At the Margins of the Minors
73
exhibits certain qualities that a baseball player finds attractive, offering a
baseball player: “Loyalty. Friendship. Love. I’d be the best girlfriend or wife a
ball player could imagine. I guess I would just offer him my entire self.” In such
a relationship, good girls expect reciprocal love, even if they do not expect other
aspects of relationships to be as balanced, especially in traditional gendered
terms. Roxanne states:
I will always work if I need to. You know, I don’t expect a
man to take care of me financially. I’m an awesome cook. I
keep a smart apartment. I am not socially retarded. . . I mean,
a man would be able to take me anywhere. I think I’m pretty
and have a great body, too, so he should appreciate that.
[Pause] I think I have a lot to offer.
When asked what she would expect in return for her generosity, she replies,
“His lifestyle. His world. To be a part of him. Life under the stadium lights. I’d
love that.”
Even though they enter into such exchange relationships with athletes
with the understanding that their aspirations of love and marriage may not be
achieved, the Coyotes’ good girls nevertheless express disappointment at failed
relationships with players. Maria describes her experience with a baseball player
as:
Just another failed relationship, you know. He just made me
feel so bad about it, though. You know, when he was getting
what he wanted everything was, like, cool and we’d go out
sometimes and have fun. But, then, after awhile, he’d call me
real late at night, like after I was in bed already, and he’d want
to come over and sleep with me. Well, not to sleep. He came
over for sex . . . was great in bed and I liked the company, but
then he’d start to come over drunk and after a couple of times
like that, you know, that’s when I decided that I was just being
used and told him “no more” then he started calling me a slut
and a whore. . . He liked what he was getting, but when he
wasn’t getting it anymore, it was, like, all my fault and I was,
like, this bad person all along . . . I guess I should have known
better than to get involved that time of the year. . . Some of
the girls say that’s when the guys want a “winter wife” if he’s
not married, of course. You know, someone to be with when
the pressure’s low and there’s not a whole lot going on.
[Laughs] They say a “winter wife” can be just about anybody
with a pussy because she’s not real visible. They don’t need a
trophy in the off-season. I guess I should have known better
than to hook up with him that late in the year, but I really
thought he was sincere. Man, was I stupid!