My summer in the Clubhouse

It almost never fails.

I would say that about 90 percent of the time I tell people what I did last summer, they ask me a variation of the same question – Do you get to see them naked? Who has the cutest butt? Did you date any of them?

As a female covering professional athletes, apparently most people think the only reason I’m there is to ogle, date and eventually marry one of the players. I mean really, I couldn’t actually be serious about doing this as a career. But I am. So when I get asked these questions I usually tell people the same thing – yes, they’re usually naked when they come out of the shower, I try not to look at their butts and why would I want to date any of them.

To be fair, I was warned when I applied for the internship with MLB.com that covering the White Sox was probably not going to be a walk in the park. However, I’m one of the most stubborn people I know and once I got the idea in my head that I wanted this job, I wasn’t going to give it up.

So, over Spring Break last year I went to a couple days of the White Sox Spring Training in Tucson. I was really looking forward to it. I would get to meet Scott Merkin, the MLB.com beat writer who I would be working with all summer. I would also get to meet the team – the baseball team that I’ve been watching since I was born, cheering for at games and basically obsessing over (especially in the previous season when they had won the World Series). I met Scott before one of the games and we went into the locker room so he could show me around and introduce me to the other beat writers and the team. I walk into the locker room (if my life had a soundtrack, this is where heralding trumpets would play) and the first thing that happens is Brian Anderson, a rookie center fielder, walks past me, looks at me and says, “They’re letting girls in here now? Great…”

That’s when I realized that this endeavor was going to take some extra effort.

Most things in my life have come pretty easily to me. I grew up in an upper-middle-class Chicago suburb, where my parents provided just about anything I could ask for. I was always driven academically. I had great friends. I was accepted to Mizzou. Thankfully, I didn’t have to work too hard to get any of these things. But I could tell that this baseball thing was not going to just follow in that pattern.

I wasn’t the only girl in the locker room last summer – but the other did not help my case. She was a producer for one of the local sports talk radio stations and paraded around the locker room in the smallest, tightest outfits possible (she worked for a radio station called “The Score” and aptly her nickname around the locker room rhymed with score).

I felt that I had to work harder, do more research, ask better questions and write better stories than anyone else – because I had something more to prove. While it was exhausting, I felt like that extra work I put in was completely worth it. I had a good relationship with everyone on the team and the other beat writers. Aside from journalism and experience, one of my goals was to be treated like one of the boys – and I think I really accomplished that. The players felt comfortable joking with me along with the other beat writers. I knew I had won over manager Ozzie Guillen (known for his fiery mouth) when I asked him what he said to an umpire that got him thrown out of the game and he told me the incredibly vulgar story without hesitation – something he had been reluctant to do at the beginning of the season.

While I accomplished what I wanted to journalistically, (high clip count and an invitation back for next summer) I was just as happy with what I accomplished personally.

As for those questions that I get asked, a lady never tells.