were taking, which included meeting with Sandus

In December, espnWs weekly essay series will focus on family.In college, when I began dating the man who would become my husband, he told me that his family loved baseball.Okay, I said, treating the news as if hed said they all liked the color blue -- a fine distinguishing characteristic, but nothing that had anything to do with me.No, you dont understand. My brother plays baseball in college, he insisted. I spent my whole life going to baseball games and tournaments.I nodded.Growing up, my father was the only one who liked sports, hed rush us home from church on Sunday so he didnt miss his religious programming. A Dallas Cowboys game.?The importance of my sports knowledge didnt sink in until my then-boyfriends father, Gary, started greeting me at the door on my visits to their house with a baseball trivia question.You cant come in until you tell me what number Kirby Puckett was.Ill answer your question when you can name five Faulkner novels, Id say and duck under his arm.To understand us, you have to understand baseball, Dave once told me over a dinner of burgers at our favorite diner. I shrugged.Whats to understand?The second year we were dating, I started my senior year of college. One of the classes I signed up for was on Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner. I loved Faulkner, whose wild characters and dense prose often made me laugh out loud. But I cared nothing for Hemingway. I hated his female characters and the cold feel of his short sentences. But I couldnt take a class on one without the other, so I signed up.We began that semester with Hemingways short stories, starting with the collection The Snows of Kilimanjaro and then moving onto?In Our Time. I was surprised at how often sports were on the periphery of his writing -- the depressed prize fighter in The Killers, the match fixing in Fifty Grand and hunting in The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.It was something Id never noticed before, how consumed with physical action his characters were, how sport gave them an identity, whether real or imagined, that could in turn devastate and define who they were.I told Gary I was reading Hemingway.Oh, hes my favorite author, he said on one of my visits. I was shocked. I didnt think he read anything besides books on management and Mickey Mantle biographies. He told me his favorite book was Old Man and the Sea, and I rolled my eyes.Hey, I guess Im not an English major, he said, so I cant tell you why I like it, just that I think it means something to me. He smiled, but I could tell he meant it. When I picked up In Our Time, I decided just to read it like Gary would, without prejudice.The Three-Day Blow is everything I hate in a story -- boys going into the woods to talk about women and get drunk. But when I read it that fall, I was 21 and in love with a boy who loved baseball. Reading the story again, I saw baseball in a way Id never seen it before. Upset over a breakup, Nick Adams, a character who became an alter-ego for Hemingway, goes to a cabin with his friend Bill. They get drunk on whiskey and talk about women, but that topic contains mystery and heartbreak. So, they talk baseball. Alternating between love and disillusionment for the sport, their words become metaphors for the other things they cant bring themselves to say. When Nick declares ...baseball is a game for louts he might as well be saying love is a game for louts.Baseball is more than a metaphor in this story. It is a thing wholly and completely on its own, a series of events, small stories, with characters and plot, which give the two boys a common language and experience.When all else failed, baseball was a way to be part of something together -- some way to touch and connect with something great, to believe that whatever else fails, here is a thing that mattered, a place where winning was possible, and hope always prevailed. After all, win or lose, the only guarantee is that there will be more games and another season, another chance.That same semester, during Thanksgiving break, as I began to write my final paper for the class on baseball, Hemingway and love, Dave asked me to marry him under the stars while we danced as Carole Kings Far Away played from the CD player on his Mazda. We went back to his parents house and told them.After hugging me, Gary and my soon-to-be brother-in-law took me to the basement to watch the Twins 1991 World Series video. I laughed, but I watched the whole thing, listening to their analysis and finally memorizing Kirby Pucketts number, 34.Lyz Lenzs writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Marie Claire, Pacific Standard, Buzzfeed and the LA Review of Books. She lives in Iowa, but you can find her on Twitter @lyzl Wholesale Jerseys USA . Darren Helm scored on Detroits sixth attempt in the shootout and then Jonas Gustavsson stopped Andrew Shaws shot, lifting the Detroit Red Wings to a 5-4 win over the Chicago Blackhawks on Wednesday night. NFL Jerseys Cheap . LeBron James and Chris Bosh didnt need any more. Williams scored 11 points in 10 minutes, Alan Anderson scored 17 points, and the Brooklyn Nets finished the exhibition season with a 108-87 win over the Miami Heat on Friday night. http://www.wholesalejerseysnflusa.com/ . -- Quarterback Will Finch threw for 252 yards and three touchdowns, and Yannick Harou rushed in two scores as the No. Cheap NFL Jerseys USA . 1, meaning problems for the doping controls at both major international sports events next year. The World Anti-Doping Agency provisionally suspended the Moscow Antidoping Center on Sunday, saying its operations must improve or a six-month ban on the facilitys accreditation will be imposed. Cheap MLB Jerseys Authentic . -- Devin Hester is done returning kicks in Chicago. BELLEFONTE, Pa. -- Lawyers for a former Penn State assistant football coach urged a judge and jurors Thursday to find the university liable for how it treated him after it became public that his testimony helped prosecutors charge Jerry Sandusky with child molestation.Mike McQueary is seeking more than $4 million in lost wages and other damages, saying he was defamed by a statement the school president released the day Sandusky was charged, retaliated against for helping with the Sandusky investigation and misled by school administrators.Sandusky, a former defensive coach at Penn State, was convicted in 2012 of sexual abuse of 10 boys and is serving a 30- to 60-year prison sentence. He maintains his innocence.In closing arguments Thursday, Penn State attorney Nancy Conrad emphasized that McQueary had said he was damaged by public criticism that he did not to go to police or child-welfare authorities when he saw Sandusky sexually abusing a boy in a team shower in 2001. Instead he reported it the next day to then-head coach Joe Paterno.Mr. McQueary was not damaged by any action of the university, Conrad argued. Mr. McQueary, as he testified and as he recognized, if he was harmed, was harmed by national media and public opinion.McQueary testified he has not been able to find work, either in coaching or elsewhere, but Conrad blamed that on an inadequate network of contacts and the lack of a national reputation.The jury was handed the case Thursday afternoon and left the courtroom.Judge Thomas Gavin will decide the whistleblower count, a claim that McQueary was treated unfairly as the school suspended him from coaching duties, placed him on paid administrative leave, barred him from team facilities and then did not renew his contract shortly after he testified at Sanduskys 2012 trial.McQueary was not allowed to coach in the schools first game after Paterno was fired, a home loss to Nebraska.That sends a very clear signal to those in your network that thhe university doesnt want you to be supported, Strokoff said.dddddddddddd`Stay away, youre a nonperson.Penn State has argued it put McQueary on leave out of safety concerns, as threats were fielded by the university.Strokoff said there was no evidence of multiple death threats against his client, and called McQuearys treatment outrageous.He should not have been the scapegoat, Strokoff said.Jurors will decide the defamation claim and a misrepresentation allegation that two administrators lied to him when they said they took his report of Sandusky seriously and would respond appropriately.Conrad insisted they did take steps to inform McQueary about the actions they were taking, which included meeting with Sandusky and an official from the childrens welfare charity he founded, and telling Sandusky to stop bringing children into team facilities.No one told Mr. McQueary, `You cannot go to the police, Conrad said.The defamation claim involves a statement issued by Penn State then-president Graham Spanier expressing support for the two administrators, then-athletic director Tim Curley and then-vice president Gary Schultz, when they were charged with perjury in November 2011 for allegedly lying about what McQueary told them in the weeks after the 2001 incident.The perjury charges against them were dismissed earlier this year by a state appeals court, but Curley, Schultz and Spanier still await trial in Harrisburg on charges of failure to properly report suspected child abuse and endangering the welfare of children.McQueary lawyer Elliot Strokoff said Spaniers statement could have led people to conclude McQueary was a liar.If the charges are groundless, then the grad assistant lied, Strokoff said. And thats defamation.Conrad said Spaniers statement indicated the charges against his two top lieutenants would be proven groundless. ' ' '