached Jose Guillen at his locker and told him I was married to Susan Slusser. He sprang out of his chair to hug me."

There's even a very funny story about the one time he lucked out into scooping his wife.  That's a rarity, however, since most of the article is filled with other tales, like the even more amusing story about the rumor of the trade with Stephen Piscotty.

(Personal digression.  I love talking about Stephen Piscotty.  But not for the reason you think.  He used to play for the hated St. Louis Cardinals, the favorite team of the inveterate Chris Dunn.  We'd talk about Piscotty often whenever the Cubs would play their despicable rivals, and I finally explained one day why I always liked bringing Piscotty up.  It's because his name reminds me of a five-year-old kid trying to say, "spaghetti.")

It's just a terrific article.  Do yourself a favor and don't avoid it just because you may not like sports, or baseball.  You can read it here.