Tuesday, November 16, 2010

There's No Crying in Baseball!

I'm allergic to tears.  I don't mean metaphorically, as in hating to be around people who cry.  I mean tears make my eyes swell up to many times their normal size so that I can't even see.  I've tried cucumber slices, Witch Hazel, ice packs - nothing helps.  So naturally I try to avoid crying.  The problem is, I inherited from my tender-hearted father a tendency to tear up at the slightest provocation.  I'm the joke of the family.  My sister claims I cry at supermarket openings.  I cry when I give a talk in church.  I cry when I teach Sunday School.  Last week on Veteran's Day I was telling a class of third graders about how my uncle died in World War II a few weeks after I was born, and that my mother was so overcome with grief she couldn't take care of me.  Of course I started crying.  A little girl raised her hand and asked me "Are you all right?"

In the movie "A League of Their Own," Tom Hanks plays an aging, boozing manager/coach of a woman's major league baseball team.   When one of his players breaks into tears, his reaction is:  "Are you crying?  Are you crying?  There's no crying in baseball!"  I love that line!  I wonder how I could apply it in other contexts:

"There's no crying in real estate!"
"There's no crying in the supermarket!"
"There's no crying in yoga!"
"There's no crying in algebra!" 

It could work.

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