R. Eric Thomas - Take Me Out of the Ball Game

 

Tonight's theme is high anxiety. I was very excited when they asked me to host the show, because I have nothing but anxiety stories. [audience laughter] I'm skipping therapy to be here. [audience laughter] So, we have a lot to talk about. [audience laughter] I'm just kidding. But I do want to share just this one couple minute long story about a time. I guess probably about 10 years ago now. No. Yeah, 10 years ago. I'm almost 30 at that point. [audience laughter] I know you can't tell. It don't crack, [audience laughter] but— [audience cheers and applause]

 

So, at this point, I'm almost 30. As you are want to do as you get to your late 20s, you start to take stock of where you are in life, where I wasn't a great place, but I was starting to feel more confident about who I was and I was starting to ask for what I wanted more.

 

've always been the kind of person, even when I was little, even when I was a little kid where when I would walk down the street, some people would just turn to me, point at me and say, “Gay,” which is a strange thing when you're seven years old and you're like, “I don't know what that word means. But does it mean they like my shorter rolls, because--" [audience laughter] Okay. By the time I got to 28 when this story takes place, I was a little tired of it, because I like recognition. Don't get me wrong. But I was like, “I don't feel like I should be accepting this in the spirit that it's intended. This isn't an insult in my opinion, but people were intending it as an insult.” 

 

I said to myself, how do I become the person who is not always pointed at and yell and people yell gay at him? I decided it was a problem with my masculinity. I just wasn't masculine enough. I had to be more covert about being gay. I could be gay, but just not like gay, [audience laughter] whatever that means. As I said, I was not quite where I needed to be yet as a person, but I was getting there. So, I decided to do. I was like, “Well, what would a masculine person do? What would the Rock do? What would Vin Diesel do?” [audience laughter] I decided to do the most masculine thing I could think of. I signed up to join the gay softball league in Philadelphia. [audience laughter] I was like, “This seems great.”

 

I was looking for wrestling, but they didn't have it. [audience laughter] I was like, “Oh, yeah, I'm going to be so masculine. I'm going to go play this game.” And then, I was like, “I don't know how to play softball.” [audience laughter] So, I Wikipedia-ed it. [audience laughter] I found out two things that you throw underhand and that the balls are bigger. That's what he said. [audience laughter] I was like, “Well, we're all set.” I have to say I was a little nervous about this whole thing. It didn't seem like a great plan, but I didn't have a lot of options. 

 

My roommate was a really big sports fan. He was also a gay guy, but he was very muscular and he would scream through the house when the Phillies won. And I was like, “Okay. Well, he's a part of the softball league and he seems to be well adjusted. So, the only difference between me and him are pecs and the softball league.” [audience laughter] So, I chose the latter. And so, I joined, I get assigned to this team. They have a little uniform shirt and you could wear baseball pants or whatever. But I brought these really cute shorts from American Apparel. They were like super adorable, [audience laughter] because my legs are really great. [audience laughter] 

 

I showed up to the team. They were very welcoming and they were very nice to me and they're like-- We did some drills to test everybody's skills. And they're like, “We're going to put you in far-right field.” [audience laughter] “But if you really put your back into it and you work hard, you can advance to other positions.” And I was like, “Oh, I don't care about this at all. [audience laughter] Far right field seems a okay to me, Queens.” [audience laughter] I was like, “If I'm on the team, that's masculinity. It's like bab bidi bobbidi boo, you know, or bibbidi boppity bro, I should say. [audience laughter] I didn't know that I was going to have to participate in this. 

 

I had a secondary objective, which was just to meet a boyfriend. So, I was like, “Well, far right field seems like a great place to just strut around in my little shorts.” [audience laughter] I was very happy out there, because inside, the actual playing area, [audience laughter] they were very serious about softball, [audience laughter] which was offensive to me. [audience laughter] I thought it was going to be a whole bunch of Queens quoting A League of Their Own. [audience laughter] Some of them had never even seen A League of Their Own. [audience laughter] I'm going around, “There's no crying in baseball.” And they're like, “This is softball. Nobody's crying.” And I'm like-- [audience laughter] 

 

I did get to be a little bit concerning as we continued through our season. We didn't have a great record, and I was not helping anybody. When the ball would come my way, I'd be like, “No, thank you.” [audience laughter] I was making plenty of jokes from out there, just yelling into them like, “That's what he said.” But I started to realize, I was like, “Maybe I'm too gay for the gay softball league.” [audience laughter] And I was like, “This isn't what you came here to do. You didn't come here to crack jokes and look really good. You came here to be more masculine.” 

 

And so, the games started to be like-- Whereas before, they had been this source of joy and flippancy and camp, for me, they became this place of huge anxiety. I tried to get better, but I was not practicing [audience laughter] and I don't have any skills. So, I was just bad. Midway through the season, the whole league had to do a skills assessment. If you were given a score and if you got below a 7, you had to go to a skills day. The implication was like, “If you didn't really get it at the skills day, maybe this wasn't your spiritual journey.” [audience laughter] 

 

I was about to be kicked out of the gay softball league. [audience laughter] So, I was like, “I'm going to go to this game or whatever, and I'm going to play or whatever.” So, I watched A League of Their Own, and I was like, “I'm going to [audience laughter] channel Geena Davis. [sings] We're the members of the All American League. We come from cities near and far. [audience laughter] I didn't show up. I got my glove unused, [audience laughter] got my little shorts. They're doing a batting drill or clinic when I get there. There's a woman behind home plate, and she's coaching you through. And so, I'm watching people. They're hitting or not hitting. And then it's my turn and I'm like, “Okay, let's do this. You're the man. You're the man. You can hit this underhanded, large-balled, softball.” 

 

And so, the ball comes to me. It's a good pitch, I guess. I don't know. [audience laughter] I swing hard and I miss hard. I miss so hard that my foot pops up, like when they kiss in the movies. [audience laughter] And the coach, this beautiful soul turns to me and she said, “Okay, that was a fine attempt, but it was a little gay. [audience laughter] Maybe you want to think about butching it up a little bit.” And for all the times that strangers with amazing gaydar have turned to me on the street and yelled gay. It never landed like that. When this lesbian woman turned to me and told me that my swing was too gay, I realized that I was on the inside of something and that she could say it and I could say it. And it didn't have to be an insult that I threw back at myself, because that's what I was doing. 

 

This performance was really just me working off all the nervous energy, all the anxiety that I had about being perceived as not enough, as not masculine enough, as not good enough at this game. If she was gay and I was gay and my swing was gay, we are all gay. [audience laughter] That was the point of this whole thing. And so, all I had to do was hit a damn ball. So, she was like, “Here's what you got to do. You got to stick your butt out and you got to wait a little bit longer before you hit it.” And I was like, “That's what he said.” [audience laughter] Incorrigible. 

 

I did what she said. I cracked fewer jokes. And the pitch came, I swung and I hit it and went sailing out over the field. Please. Thank you. [audience laughter] I hit one ball. Please, I will sign autographs afterwards. [audience laughter] I thought everything was going to change for me after that. I thought I'd be good. I watched Angels In The Outfield and I was like, “Well, you know, the kid knows how to play baseball at the end of the movie. So, that's me, or whatever. I'm the natural. Whatever happens in that movie, I don't know.” [audience laughter] 

 

But the fact of the matter was, I had not come to this game with the right intentions, and I had not come to this game being true about myself or my intentions. And so, when the season was over, I quit the team. The next year, I went back as a cheerleader- [audience laughter] [audience cheers and applause] - and I found a boyfriend. [audience laughter] So, that's all I really needed to do.