Dickey's Memoir

[Guest attgig]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Again, great numbers overall and super guy but received an awful lot of oral while getting off to a 1-5 start last year that practically buried us. http://www.cranepoolforum.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=15884

I think in the end, wherever the mets wind up, people still appreciate truth, authenticity and a perfect knuckleball.

[Vic Sage]

Again, great numbers overall and super guy but received an awful lot of oral while getting off to a 1-5 start last year that practically buried us. http://www.cranepoolforum.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=15884

yeah, Bucket, except your first STFU was posted on 4/14 when Dickey was 1-2 (1 excellent start, 1 mediocre-bad start, 1 terrible start) which indicates some latent hostility not derived from a 1-5 start that hadn't yet occurred at that point.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Vic Sage wrote: Again, great numbers overall and super guy but received an awful lot of oral while getting off to a 1-5 start last year that practically buried us. viewtopic.php?f=1&t=15884 yeah, Bucket, except your first STFU was posted on 4/14 when Dickey was 1-2 (1 excellent start, 1 mediocre-bad start, 1 terrible start) which indicates some latent hostility not derived from a 1-5 start that hadn't yet occurred at that point.

Oh STFU

[Edgy MD]

I wonder if striking a modest handful of gold in the Dickey signing wasn't such a wonderful turn of good fortune amidst so much bad that some can't bring ourselves to trust it to any more than a begrudging degree, and so hold onto our <3's ever more tightly, lest the gold suddenly reveal itself to be the fool's variety most turns out to be.

[metirish]

Edgy DC wrote: I wonder if striking a modest handful of gold in the Dickey signing wasn't such a wonderful turn of good fortune amidst so much bad that some can't bring ourselves to trust it to any more than a begrudging degree, and so hold onto our <3's ever more tightly, lest the gold suddenly reveal itself to be the fool's variety most turns out to be.

Justified!

[Vic Sage]

Oh STFU

well said.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Thanks. Also, it's been proven the stepped up aggressiveness of the STFU Dickey campaign caused him to start pitching better.

[Ceetar]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Thanks. Also, it's been proven the stepped up aggressiveness of the STFU Dickey campaign caused him to start pitching better.

Then you've really dropped the ball on the STFU Bay campaign.

[Vic Sage]

yeah, really. wtf?

[Ceetar]

some powerful stuff here, an excerpt: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/baseball/mlb/03/26/dickey.excerpt/index.html

[metirish]

Not sure this is powerful as kind of funny and not in a ha ha way.

In the bathroom one day before a game, I turn to get a towel after washing my hands and notice something underneath one of the stall partitions. I take a step closer. It is a syringe. The sight of it makes me cringe, the shiny thin needle lying randomly on the tile floor. My mind races with thoughts about how and why it got there. I know as much about needles as I do about jewelry, but I'm pretty sure this isn't a sewing needle.

it reads like a bad novel.

[Edgy MD]

Rangers 2001. I imagine the clubhouse was littered with 'em.

[G-Fafif]

metirish wrote: it reads like a bad novel.

Man, I hope they asked JCL to blurb the back cover.

[Vic Sage]

the guy reveals being sexually abused as a child and you guys are criticizing the writing style?
really?

[metirish]

Vic Sage wrote: the guy reveals being sexually abused as a child and you guys are criticizing the writing style? really?

I didn't read that, shit......

[Edgy MD]

The babysitter has her way with me four or five more times that summer, and into the fall, and each time feels more wicked than the time before. Every time that I know I'm going back over there, the sweat starts to come back. I sit in the front seat of the car, next to my mother, anxiety surging. I never tell her why I am so afraid. I never tell anyone until I am 31 years old.

[G-Fafif]

It's a chilling incident yet all I keep seeing as he describes it is an eight-year-old body with R.A. Dickey's adult head, beard and all.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

G-Fafif wrote: It's a chilling incident yet all I keep seeing as he describes it is an eight-year-old body with R.A. Dickey's adult head, beard and all.

[Fighting hard not to laugh]

[Losing fight]

[Farmer Ted]

It might be the finest piece of nonfiction baseball writing since Ball Four. Perhaps above all, it's a classic epic quest, a flawed hero's unlikely odyssey to the major leagues and to discovering the mystical pitch that helped him get there. "You know what it is to me?" asks Dickey. "A vision I saw to fulfillment."

[Edgy MD]

Contemplated suicide as recently as 2006.

[ashie62]

Thats a conversation stopper.

[Edgy MD]

Farmer Ted wrote: It might be the finest piece of nonfiction baseball writing since Ball Four. Perhaps above all, it's a classic epic quest, a flawed hero's unlikely odyssey to the major leagues and to discovering the mystical pitch that helped him get there. "You know what it is to me?" asks Dickey. "A vision I saw to fulfillment."

You're a fast reader.

[Farmer Ted]

No, a fast poster who forgot to give attribution. Me, epic failure. Must climb Kilimanjaro for forgiveness.

[G-Fafif]

From Mike Kerwick's notes column in the Record:

Collins on R.A. Dickey�s new book: "I didn�t know there was a book. I can�t worry about books at the moment."

Terry a little uptight as Opening Day nears? Or is he miffed that R.A. had this to say about Game 162 of 2011?

On Terry Collins�s decision to pull Jose Reyes from the lineup after his first at-bat in his last game as a Met in an attempt to preserve his lead in the National League batting race: �The whole thing was very unfortunate, and to my mind, could�ve been handled better by everybody. At the very least, I would�ve loved to have seen Jose go out to short for the top of the second. � It would�ve been a more fitting departure for a player who truly leaves it all out on the field.�

More excerpts here.

[ashie62]

Interesting stuff for sure.

I find it hard to read. The syntax and phrasing of the writing are awkward. This book needed someone to edit it properly.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Nice article by Andy Martino. (Is he "Tracksuit"? I can never remember...)

Tale is man-made for NY Mets' R.A. Dickey, goes against conventions of macho sports world for his own sake Knuckle-baller breaks the mold in memoir NEW YORK DAILY NEWS R.A. Dickey's memoir, scheduled to hit bookstores Thursday, reveals that he was abused as an 8-year-old and contemplated suicide as recently as 2006. PORT ST. LUCIE � Sports offers many definitions of manhood, most of which are warped and backward. A man plays through pain, even if that is an unhealthy choice. A man does whatever it takes to be bigger and stronger, even if it means shooting steroids. A man treats women as conquests, even if he is married. And a man does not stand apart from the crowd, or say anything controversial, unless he is a winner on the field. �Why is R.A Dickey writing a memoir?� a friend of mine in baseball, a good person who slipped into that old mentality, asked this week. �What does he have, 40 wins?� Yes, R.A. Dickey is 41-50 in his career, and for years wallowed in the minor leagues. With his knuckleball refined, he is now a valuable member of the Mets rotation, but he is not an All-Star. Since arriving in New York, with an ambitious vocabulary and Phish-fan hair, he has hardly acted the part of traditional macho athlete, a persona that has triggered the occasional eye roll from old-school members of the Mets family (although he is highly respected by most teammates, who see his on-field toughness). But if we could break free of the sports-world mold and imagine a more complete definition of manhood, it would look like what I saw in the Mets clubhouse on Tuesday afternoon: Dickey, his voice quiet but firm as he labored to stifle emotion, discussing being sexually abused as an 8-year-old, as revealed in his memoir, �Wherever I Wind Up,� written with the Daily News� Wayne Coffey, and published on Thursday by Penguin/Blue Rider. There he was, flanked by sportswriters in a locker room he shared with professional athletes � and all the buttoned-up attitudes they often display � ripping open the rawest, most infected wound of his life. Addressing people who usually ask him about pitch selection and muscle strains, he answered questions about child molestation, and its impact on his life and marriage. He spoke about his inability until recently to tell his wife, Anne, about his life-defining trauma. He spoke about the suicidal thoughts that arose after he cheated on Anne, and felt like a hypocrite posing as a Christian. This is not to praise everything about Dickey; when he said about the memoir that �the only person I throw under the bus is me,� he meant it. In �Wherever I Wind Up,� we meet a surly husband, an adulterer and a young man unable to face the deepest parts of himself. For most of the book, the reader might not love this character called �R.A. Dickey.� But it is in his willingness to be self-aware, ultimately confronting his flaws and embracing the need to treat himself and others with sensitivity, that the character is redeemed. And then, after reconnecting with Anne and processing the abuse he suffered, Dickey took the most courageous step: He shared with the world what he could not tell his family just a few years ago, and stood in the clubhouse � the epicenter of old-fashioned manly repression � and did it again. The often-cruel Internet lit up with appreciation. On comment boards and on Twitter, victims of sexual abuse thanked Dickey for sharing his story, and emphasized how his decision would help eradicate a taboo that ruins lives. With his openness, sensitivity, and above all, willingness to be publicly vulnerable, Dickey failed to live up to the traditional ideas of manhood often promoted in sports. In doing so, he became the type of man who has a chance to be healthy, happy and a true model for us and our sons.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

The excerpt in the Snooze today relates a separate incident of sex abuse, not a babysitter but an older male kid. I don't know if that got out yet.

[soupcan]

Someone said to me this morning that they have a hard time finding sympathy for an 8-yr. old boy getting sexually 'abused' by a 13 year-old girl.

As callous as that sounds, I think we all know what he meant and unfortunately though, that's probably going to be the reaction from a lot of muy macho types in response to Dickey's story.

Two things about that:

- I think the vast, vast majority of 8 year-old boys would be incredibly uncomfortable in that situation and if you come across someone who says that they wouldn't have, then I'd say to them that they have a very unrealistic memory of their own psyche at that age.

- If you still can't make them understand, ask them what their response would be if it were their own 8 year-old son that was the victim.

[Edgy MD]

"Muy macho types" should just read the book.

[Benjamin Grimm]

That would involve reading a book.