Conference on the Mound: A Word from the Coach

Once in a while, even when a pitcher is throwing pretty well overall, the manager has to trek out to the mound and do a little talking. Sometimes a voice from outside the playing field helps make sense inside the lines. That’s the deal with today’s blog post: Sue is not doing the writing today. As her husband and long-time fan, I am here to give her a quick break and to make a few critical points about baseball…and sex. Just consider this a conference on the mound, so to speak.

At the close of Sue’s legal proceedings, a reporter outside the courtroom asked me why I stay with her. I thought it was a stupid question and I told him so. You won’t read or see that exchange anywhere. But that question was a changeup: it looked like one thing, but was really something else entirely. What he really wanted to know is how I could stay married to someone who was as openly and overtly sexual as Sue. And hidden inside even that question is something a few people have asked me privately: what is it really like? The most baseball-friendly answer is this: life, and sex, with Sue is best understood as a big inning.

You know what I mean by a big inning. One hit is followed by another hit. Maybe a home run or two. Everything we do produces a run and the runs just keep coming, no matter what we do. The bat never breaks. Before we know it, Sue and I have batted around and we are starting over again. It’s one of the most satisfying and rewarding situations in baseball or sex. Everything we do produces the (ahem) “desired result.” So, what are we talking about? Exactly how many “runs” does one of Sue’s big innings produce?

Getting across the plate seven or eight times is the minimum in one of our innings. Most often we light it up 10 times or more. Sometimes 20. Sometimes we have three or four big innings in a weekend series. It’s not unheard of for us to rack up over a hundred in a weekend. And that is not an exaggeration. Here’s a blunt comparison. The average woman experiences about one orgasm per month, 12 in any given year. Being generous, a lifetime’s worth of successful conjugal experiences, for the average woman, amounts to 500 orgasms. Sue, on the other hand, probably hits one out of the park about 200 times a month. Maybe more. Just since she started her blog, she’s had more sexual success than most women have in their entire lives.

You see, when a player is as productive as Sue, every inning is a big inning. Success is contagious: everyone ends up feeling great. You do not put someone like Sue on the bench. Just because someone is a bit unorthodox, you do not sideline them. When someone is batting 1.000, you do not mess with their swing. You have to ride a hot hand, and Susan has been smoking for 17 years. Am I getting through to you here?

So when I walk away from the mound, I am a pretty confident guy. (Bragging just a bit.) I know I have the absolute best player in the history of the game, the real Crisco Russell (see her blog entry "The Phillies Kidnapped Me in 1980" if you're puzzled by that). And I know that when she finishes the game, she’ll be heading into the home locker room. And I can’t wait for the next big inning.