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Here's a look at upcoming Longhorn Sporting Event(s):

1. 5/18 9:35 AM University of Texas Women's Golf vs NCAA Championship Stroke Play
2. 5/18 12:00 PM University of Texas Softball vs Northwestern
3. 5/18 1:30 PM University of Texas Men's Tennis vs Wake Forest
4. 5/18 2:30 PM University of Texas Baseball vs Kansas - Senior Day
5. 5/19 University of Texas Rowing vs Big 12 Championship
6. 5/19 University of Texas Women's Golf vs NCAA Championship Stroke Play
7. 5/20 University of Texas Women's Golf vs NCAA Championship Stroke Play

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1. I found 44 drivers licenses when cleaning the shed at my new house
2. Hahaha NTTAWWT
3. Name a greater victory than that
4. A member of Taiwan's parliament stole a bill and ran off with it to prevent it from being passed.
5. TIL a 22-year-old high school JV girls basketball coach in Virginia lost her job after she played in a game by posing as a 13-year-old on the team who was out of town. Upon being reported, the team forfeited the game and the players (both JV & varsity) voted to cancel the rest of their seasons.

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1. /CFB Donates $18,000.00 to Toys For Tots & Children's Hospitals, thanks to the 8th annual Holiday Drive!
2. College Football 25 Reveal Trailer
3. [Brown] Updates straight from EA on features, gamemodes, etc
4. MSU safety Jaden Mangham transfers to UM
5. Arizona State WR Elijhah Badgers transfers to Florida
6. [Dellenger] "As part of the House settlement, P5 schools are responsible for 40% of the $2.77B in damages; 17% for G5; and 2% for other DI schools, sources tell @YahooSports. As previously reported, schools pay 60% & NCAA pays 40% over 10-year settlement, as shown in the obtained document"

/LonghornNation

1. [5/17/2024] Friday's Sports Talk Thread
2. [SERIES THREAD] ⚾ #25 Texas (32-20) vs. Kansas (29-18)
3. Texas Softball 🥎 Mac Morgan throws a complete 7-inning post-season no-hitter and Texas wins 5-0 over Siena!
4. Quinn Ewers: 2025 NFL Draft QB1? Texas Longhorns Football
5. Resale Season Tickets
6. Texas Men’s Tennis Defeats Tennessee 4-2 To Advance To Final Four
7. Xavier Worthy's car was stolen overnight in Kansas City

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I (13 female) have been always been put down by my band teacher Mr. Lorence (26 male) along with many other girls my age. I go to a private middle/high school. I just joined this second semester from my old public school but to say the least the public school was better. Right from the moment I stepped into that band class for the first time I had this weird feeling about him. He would constantly yell at all the kids for the littlest things and when no one was doing anything he would wait on top of his podium for someone to do something. I never put much mind to his odd behavior until one day about two weeks later from when I joined there was this weird kid annoying me beyond belief so I politely asked the teacher to tell him to stop but to my surprise he responded with “idk maybe it’s because you look weird”. I was very shocked by his comment so from that moment on I would defend myself from any snicker he said. A week later I had another lesson and he started arguing with me because I hadn’t given him a paper a day I was absent until he suddenly got off track and said “that shirt is not dress code, it shouldn’t be below your collar bone.” When in reality he was getting distracted by a 12 YEAR OLD. And to be clear I was wearing a shirt just below my collar bone. Also we get checked for dress code every morning by our VERY strict principle and she hadn’t said anything about the shirts I wear then. From then on I had lost all respect I had for him because he would also let the boys snicker at the girls and say out of pocket things and not do anything about it. I would keep arguing with him and sadly enough he argues like a 14 year old girl and have sass all the time. He once gave me detention for resting my head a couple times. He also sent me up to the principals office because I would refuse to play my trombone because the day before I had tore all the inside of my bottom lip from my braces. 2 months later the spring sports were in season so I joined softball and it was a team of just middle school girls I had them told them my thoughts about the band teacher and my friend (14 female) who I won’t name from a different band class had told me he calls her up and says weird things about her body in front of the whole class and he would also hug her when she would walk in and I’m talking about a whole clenched on hug. The next day he started talking about me I front of the whole class talking about how I was going to grow up and be a corn star and/or a instagram model that’s half naked. That was my last straw so I told him “ since you know so much about woman why don’t you have one?” Every one started laughing until my friend said his ex left him to be a nun. I then laughed and said “well maybe that was her only way out”. I looked up at him and he was fuming in rage and I got kicked out of band. After that everyone tells me I was too rude and now I’m having second thoughts. So AITAH?

Top 3 Finalists will be announced May 30 and the winner before the WCWS. Jocelyn Erickson didn't make the 10 top when, in my completely unbiased opinion, she should have. Congrats to Korbe!

I, 37F was involved in a car accident senior year of high school after someone hit me going 56 in a 45 zone when I was driving to my part time job. I overall wasn’t hurt badly, I had just broken my arm and had bruises. I had texted my boyfriend at the time, who was a freshman in college, who was home what had happened and that I was fine. He came to the hospital about 40 minutes later. My mom had called the school and told them about my accident and a few staff members were talking about it in the office, where my friend who I will call b to respect her privacy, was grabbing something for a teacher. She overheard, and went to tell our friends and then left school to come visit me. A teacher gave everyone a free period to make cards or play a game. By the end of the day, everyone had found out and some people had came and visited. Towards dinner, my mom had left to go pick me up dinner and my dad had left to go pick up one of my sisters from a track meet and my other sister up from soccer practice. So it was just me, my boyfriend (now husband), and my friend b. For about 10 minutes we sat around talking, my boyfriend, who I will call M talked about his recent baseball game, b talked about her latest crush, just normal stuff. Until two guys came and started “playing around”.
The Addams family had come out a couple years ago during this and I had dark hair, a “big forehead”, overall I just looked like Wednesday Addams. So the two guys started calling me Wednesday, other rude names, while I lay in a hospital bed. It hurt to move so all I could do was sit there and take it, but sometimes I would say something to make fun of them. It was usually to one guy who played football and had fat fingers. B screamed curse words at them, while M sat there and stared at them. Eventually M stood up and screamed at them both words I probably shouldn’t say here. B left to go get a nurse or security to get the two boys out. That’s when M punched the one who plays football in the face and knocked him over. He then went to the other one and punched him. And went between the two.
My parents, sisters, and friends stood in the door way, while security pushed through them and broke it up. I loved watching this to be honest, they finally got what they deserved. Security escorted the two boys out and let M stay because I had begged. He didn’t even have a bruise on him. I had actually had a crush on M since 7th grade but didn’t get the courage to ask him out until 10th grade. Everyone hugged M, and my dad made him invite his parents over to the hospital to tell them what M had done. Most of my friends, my family, and M sat around across the room eating pizza from my favorite pizza spot, and even though I was hurt, that night was one of my favorite nights I’ve ever had.
M had played baseball all through college, and I played softball once I was better and clear to play. We got married when I was 24 and he was 25. We had a set of identical twins a year later, who are 12, two sons, 10 and 6, and a daughter who is 4. The night he fought for me I will always remember.

I have two reddit accounts, so if these stories are familiar, that's why. Someone commented that one of these sounds like abuse from my Christian parent to me. So I've compiled all most of them here. (Most of them are to do with Christianity, the hypocrisy of Christianity, or the consequences of my choice to leave it.) Please be honest but also recognize that this isn't all the times sometimes these are amazing people and I love these people but for my sake I need to know if it's really that bad.
"I'm rather young. My mom (42F) and my dad (41M) both grew up in the church. My grandfather is the pastor of his own church and my mother was raised by her grandmother who played piano in the church. Growing up I'd say I was the perfect little Christian girl. I liked praying and went to church, I wanted to help the world, and I wanted to be baptized before I even started kindergarten. I remember that vividly. I was sitting in the kitchen in one of our folding chairs because we couldn't afford real ones and I was begging my mom to let me get baptized.
My family and I are African American. The church I went to when I was little was a black church. My mother was the praise dance choreographer so of course I did praise dancing. I'd go to Sunday school, I wore the big puffy dresses, and I knew all the songs. Of course I had the common experience of being assaulted in a sexual manor by someone I went to church with. But we were both the same age and I just knew I was uncomfortable and she just knew that's how people bigger than us touched each other. All that came of me telling my mom and me not having to go to her house anymore. I was always told that I was intelligent and I believed everything I was told without question. Then my sister was born and we moved. At first everything stayed the same. We ended up having to switch churches as the previous one was an hour away from our new home. We found a new church. A church were you can wear your hoodie and jeans like it's a Tuesday. I made friends and played sports and nothing really changed until I was eight. When I was eight there was a girl on my softball team I'll call E. E is Jewish and at the time I thought everyone was Christian. As in Christianity was the default and only option. But my friend E's church wasn't called a church but a synagogue, and she couldn't eat specific foods together. E also talked about BaBat Mitzvah's. When I brought that up to my mom she said my friend was Jewish and that being Jewish is like being Christian but they read from the old testament exclusively but they don't believe in Jesus.
Which a while later caused me to spend all night crying because I put the two and two together of: Believing in resurrection Sunday and that Jesus was gods son is what got us into heaven and I cried worrying one of my closest, sweetest friend and her nice family would go to hell. Then school, which had always been easy, became hard. Which made me feel dumb. Especially since my self worth was put into how smart I was and I wouldn't dare get below an A or high B because I was scared I'd get punished. Like the time I slammed my fingers a metal door on accident and spent the next fifteen minutes in tears and my mom told me if I kept crying she'd take me to the hospital to have them cut off my fingers. Because of moments like that disappointing my parent or having to big of an emotional reaction was not okay and it made me scared and uncomfortable. They knew I was struggling, they were the ones who stayed up till four something in the morning with me trying to explain the concept. But with every minor and major struggle I felt like my worth was slipping away. But the better I did in school the more my outstanding grades became the expectation which resulted in acknowledgement for my academic achievements disappearing. I felt like I was falling apart so I'd spend hours pray and begging god for help. To take the feeling of being worthless away. I developed an eating disorder sometime before ten. Specifically binge eating. My parents would find the trash, not understand that it was more than just "the sin of gluttony" and yell which made me feel threatened and eat more food.
And then I'd pray on my knees on the hard wood outside my room door with nails and splinters in it and hurt myself because not only was I a dumb glutton but I also apparently wasn't good enough for god to save or help. It made me think if he wants a relationship with me so bad why does he ignore me? I'd hold a knife to my wrist when I'd wash dishes to see if I felt him then. I questions if I'd even go to heaven. For all my problems the answer was to pray but the problem was I'm doing that but my prayers aren't being answered. I was having thought of death no twelve year old should have. On my birthday I was like a puppet simply going through the motions. Then I started questioning my sexuality. Not to mention, I'm now cut off from the world because this is all during covid, on the bright side they gave me my door back. Now I'm older and I have questions like. How was Adam able to name all the animals and understand god not wanting him to eat from the tree and their need to stay in the garden, but not comprehend his nakedness? How was Eve able to be tempted and not understand her nakedness? Why did they and apparently god think being naked was wrong? How are we not all messed up from tons of inbreeding and how do animals still exist after the inbreeding the would've occurred after Noah's ark if he only saved one male and female of each species? Why did god want to flood the Earth and purge it of it's evil humans if he was the one who decided free will would be a good idea? Since he is perfect and all knowing their shouldn't have been a moment of let me make something I'll destroy, wait nvm. My parents have changed a lot since I was little and have let me go to therapy. Of course I have a Christian therapist. Which I wouldn't mind if it wasn't for the fact that every time I bring up trauma that's linked to religion or need advice in terms of how to change a bad behavior or over come anxiety the advice is to pray. And at times I feel like I'm in a moment of doubt she feel she should try and pull me back in. But they also said I have to volunteer in the childern ministry at church.
I used to work with children ages three to five. Now I'm in one to three. And it feels like I'm spreading propaganda. They tell me what to say and what the goal is for the kids to believe by the end of the month. After I can't help but feel dirty. I'm at the point in my journey were I don't believe. But I have to keep working in the childern ministry, I have to go to church every Sunday, my parents are both devotional authors with published books. I'm the only one in my family who doesn't believe both extended and intermediate. I just wanna know I'm not crazy. I feel like I'm being brainwashed or something. Like drink the blood and eat the body of Jesus!? It's all too much. And now that my parents know they're trying to make me go back to believing. And I listen to them talk and it's like I can't have a conversations with you. You put your faith above all else. You believe whole heartedly, my point of view is automatically wrong to you because faith trumps logic so why would I share it with you? But at the same time it's majority of the music they play, it's all their advice, I go every Sunday, my classmates and friends are majority Christian and yet I even though I see the flaws and hypocrisy, I still can't help but wonder, am I the crazy one?"
"My grandma would grab me and call me "big booty Judy." And my butt was grabbed, spanked, and frequently talked about. Sometimes she'd just sit there tapping it while she talked. It started when I was around three or four and just continued. Though now I'm in my teens and rarely see her. But my breast were also a topic for a while. Comments like "where'd you get those from?", "she's bigger than you.", and "her sisters the tall one but she's the curvy one." They felt icky but I didn't dwell on them. But she's also an alcoholic along with many other things. She dated my mom's friends when she was in college, gets shit faced in at events like birthdays and funerals. Shakes her ass on family members and frequently offered us alcohol. But I always took pride in being her favorite grandchild. Which she constantly reminded me I was. She also has a serious spending problem. But the funny thing is. She goes to a church church. She's in the choir and used frequently as a look example. She hosts church events and potlucks. She even remarried in the church. Never mind the things I just said that'd be considered sins. She's the perfect Christian woman."
"How do you cope with the level of disrespect? I'm not eighteen yet, but I'm still able to be disrespected. My main problem is the disrespect from my parents. My parents who wish to be respected in their beliefs and don't want their minds to change. But at the same time, my dad has sent my scriptures and stuff for the past couple of months since it came out. I don't believe in God or Jesus. They force me to serve and volunteer at church and attend every Sunday. They paired me with a not so ethical Christian therapist. Then both gang up on me about it and take my silence as defeat when I'm just respecting their beliefs. I'm literally the only non Christian in my family. I also have mental problems from staying with them and just in general, but they won't test me because I don't behave in such a stereotypical manner. I want to say they love me, but does someone who blatantly disrespects you love you? I'm having a hard time with seeing if I should do something as drastic as no contact after I reach a certain age.
But at the same time their those awful parents who don't just blatantly suck but also have messed me up quite a bit, resulting in me not feeling like I have a right to be upset. I've told them about how Christianity mixed with their parenting drove me to suicidal thoughts, almost going through with it, and an eating disorder I'm still battling. I also can't just leave and close the door behind me. I'm the oldest, and their are two more kids just like me, and if I turned my back on them, I'd never forgive myself. They're my siblings, but they're also what stopped me from going through with the bad thoughts I was having. They need someone who will be honest, say the weird things, and answer the ignored questions. So, how can I deal with the blatant disrespect so that I'm around for them? What skill for stress management can I use? How do I block out the constant religious gaslighting that happens in church? Because I have over two more years of this."
"My dad said if people don't wanna have a baby, they shouldn't have sex even if they're married. But sir, you had three babies while financially unstable because you couldn't keep your damn hands off my mom. You were planning me, but your job fell through, and when my mom went to get back on birth control, it was too late, so I'll give you a pass with me. But my siblings were both surprises. So, quit judging and practice what you preach. But that's not what pissed me off the most. He said women will put all their time into work and not their husbands, and that's why some men cheat, but the way he said it, it was like he was justifying it. But my dad, he'd go to hooters alone, and when I needed tights, he got them from a woman their and it made me think what if. And I know it's stupid, but that what if. It is so loud.
And it's not even the first time he's said something along the lines of justifying it and almost blaming the woman who gets cheated on. But then he likes to be all up in arms about how his friend married a woman who cheated on him multiple times. My dad's like, I wanna pour into my kids but then makes no effort, and when we spent time with him, we had to initiate it. He doesn't do the hey you wanna . . . stuff. But he has his own company, and they can't get any work right now, so he spends most of his time at home. And then says I'm just to tired to spend time with ya'll.
My mom was sick to the point of being half passed out in a drive-thru after taking my brother to karate and having to pick up dinner. I would've offered to drive him if I could. I'm still leaning, and I'm bad at staying in one lane. But my dad was really busy on his PS5 with his made-up football team. So busy he couldn't take my brother to karate nor could he pause his game to get dinner. I'm kinda starting to hate him. He's also done a couple of other things, but that's what recently has made me mad. But I don't feel like I have a right to be mad because he's here and a lot of my friends dad aren't, and he's not physically abusive like my best friends dad is. I just don't know how I should feel. Is everyone's dad like this?
Edit: It's mothers day and he couldn't be bothered to get the food, pick up the groceries, nothing. #1Dad guys."
​
So is it truly a horrible go no contact at eighteen situation, a be watchful situation, or is it fine? I know some of this stuff is a lot but some of it was also in a moment of extreme emotion. Remember like I said in the beginning they're not always like this.

My oldest had a softball game last night and I picked up the names of the other team from hearing the parents & coaches cheer. There were a lot of similar names! This is 11- & 12-year-olds in the PNW:
Bella
Ella
Ellie
Evie or Edie (couldn’t quite tell on this one)
Eloise
Emma
It was just striking to me (softball pun unintended but I’m keeping it) how so many of the names on the team were kind of clustered/similar. So in the past where this might’ve been three Jennifers and three Jessicas, there are more names used/in circulation—but still a lot of clear similarities.
My daughter’s team has an Ella and an Eloise as well.
Anyway, just thought this was interesting!

"I played major league baseball for parts of 10 years, and I played in the magnificent city of New York, and as a child in St. Croix that was beyond dreams. Yes, I am a happy man." -- Horace Clarke
The worst stretch of Yankee baseball since the Highlander days, the mid 60s to the mid 70s, is remembered by those who lived through it as the Horace Clarke Era. Unfairly or not, the bespectacled switch-hitting middle infielder from the U.S. Virgin Islands came to symbolize all that was wrong with the Yankees in those sad years.
Horace Meredith Clarke grew up on the island of St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands. He was just the fifth player from the U.S. Virgin Islands to play in the majors, and the first Yankee. His father had grown up playing cricket, and because there were no youth baseball leagues on the island, young Horace played softball. He said he didn't see his first baseball game until around age 13, when he saw some U.S. Navy sailors playing.

“We were poor kids in St. Croix. We played on a field which was right on the ocean and had no fences. We couldn’t afford baseballs. So the coach made the lefthanded batters hit righthanded and the righthanded batters hit lefthanded. This was so they couldn’t hit the ball so far. It saved us from losing the baseballs in the ocean.”

Clarke was spotted by a Yankee scout in the Caribbean and assigned to the lowest run of the Yankee farm system -- the Kearney Yankees in Class D ball. Imagine being an 18-year-old kid from St. Croix in the Caribbean, and arriving in Kearney, Nebraska in the spring of 1958. The culture shock must have been overwhelming. Maybe not surprisingly, Clarke hit a disappointing .225/.322/.283 in 187 at-bats. He said the biggest adjustment wasn't the cold weather, but night games played under the lights, something he'd never done before.
The following year Horace was in the Florida State League, and he thrived in the warmer weather, hitting .293/.375/.366 in 571 at-bats. He also stole 34 bases that year. The year after that, he was back up north, playing for Fargo in the Northern League, and hit .307/.389/.369 in 537 at-bats. The following year was Amarillo in the Texas League, where he hit .300/.364/.429.
Then the next three years in the International League, where he hit .281/.345/.352 in 1,494 at-bats while playing shortstop and second base.
But despite Clarke's promise, he was blocked by Bobby Richardson. By the time Clarke had reached Triple-A at age 24 in 1963, the 27-year-old Richardson had already been a four-time All-Star, a two-time Gold Glove winner, and had won three World Series rings... plus the MVP for the 1960 World Series, the only time in baseball history a player for the losing team won the award!
But the Yankees knew Richardson was planning on retiring, so they kept Clarke waiting in the wings. He opened the year with the Toledo Mud Hens, then the Yankees' Triple-A team, and then after a month he finally got the call to the show.
Fifty-nine years ago today, on May 13, 1965, Clarke was sent up to the plate in the 7th inning as a pinch hitter to make his major league debut in a game the Yankees were losing, 4-1, to the Boston Red Sox in Fenway Park.
Clarke, facing Dave Morehead, beat out an infield single. It was a promising beginning. But, as if scripted to be symbolic of his career, Clarke's success was short-lived as the next batter bounced into a fielder's choice. Forced out at second base, Clarke watched the rest of the game from the dugout. The next day he'd get the start and go 0-for-4.
Hitting .250/.298/.269 at the end of June as a utility infielder, Clarke was sent back down to Toledo for two months to get more regular playing time. It helped. When he returned on September 3 -- coincidentally, also against the Red Sox -- he went 3-for-5 with an RBI. Overall that month, Clarke hit .273/.298/.327, and for the season, .262/.298/.299 in 115 plate appearances. But the Yankees, the reigning A.L. champions for the past five seasons, finished a shocking 77-85, all the way in sixth place.
That off-season, Phil Linz -- the harmonica playing utility infielder -- was traded to the Phillies, opening up a roster spot for Clarke. Richardson, though only 31, had told the Yankees he would retire at the end of the 1966 season, and the Yankees wanted him to mentor Clarke as his successor.
Clarke started just seven games over the first half, but a series of injuries forced him into regular service. Over the second half, he played almost every day, hitting .276/.334/.404 in 300 plate appearances. He was mostly used at shortstop, where his defense wasn't great, but in 16 games at second base he looked good enough that the Yankees were confident he could be a regular there. Yankee fans were no doubt a little sad when Richardson officially announced to the press on August 31 that it was his last season, but at least we knew who would be playing second base the following year.
Indeed, second base was the least of the Yankees' problems. New York finished dead last at 70-89 in 1966, the team's worst performance since 1925, as injuries fell Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Elston Howard, and Whitey Ford.
Entering 1967 as the starting second baseman, Clarke hit a solid .272/.321/.316 (94 OPS+) in 633 plate appearances while leading the league in fielding percentage, assists, and range factor as a second baseman. He also stole 21 bases in 25 tries, a second-best .840 SB%. His 3.7 bWAR that year was better than any season Richardson ever had -- his career high was 3.2 bWAR in 1962.
The following year, the Yankees finished 83-79 -- above .500 for the first time in four seasons -- but a whopping 34.5 games out. Clarke had one of the worst years of his career, hitting .230/.258/.254 (60 OPS+) as he played through injuries all year.
He rebounded in 1969 to .285/.339/.467 (101 OPS+), with 33 stolen bases. It was, statistically, the best season of his career (3.9 bWAR). But once again the Yankees were terrible -- 28.5 games out.
In 1970, Clarke again disappointed, hitting .251/.286/.309 (68 OPS+). The Yankees won 93 games that year, but it amounted to naught as the Orioles ran away with the pennant, going 108-54 to win it by 15 games. In fact, it was pretty much over by July, with the Yankees 7 games out at the All-Star break.
It was around this time that Yankee fans began focusing their frustration on Clarke. One New York sportswriter routinely referred to him as "Horrible Horace". Miscast as a leadoff man -- he had a career .308 OBP -- and criticized for "bailing out" on double plays, manager Ralph Houk years later offered a tepid defense of his second baseman:

“I know I got a lot of criticism for playing Horace Clarke as much as I did, but he was a lot better ballplayer than anyone gave him credit for. He did a lot of things good but nothing great, and that was his problem. Besides, I didn’t have anyone else.”

The lack of a replacement was certainly an issue. In 1971, there was talk in The Sporting News about a prospect named Fred Frazier being the heir apparent to Clarke at second base. That year, Frazier hit a disappointing .261/.316/.313 in Triple-A; the next year, .216/.302/.281. The year after that, he was in the Orioles organization. He never made it out of the minors.
In fact, Clarke was the only constant in the Yankee infield in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The Yankees during the, ahem, Horace Clarke Era had holes everywhere, with a revolving door at first base, third base, and shortstop. For five years, from 1967 to 1971, Clarke was the Opening Day starter at second base; during that same stretch, there were five different third basemen, five different third basemen, and three different shortstops. Between 1967 and 1973, he started 1,017 games at second base, or 90% of all Yankee games.
But that, explained Yankees PR man Marty Appel, was kind of the problem. "Fans especially didn’t like the second baseman, the beleaguered Horace Clarke, whose major flaw seemed to be longevity. It wasn’t his fault that no one better came along, and he was a better player than the fans gave him credit for. But because he was out there, year after year, he came to stand for this disappointing run by the club."

"I always did my best. I always played as hard as I could. I never was concerned about how the fans reacted to me." -- Horace Clarke

The following year Clarke hit .250/.321/.318 in 696 plate appearances, but the Yankees again were out of it, finishing 82-80 in 1971.
Yankee fans had been miserable since 1965, but frustration with the team in general -- and Clarke in particular -- reached a boiling point in 1972. It had been seven years since the Yankees had been in the post-season, and 1972 was the first year the Yankees had the playoffs within our grasp since winning the pennant in 1964. (The "closest and latest" the Yankees had been since the 1965 season was 9 games out of 1st place on September 8, 1970.)
On September 12, 1972, the Yankees were a half-game out of 1st place at 74-64, with 17 games left to go in the season. The Red Sox were in 1st at 73-62, the Orioles tied with New York at 74-64, and the Tigers a half-game behind at 73-64. Over the rest of the season, the Yankees went a heartbreaking 5-12, while the Tigers won 13 out of 19 to win the A.L. East.
There was plenty of blame to go around for that collapse, but Yankee fans were particularly irate at Clarke, who hit .225/.267/.296 during those final 17 games.
To his credit, Clarke never complained about the boos from fans or the criticism in the press. As quoted by Dick Young in the New York Daily News in 1972:

"Sure, I would feel bad when I saw in the papers that, 'the Yankees can never win the pennant with that guy at second base.' But why get mad. I figure that's his opinion, and he's entitled to it. I must have been able to do something. Don't tell me a ballplayer can fool a manager for seven years."

Years later, Thurman Munson said his adversarial relationship with the media was based on how Horace Clarke was treated.
In 1973, the 34-year-old Clarke hit .263/.317/.308 (80 OPS+), his defense was no longer among the league leaders, and the Yankees were once again double-digit games behind by Labor Day.
It was finally time to move on. That off season, the Yankees acquired 23-year-old utility infielder Jim Mason from the Texas Rangers and installed him as the starting shortstop for the upcoming 1974 season; Gene Michael, the Yankees' on-again, off-again shortstop since 1968, was moved to second base; and Clarke to the bench. It wasn't exactly an earth-shattering move -- Mason was coming off a season in which he hit .206/.273/.290, and Michael .225/.270/.278. If anything, the two represented a substantial downgrade from Clarke's numbers. (By bWAR the previous season, Clarke was still the best option of the three, 0.6 compared to Mason's -0.7 and Michael's -0.9.)
After hitting .234/.294/.255 in 53 plate appearances as a pinch hitter and spot starter, on May 31, 1974, the Yankees finally ended the Horace Clarke Era by selling his contract to the San Diego Padres along with minor league pitcher Lowell Palmer for $25,000. At the time of the deal, Clarke was still the Yankees' best option at second base as Mason was hitting .214/.287/.307 and Michael a putrid .134/.224/.179!
Six weeks later, the Yankees tried to address their second base problem again by acquiring former All-Star Sandy Alomar from the Angels. Alomar, who fathered major leaguers Sandy Jr. and Roberto, played for the Yankees for the next two and a half seasons, hitting .248/.287/.302... again, worse than Horace's career average of .256/.308/.313.
And yet getting rid of Horace Clarke immediately turned around the Yankees' fortunes. With Horace, the Yankees were 23-27, the worst record in the American League; without him, a second-best 66-46. New York finished 89-73, just two games behind the Baltimore Orioles.
The Yankees finally found a solution to the second base problem on December 11, 1975, trading previously forgotten Yankee Doc Medich to the Pirates for Dock Ellis, Ken Brett, and a 20-year-old prospect named Willie Randolph.
Meanwhile, Clarke went to San Diego and hit .189/.255/.200 in 99 plate appearances. He was released at the end of the season and retired. He was a frequent attendee at Yankee Old Timers' Games, and promoted baseball in the U.S. Virgin Islands. He died at age 81 on August 5, 2020, from complications due to Alzheimer's disease.
The Clarke Side

• Horace's nickname was "Hoss". Yankee play-by-play man Bill White loved to draw out the "s" sound.
  
• Clarke had a reputation of being timid on double plays -- the team's pitchers thought he was apt to hold onto the ball and hop aside rather than try to get off a throw if it meant getting barreled over by the runner. (And in those days, runners came in hard -- just ask Willie Randolph!) Yankee pitchers complained to the press about it, and fans started watching for such plays. Any time the 175-pound Clarke didn't complete a double play, the boo birds came out. To be fair, despite his reputation as being afraid of contact, Clarke led the league in double plays turned as a second baseman in 1969 and again in 1971, and finished in the top five every year he was a regular.
  
• Clarke was the last Yankee to live within walking distance of Yankee Stadium, at the Grand Concourse Hotel. His commute to work was a three-block walk... which could be a problem sometimes. Sportswriter Dick Young reported Clarke had an awkward moment when a fan, "this kid, maybe 11 or 12," walked up and asked: "Hey Hoss, how come you can't make the double play?" Clarke replied: "Well, we can't all be stars. I guess I'm just a lousy ballplayer."
  
• Clarke had an unusual batting stance, a throwback to the Deadball Era. He stood with his legs far apart and he choked up high on the bat. Not surprisingly, he had just 27 home runs in 5,243 career plate appearances... but apparently all of them were of the over-the-fence variety.
  
• The first of those 27 home runs was a grand slam! It was off Floyd Weaver of the Cleveland Indians on September 21, 1965. The two-out grand slam in the 4th inning helped power the Yankees to a 9-4 win.
  
• And Clarke's second career home run? Another grand slam! It came on July 16, 1966. Clarke came up with the bases loaded and one out in the top of the 10th of a 5-5 game. Clarke crushed Jack Aker's offering to deep right to clear the bases and give the Yankees a 9-5 lead; Pedro Ramos pitched a perfect 9th to preserve the victory. Whitey Ford, who had entered the game in the 9th inning in relief, got the win. Clarke's first and second home runs were the only grand slams of his career!
  
• Aker was later Clarke's teammate with the Yankees from 1969 to 1972, and the sinkerballing reliever was one of the pitchers who criticized Horace about bailing out on double plays.
  
• Long before John Olerud made it cool, Horace sometimes wore a batting helmet while playing the field. He never explained why; some speculated it was because he'd once been hit in the head by a thrown ball.
  
• Clarke said he grew up listening to Yankee games on the radio, and Phil Rizzuto -- a similarly undersized infielder -- was his favorite player. Horace was 11 years old when the Scooter won the A.L. MVP in 1950.
  
• Mickey Mantle, his knees shot, moved to first base for the final two years of his career. Clarke, the regular second baseman both of those seasons, said that Mantle told him to get every ball he could. Horace led the league in range factor as a second baseman both of those seasons.
  
• The Sporting News reported on March 14, 1970, that Clarke had a "novel twist" during salary negotiations for the upcoming 1970 season. He told the Yankees he'd take less money in salary if they helped him secure a $1 million loan for a construction project in the Virgin Islands. Sportswriter Dick Young speculated: "It's a very simple gimmick. First you get the Yankees to lend you $1 million for an investment. You bank it at seven percent. That brings in $70,000 a year. Then you negotiate your contract with the independent feeling that you don't have to play baseball for a living." Clarke and the Yankees eventually agreed on a more conventional contract at $32,000 -- and no loan.
  
• Check out Horace Clarke's leadoff single on Opening Day in 1970, called by Phil Rizzuto! #23 playing first base for the Yankees is not Don Mattingly, but previously forgotten Yankee John Ellis.
  
• Clarke set the major league career record -- since tied by Joe Mauer -- of most no-hitters broken up in the 9th inning. Both players did it three times in their career... but Clarke did it three times in the same season! He had 9th inning singles to break up no-no's by Kansas City's Jim Rooker on June 4, 1970, Boston's Sonny Siebert on June 19, 1970, and Detroit's Joe Niekro on July 2, 1970. No other hitter has broken up more than two no-hitters in the 9th inning in his career, according to the book Baseball's No-Hit Wonders by Dirk Lammers, but Clarke amazingly did it three times in 24 games spread over 28 days. Mauer's 9th inning heartbreakers came over a six-year stretch.
  
• Clarke went 5-for-6 with an RBI in the second game of a doubleheader on April 19, 1970 -- and had 11 other games where he had four hits. In terms of fantasy scoring, his best day was either May 21, 1969, when he went 4-for-6 with three runs scored and three stolen bases, or July 22, 1971, when he was 4-for-5 with three runs scored and three RBIs.
  
• Clarke was involved in one of the most surreal moments of baseball history on the final day of the 1971 season. The Yankees were playing the Washington Senators -- not the original Senators, who had moved to Minnesota to become the Twins in 1961, but the expansion team founded that same year to replace them. Rangers owner Bob Short, who had bought the team three years earlier, announced he was moving the team to Arlington, Texas, to become the Rangers. (Coincidentally, in 1957, Short had bought the Minneapolis Lakers and, three years later, moved them to Los Angeles.) The final home game of the Senators at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C., was on September 30, 1971 against the Yankees. The game was tied, 5-5, but the soon-to-be Rangers scored a pair in the bottom of the 8th to take a 7-5 lead. In the top of the 9th, Felipe Alou and Bobby Murcer grounded out to bring up Horace Clarke. Before he could get to the plate, however, a fan ran onto the field and pulled up first base, prompting hundreds more fans to run onto the field in search of their own souvenirs. Clarke and the Senators ran off the field and the umpires called it a forfeit in favor of the Yankees.
  
• Horace wore #20 all 10 seasons he was with the Yankees. It was never a particularly popular number before him, as the only player who wore it more than a few seasons was Tiny Bonham (1940-1946). Bucky Dent wore #20 from 1977 to 1982, and previously forgotten Yankee Bobby Meacham from 1983 to 1988. Another previously forgotten Yankee, Mike Stanley, wore it from 1992 to 1995, then Jorge Posada had it until Stanley returned in 1997 and reclaimed it. After Stanley left the Yankees, he asked Posada to take it back, saying that number should belong to a catcher. And now it always will, as it was retired for Posada in 2015.
  
• His obituary in The New York Times noted that among major leaguers from the Virgin Islands -- "a relatively small roster" -- Clarke still holds the records for games played, hits, runs, RBIs, and stolen bases.
  
• After he retired, Clarke helped promote youth baseball in the U.S. Virgin Islands. One of the players he mentored was Jerry Browne, who played 10 years in the majors between 1986 and 1995 with the Rangers, Indians, A's, and Marlins. In his SABR biography, Browne credits Clarke with teaching him baseball fundamentals.
  
• According to the book Where Have All Our Yankees Gone? by Brian Jensen, Clarke played a uniquely Caribbean instrument called "the vibes." "The vibes is like a xylophone, marimba-related type sound. It's a keyboard-type related instrument." Clarke said he played the instrument during his Yankee days, but -- unlike Bernie Williams, who frequently strummed on his guitar in the clubhouse -- only during the off-season. "When I was with the Yankees, ya know, the instrument that I had, the vibes, I was doing it, ya know, but never in the clubhouse, though. Once you are in the clubhouse, it is all work, ya know. That was never so much allowed. I had the instrument all the years that I was a Yankee but I was involved with baseball. That was my full time and I didn't have full time to play music but, ya know, in the off-season I would have a vibe and try to learn a song by hearing from a tape or a record and that's what it was." After retiring, Clarke played the instrument with a local band called Out of Nowhere.
  
• Of the 15 major leaguers to have been born in the U.S. Virgin Islands, the only other Yankee was Elrod Hendricks, a backup catcher for the Bombers from 1976 to 1977. Jabari Blash, born in St. Thomas, gets an honorable mention for the three months he spent as a Yankee during the 2017-2018 off-season. Blash was acquired from the Padres for Chase Headley on December 12, then traded to the Angels for a PTBNL or cash considerations. I guess we got the cash, because apparently no player was ever named.
  
• There's a Horace Clarke High School in Jamaica, but it's not named after the Yankee. It's named after the Horace Clarke who was a member of parliament in Jamaica from 1972 to 2002.
  
• Also not him: Horace Clarke, a teenager shot and seriously wounded by a Blackfeet Indian named Owl Child on August 17, 1869. Clarke's father, Malcolm, was killed in the same attack, which was purportedly revenge for Malcolm Clarke having attacked him two years earlier... which Malcolm claimed he'd done because Owl Child had stolen horses from him... which Owl Child said he'd done in revenge for yet an earlier dispute. The pursuit of Owl Child resulted in a massacre of at least 170 people, mostly elderly men, women, and children. As for Owl Child, he escaped to Canada and was never seen again.
  

"I remember the first game I played in Yankee Stadium in 1965. There were more than 40,000 people in the stands. I had just come from my country where there are 30,000 people in the entire country. That was some adjustment." -- Horace Clarke

Overall, Horace Clarke hit .257/.309/.315 in 5,144 plate appearances as a Yankee. His numbers aren't quite as bad as they appear, as he played during one of the lowest offense eras since deadball... an 84 OPS+. That ranks him ahead of fondly-remembered Yankees like Shelley Duncan (81 OPS+), Rick Cerone (80 OPS+), Miguel Cairo (80 OPS+), Bucky Dent (72 OPS+), and... Bobby Richardson (77 OPS+). And while many complained about his defense, his defensive metrics -- such as we have for his era -- indicate he was at least an average defender. He led the league in range factor three times, in fielding percentage once, in assists six times, and in double plays twice.
People tend to think about Clarke -- if they think about him at all -- as either a terrible player, representative of the teams he played on, or a good player who was wasted on bad teams. The truth is somewhere in the middle. As sportswriter Maury Allen said, he was "an average big-leaguer on below-average Yankee teams."
And in fact, Clarke's 16.0 career bWAR as a Yankee is twice as much value as the player he replaced, Bobby Richardson (8.0 bWAR). But Richardson was a fan favorite, while Clarke was scorned. But of course... Richardson won three rings. And Yankee fans love a winner!

"New York is New York. You don’t win, you’re going to hear about it. I was in the middle." -- Horace Clarke

Had Clarke come along a few years earlier and been part of the early 1960s dynasty, he might be remembered fondly as a scrappy infielder, a Tony Kubek or a Bucky Dent or a Scott Brosius -- a good but not great player who had some memorable moments.
Instead, Horace Clarke defines an era of futility.

Sorry for the long post, theres a lot of context
Okay, so right off the bat I was 18 when I got married. My husband (19 at the time) and I knew each other our whole lives and dated through high school. We were long distance and saw each other in real life about 5 times, and we always video called and texted. We had gotten engaged beginning of my senior year. I was over the moon.
Until my parents found out our plan. They didn't know we had planned to be wed before my husband left for basic training for the military. They were against it, and we missed out on over $3000 because they didn't want me married at 17. I would still be finishing high school while my husband to be would be in training.
So I didn't worry about it. We had then planned for my husband and I to get married in May when he got back from all of his training. It was going to be a small affair since we didn't have much disposable income.
The plan was to get married the day after my older cousin got married because I didnt want to take away from her special day she's been planning for 3 years. (I know, cutting it close, but we couldn't get married any other day because my husband would have to be at his duty station the day after)
My cousin was furious with me over this, even though we weren't having a huge wedding. I understand she has a right to be upset, but she called me all sorts of names, and said that I was just a kid and that I'm not responsible enough to be married. She also mocked my idea to be a homemaker, and said I was setting back feminism because of this plan I had with my husband. She told me to not speak to her until I changed my date or canceled getting married. At the time I couldn't change that date.
So during my husband's training, he was pushed back about two weeks. This means we wouldn't be "ruining." my cousins wedding. I told her about the date change and extended the olive branch to say she and her family were still invited.
I didn't expect a big wedding, but my family stepped up and gave me a bridal shower, and a giant wedding. My village was incredible and I love them so much. Now the bridal shower was fantastic, the only thing I wouldve changed was that I got a more white dress to wear that day.
Now the week after my bridal shower, my cousin was supposed to get married. The day came and my parents left for the wedding even though I had been invited too. (I didn't want to go because I felt it would cause drama.) They came back and asked me to come on the back porch with them. They informed me my cousin had been cheated on 3 days before her wedding by her fiance. The affair was a couple of years old, and she was devastated and rightfully canceled her big expensive wedding.
I would call this karma, but I don't think she deserved this at all. No one deserves to be cheated on. That man is for the dogs. I didn't reach out to her, because I thought she would think I was gloating or being rude to her in her hard time. (I wanted to say I was so sorry this happened to her and that I would help her with anything she needed.) I know recovering people pleaser, but I felt so awful for her.
My last dress fitting with my incredible grandmother who hemmed the dress and added small details to it, my grandfather asked if I was sure if I wanted to get married. I of course said yes but it was odd he asked 2 weeks before the wedding.
The day before my wedding was my high school graduation. I walked the stage and got my diploma, and my dad said "thank you closing this door before opening a new door." Meaning he was happy I finished school before moving on to marriage. (Which was the next day so I'm not sure why he mentioned this.)
My uncle was in town for the wedding, so night before he pulled me aside and told me, "if you have second thoughts, feel free to tell me, I'll get you out of here, and everyone will get rid of the crowd." I didn't know my family was this protective until all this happened.
The day of my wedding was a blurr in the beginning because i got sick. As I'm releasing last night's dinner into the toliet, someone calls me about a pasta salad. I listen and she tells me that she's sorry, she might be late because HER DAUGHTER WAS IN THE HOSPITAL THE NIGHT BEFORE. She was my best friends mom, and I told her she didn't have to make the pasta salad if she was sleep deprived. She said she was doing it so I made she to tell her it was delicious because it was.
The wedding happened, and it was perfect. Besides the fact we had a dry wedding and everyone, and I mean everyone brought booze in their cars. I was having fun, talking to everyone, and I saw they set up a baseball game in the field beside our wedding pavillion. (All the guests brought clothes to change into because I knew the kids would get dirty at this park and I'd rather them be in play clothes then nice clothes to help out the parents)
I walked up in my long wedding dress, took off my sandals, and walked up to the plate. I hit the ball and ran the bases in my white wedding dress. I played softball for 11 years, I wasn't missing that. I don't regret it, especially since it was so fun, and I was only going to wear this dress once.
We were leaving for our wedding night, and I was stopped by an aunt that would be living an hour away from us. courses said if I needed anything or something went wrong she was an hour away. This of course made my husband skeptical because he would take incredible care of me. (And has.)
Now we went to my in laws because our duty station was 30 minutes away. (I forgot to mention a fourth of my things from my parents house was in the back of my husband's truck because haul didn't have a pull along trailer.) We lived in a tent in the woods by their house because of father in law didn't want to hear any noises. Which fair honestly lol. We went to get my military ID and found out I needed an ID. I didn't get a driver's license because I didnt have a need to. I always took the bus and didn't have a job.
This took a week, and we had to stay in the tent while waiting for the military ID. The week turned into a month an a half because housing took forever.
During our stay, my in laws had been babysitting my husband's two younger male cousins. They were a blast but could be a lot at times. Half way through our stay, our in laws housed their cousins family for a week. This means there were 11 people under one roof. With one bathroom, and a broken septic tank. (This is how I got my first ever uti because I decided to start peeing in the woods in the middle of the night a lot of nights.)
Everyone was a little on edge, and my husband and I decided that we would live in the hotel on base while waiting for our house. We spent a month in this hotel, but it was a lot more peaceful. We finally got housing after a month, and moved in right away.
Now almost a year later, I am happy to report I have a wonderful husband, a sweet puppy, and have funny scenarios to tell my children someday because of what happened while planning my wedding, the day, and my honeymoon.

Looking for a song where the chorus mentions looking through his girlfriend's softball trophies in her room. I remember hearing it a few years ago but I forget the name and the band. Newer song, on the short side. Pretty cheesy obviously.

I'm gonna keep this post anonymous so my (14yo f) friend group is gonna be refered to by their initials. So there are 5 girls in my friend group and oneday I get a call from 3 of them.
One of the girls in my friend group J was my bestfriend. A little bit of backround info on her. She comes from an abusive family and me and my family have done everything for her including getting her a scholarship to a nice private school and offering her to live with us to taking her to her first amusement park and countless other things. She has two siblings that she had to watch at home and we would always take them to fun things cause thats the only way she can hang out.
Now me and a girl named L had been getting rlly close cause we live near eachother. One day I get a call from the three of them not including L. They basically told me L is trying to steal me away and if I dont drop her then they arent gonna talk to me. Later that day I get a call from a girl named E who was on the call. She said J told her that I called her a lesbian, annoying, a bitch, a slut, that I hated her, that she sucks at horseback riding, her mom annoying and many more things. FYI all of this was lies. She also told E my Dad is creepy even though my dad has been nothing but nice to her. She basically told my friends since my dad gave her a crown set he's creepy. Backstory on the crown my little sisters softball team was doing a parade where they all had to wear matching purple crowns, gloves and capes. There was a missing coach and my Dad had to wear it, it was hilarious. We then had a matching set and J went insane and insisted we match and wear them for pictures. I was right there when my Dad said "You can just keep the set we have nothing to do with it anyway" and J happily agreed. She then called my mom wierd and annoying. My mom also grew up in an abusive situation and always tries to be the person that she wishes she had growing up and J had never showen any discomfort to that, and had always recipricated.
She also told my friends that my mom hated them and they should stay away from me and my mom. I'm almost in tears just writing this and it truly breaks my heart that she would do this. I understand that her family isnt great but it doesnt give her an excuse for what she did. I'm good with my friends now and we've all blocked her but Idk what to now. Or how to feel. Idk if im overreacting feedback and advice is appreciated. Thanks in advance!

I'm gonna keep this post anonymous so my (14yo f) friend group is gonna be refered to by their initials. So there are 5 girls in my friend group and oneday I get a call from 3 of them.
One of the girls in my friend group J was my bestfriend. A little bit of backround info on her. She comes from an abusive family and me and my family have done everything for her including getting her a scholarship to a nice private school and offering her to live with us to taking her to her first amusement park and countless other things. She has two siblings that she had to watch at home and we would always take them to fun things cause thats the only way she can hang out.
Now me and a girl named L had been getting rlly close cause we live near eachother. One day I get a call from the three of them not including L. They basically told me L is trying to steal me away and if I dont drop her then they arent gonna talk to me. Later that day I get a call from a girl named E who was on the call. She said J told her that I called her a lesbian, annoying, a bitch, a slut, that I hated her, that she sucks at horseback riding, her mom annoying and many more things. FYI all of this was lies. She also told E my Dad is creepy even though my dad has been nothing but nice to her. She basically told my friends since my dad gave her a crown set he's creepy. Backstory on the crown my little sisters softball team was doing a parade where they all had to wear matching purple crowns, gloves and capes. There was a missing coach and my Dad had to wear it, it was hilarious. We then had a matching set and J went insane and insisted we match and wear them for pictures. I was right there when my Dad said "You can just keep the set we have nothing to do with it anyway" and J happily agreed. She then called my mom wierd and annoying. My mom also grew up in an abusive situation and always tries to be the person that she wishes she had growing up and J had never showen any discomfort to that, and had always recipricated.
She also told my friends that my mom hated them and they should stay away from me and my mom. I'm almost in tears just writing this and it truly breaks my heart that she would do this. I understand that her family isnt great but it doesnt give her an excuse for what she did. I'm good with my friends now and we've all blocked her but Idk what to now. Or how to feel. Idk if im overreacting feedback and advice is appreciated. Thanks in advance!

I'm gonna keep this post anonymous so my (14yo f) friend group is gonna be refered to by their initials. So there are 5 girls in my friend group and oneday I get a call from 3 of them.
One of the girls in my friend group J was my bestfriend. A little bit of backround info on her. She comes from an abusive family and me and my family have done everything for her including getting her a scholarship to a nice private school and offering her to live with us to taking her to her first amusement park and countless other things. She has two siblings that she had to watch at home and we would always take them to fun things cause thats the only way she can hang out.
Now me and a girl named L had been getting rlly close cause we live near eachother. One day I get a call from the three of them not including L. They basically told me L is trying to steal me away and if I dont drop her then they arent gonna talk to me. Later that day I get a call from a girl named E who was on the call. She said J told her that I called her a lesbian, annoying, a bitch, a slut, that I hated her, that she sucks at horseback riding, her mom annoying and many more things. FYI all of this was lies. She also told E my Dad is creepy even though my dad has been nothing but nice to her. She basically told my friends since my dad gave her a crown set he's creepy. Backstory on the crown my little sisters softball team was doing a parade where they all had to wear matching purple crowns, gloves and capes. There was a missing coach and my Dad had to wear it, it was hilarious. We then had a matching set and J went insane and insisted we match and wear them for pictures. I was right there when my Dad said "You can just keep the set we have nothing to do with it anyway" and J happily agreed. She then called my mom wierd and annoying. My mom also grew up in an abusive situation and always tries to be the person that she wishes she had growing up and J had never showen any discomfort to that, and had always recipricated.
She also told my friends that my mom hated them and they should stay away from me and my mom. I'm almost in tears just writing this and it truly breaks my heart that she would do this. I understand that her family isnt great but it doesnt give her an excuse for what she did. I'm good with my friends now and we've all blocked her but Idk what to now. Or how to feel. Idk if im overreacting feedback and advice is appreciated. Thanks in advance!

There was a boy. I’d known him since I was 5 but it wasn’t until I was older that I truly noticed him. We were in 6th grade when we started taking an advanced math class together. I could tell he was smart, funny, and a person I’d want to be around for a long time. Middle school and all the drama that ensues during that time quickly invaded my life. My social group shifted and I found myself closer to my friend, Dakota. By the time we were in 7th grade he was tall and strong. Blond hair and a light greenish set of smart eyes. We started working together outside of school. My dad worked for his dad and I often found myself at their house. Dakota had one older brother, a younger brother, and a younger sister. I’m the oldest of four so I could handle the chaos of lots of kids in a home. I had some of my most fun memories in middle school at that home. Not just me and Dakota, but with other friends we worked with, our siblings, and family friends. Nerf gun fights, swimming in the pool, and playing manhunt on the homestead that they lived on. I developed what you could consider a crush on Dakota. And the feeling was mutual. He hinted with the not-so-subtle flirting of a 14 year old boy. Pulling my hair, taking my things, and throwing snacks were often his go-to moves.
One night at a Christmas party, us “kids” were watching a movie while the adults played games and hung out in the other room. At some point, his head ended up on my lap. I remember touching his hair, but ultimately deciding I did NOT want someone to see this and assume the worse. Another time, we were alone in the basement. The basement was the place of all our friend hangouts. The video and board games were down there, along with the nerf guns. One night we were on the couch showing each other memes from our iPod touches. We were laughing and joking, then he handed me his iPod to read the next one. Except this wasn’t a meme: it was his notes app. On the screen it said “I think you are beautiful”. I instantly blushed and tried to hide my face. “Me?.....” I looked at him, also blushing red and he nodded. I told him thank you. It was the first time any boy had told me I was beautiful. In my own eyes, I was not. I had a big tooth gap because my parents couldn’t afford braces, and I wore glasses. I don’t know what he saw, but I appreciated the flattering compliment.
We entered high school where once again, your life shifts. You are faced with new teachers, new course materials, new teammates, and new challenges. We remained close friends through this time, by taking enough classes together and being involved with the same friends. It was nearing the fall homecoming season and I was nervous about getting a date. I saw many older boys asking girls to be their dates and I wondered if I would even have one my freshman year. Leave it up to my best friend Anna to set me up.
I clearly remember it was a Sunday night and I was watching football. My mom tells me she got a text from Dakota’s mom that there was a book she needed to grab from their house. She told me I needed to go with her. Without any context, I was annoyed she was making ME drive her there since I did not want to leave home. They lived about 5 minutes away so I figured the faster we leave the quicker I can get back home. Mom told me I should brush my hair.
“Why?”
“Well because you should look a little presentable.”
“It’s fine right, we’re just grabbing a book really quick, right?”
“Yes but you don’t want to leave the house looking like you do.”
I huffed and opened our sliding glass door going outside to the car.
“You should at least put some shoes on!”
“I’m FINE, Can we just go and get this over with”
I angrily and annoyed drove/ sped down the paved road to their house, all the while questioning my mother why she really needed me to go with her.
“I don’t know, there might be something there for you.”
I had no idea what that meant. We drove to the shop on their property that this supposed book was. I stepped out of the car, barefoot on the gravel and walked into the shop. There I see Dakota, holding a sign. I frantically looked around to figure out what was going on. I see Anna crouched in a corner covering her smiling mouth. I looked at his sign and read the homecoming proposal which used lyrics and titles from Beatles songs, my favorite band.
“Oh, Dakota! Of course yes!”
I gave him an awkward hug and turned around to realize that my mother didn’t need a book at all.
Dakota was sweet. In an innocent way. He had casually asked before if we could date, but being the reserved and shy individual I was, I had always declined. After the dance, we drifted, not for any particular reason. I heard he had started dating a different girl. She was older by two years. Was I hurt? Not particularly. Was I jealous? Maybe a little more so. They went to prom together and she was definitely way prettier than me. It happens, I thought, we aren’t meant to be. A romantic relationship would definitely change our entire chemistry.
Summer came and we were out working together on his family’s farm. We spent hours in the fields, talking, singing, and sweating. Just good friends again. It was normal and felt right. We spent a week together in late July on a church trip. We worked on a homeless shelter with our youth group and had a fun yet powerful time together. My mom, dad, and brother were on this trip as well, along with many of our church friends. After the week was done on Saturday, we drove back to our town. I remember waving goodbye to his family in their Suburban as they left the church parking lot. I didn’t realize how significant that goodbye would be.
A few days went by and we had casual texting conversations about work and school starting in the next few weeks. He texted me Tuesday night that his dad really needed some help the next morning bright and early. I wanted to sleep in. He texted “Don’t worry about it, we’ll get it covered.” A decision I’d soon regret.
Wednesday morning, I go to the church with my mom to do a couple of things with her. I can’t even recall what it was. We were getting into our car when we heard loud sirens throughout our small town. Mom and I looked at each other. Sirens are never a good sign. We get in the car, curious, but praying whoever needs the ambulance is okay. My mom gets a phone call. It’s one of our family friends. She says Dakota and his older brother have been in a bad car accident. That heavy feeling that makes your heart sink to your stomach instantly hit me. “They’re okay, they’re okay, they’re okay.” I kept telling myself. The ambulance was going fast, and Dakota is strong. He’s practically invincible. My mother’s friend tells us that we should stop by Dakota’s house to grab the boys clean clothes and bring them to the emergency room. We drive in silence, except for maybe a short prayer that the boys are okay. We get to the house and my mom quickly runs up the stairs to the boys’ bedroom. I stay downstairs. I observe the dining room. Dirty laundry in the baskets. Dirty dishes on the counter. Dakota’s name on a marker board along with a list of chores to do. We speed to the emergency room in the nearby town. On the way we received a text from Dakota’s older brother, John. He said he was doing okay but he wasn’t sure about Dakota. We should be keeping their family in our prayers. The panic was rising in my throat. I had been nervous about things before. This was different. It was like a nauseating churn that started in my stomach. Like my soul was shaking out of my physical body. We got to the hospital, parked and my mom said I should stay in the car. Probably wanting to protect me from any scarring sights within the ER. I wanted to go in. Could I see him? She insisted that I stay in the car. I stayed. Frozen at first. Then rocking back and forth. My palms were shaking and itchy in the center.
“This can’t be happening. Not Dakota. He’s like my best friend. Kids don’t die. He’s too young. Too smart. He has an incredibly successful life ahead of him.”
I was eyeing the automatic door for any sign of someone that I recognized. The ten minutes I waited felt like an hour. Ten minutes of restless uncertainty. Then I see my mom. She had one of the hardest faces that I had ever seen her make. She opened the driver’s side door and I immediately asked “What’s going on. Is he ok?!”
She looks at me dead in the eyes, shaking her head, “He didn’t make it, Jasmine”
A million emotions and questions flood my brain. I started blubbering and sobbing while hitting the dashboard. “No, no, no. Why!? Why him?” My mom breaks down with me, not able to get out a single word. The family friend who delivered the phone call joins us in the car. She says Dakota’s in a better place now. I’m in a state of shock and disbelief. Hot tears will not stop streaming down my cheeks. We were silent on the way back home. I ran upstairs to my room and shut the door. I cried into a pillow for the rest of the afternoon. I skipped dinner. There was a candlelight vigil that evening at a church. I barely had the strength to go, but my mom said it would be good for me. I brought my water bottle. I ate nothing and only drank water to replenish my tears the next two days. Saturday morning, I went to a different church with my family to see Dakota’s family. The church’s youth were making survivor bracelets out of parachute cord. Dakota had made them during his depressive episodes during his 9th grade year, when we somewhat drifted. Dakota and I took Spanish class together our freshman year. One day he asked me what my favorite color was. I told him blue. The next day he gave me a blue bracelet he had made. He said he accidentally made one too small. I was instantly brought back to that moment while standing in the church with dozens of people learning how to braid the cord. When I got home, I tore apart my vanity in search for the bracelet he had made for me. I put it on my right hand. I wore the bracelet everyday for an entire year. I had a Dakota original.
Dakota’s brother, John, who was entering his senior year, invited many of us friends to go out to the place where the accident happened. It was a blind intersection that I had previously been weary of earlier that summer. The corn was high and there were no road signs for a yield or stop. John explained how they had just got in the truck after working the field about a half mile south and were going to take their lunch break. He said they had just started going down the road, picking up speed, when he heard a small voice tell him to put his seatbelt on. John put his seatbelt on, but Dakota didn’t. John said he felt as if there was something around the corner, but ultimately did not slow down near the intersection. A driver, going 50 miles per hour, t-boned them in the intersection. According to John, the truck rolled and Dakota was thrown through the windshield. John found his phone and quickly called 911. He found Dakota and blood was coming from his mouth. He had a large wound on his forehead where he had smashed the dashboard. John pulled him into the field of soybeans, opposite the corn, and tried performing CPR. Dakota was mumbling and sputtering blood before his breathing stopped. The paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene. They said he was internally decapitated.
The wake for Dakota was on Sunday night. I had a tough time finding the strength to go. We waited in line behind dozens of people for close to an hour. When I finally got up to him, my heart sank again. There he was. His skin was pale. His hair was not right. His mother, who was right by, said it was okay to touch him. I reached for his hair to move it how he usually wore it. As I parted it, I saw the large scar covered by gobs of makeup that the hair was covering on his forehead. I put it back.
His funeral was the next day. Monday. At 1:18PM, his birthday date. I felt sick the whole morning. My whole family got in the car and my mom was talking to my younger siblings. I was silent. I was going to one of my best friends’ funerals. The church where the funeral was held was absolutely packed. Parked cars took up the surrounding blocks. The church had multiple floors and rooms with casted video of the celebration of life. I was considered close enough to sit in the sanctuary in the front half of the pews. I sat with my gifted teacher and other friends from the gifted program. What a terrible way to end your summer. Saying hello to people you haven’t seen in a few months at a funeral. I remember the funeral. There were songs and the service was led in large by Dakota’s own mother. To this day I have no idea how she had the strength to do that. I remember a few of the songs that were sung, but I’ll never forget the sound of the casket closing. The last goodbye. The final SLAM. His face would never again have sunlight shown upon it. Never again would a person touch him, hold him, hug him.
My family tried to get out to the burial but the crowd was just too insanely large to get around. I had the final say that we could go home. I’d come back another time.
The next day, I went to the scene of the accident. It was an intersection 5 miles east of my house. Someone had put up a make-shift cross at the intersection. I brought a big University of Kansas patch from one of our gifted trips to place at the cross. He loved basketball, and especially the Jayhawks. On the back of the patch I had written “I love you”. That night, there was a big storm. I sat up straight in bed and started crying as the wind whistled by my windows. The patch.
When I woke up, I found a reason to leave home and went back out to the intersection. I ran up to the cross and found my patch wrapped tightly around the base with some old barbed wire. I burst into tears of relief. I have no idea who saved my patch.
The next two weeks were spent preparing for school and fall practice. I had decided to do tennis that fall instead of volleyball. On the first day of school, I rode the bus into the town with my school. We drove past the intersection and I burst into tears. I cried four more times that day. Each time in the class he should have been in with me. I was distraught. I have no other way to describe how absolutely depressed I was walking the halls. Teachers were not the same. There was an absence in our sophomore class. An absence on our football team. In our audition choir. In our youth group. And in me. I tried my best to get through it. I started journaling a little bit after the accident to help organize my thoughts. To remember all the little details I could about him. To write them down so they didn’t disappear.
My sophomore year was brutal. I was playing tennis in the fall with a small team of girls who helped to create a safe and calm environment for me. I spent all of my hours in the team vehicle listening to two Lifehouse albums on repeat. I’d look out the window and reflect. What was life? What was my purpose? Why did this happen?
I didn’t have an answer. I bottled it up. It seemed that a lot of my class who weren’t very close with Dakota had a lot easier time going back to their normal lives. I was missing a friend. There was a contact in my phone from whom I’d never received another text. I had unfinished business. We had talked all summer about how our math class and Spanish II classes would be so fun this year. The bracelet I wore everyday was getting a stark tan line.
The semester rolled on. One of my other close friends moved to Colorado. And my last best friend, Anna, was in her own self-discovery phase. She wasn’t as close to Dakota and I was more or less a depressed teen at that time. I cried at school. In the bathrooms. In the locker room or a small music practice room. Am I just that sensitive? Why is no one else dealing with this grief like I am? I tried to distract myself with various activities. It worked for the most part. In the spring, I went out for softball. I loved softball. I had been playing it for years. I even had helped “assistant coach” a little girls rec league with Dakota and his family a few summers beforehand. Softball was hard but I needed the challenge. I worked hard at the sport and found myself on the varsity team after multiple players were out for the season due to injury or illness. In the last regular season game, on May 9th on our home field, I broke my leg. I had a high impact with the catcher while trying to steal home. The ump called me safe and we won the game by a run rule as I crumpled to the ground. I remember thinking I could stand up, but the weirdest tingling started down my leg around my knee. My coach carried me off the field like a baby. I pulled my helmet off and one tear slid down my cheek. They put me on a stretcher while the athletic trainer checked my knee.
“Yep, you fractured a bone. We should get you in to the ER for an X-ray”
“Fracture? Like my bone broke?”
“Yes that’s what a fracture is”
I started sobbing. Not from the pain. From the overwhelming feeling of becoming an invalid for an uncertain amount of time. I slid in the back of my mom’s vehicle as we drove down to the county ER. We got there, I was still in uniform. Just hysterical. I had no idea what was going on as I had never had an injury like this before. The ER lady took X-rays of my right leg. The images came back and showed a tibial plateau fracture. I wouldn’t be walking for a while. They helped cut me out of my softball pants and sent me home with lots of pain killers. The next few days I spent vomiting from the strong norco drug. I had a surgery a few days later where they placed hardware in my knee and put me in a straight-leg brace. I was miserable. It was hot and scratchy and I had my finals coming up. I went back to school the next Wednesday or Thursday to collect some class work to do at home. As I lived on the downstairs couch for close to three weeks I found myself asking again “Why did this happen?” I finished the school year by doing my final projects and giving my German foreign exchange student friend a final hug. I remember thinking “This is a nicer way to say goodbye to someone forever”.
I couldn’t walk for most of the summer and I started painful physical therapy. I was frequenting 3 times a week for a long while to build back my strength and relearn to walk. As soon as I was weight-bearing, I started working outside again. Doing what I could with one crutch. Dakota’s dad hired me to help manage the field workers and I could do some wood stacking decently enough. On the 1 year anniversary of Dakota’s death, I went to the gravesite for a small ceremony. It was the first time I had been there. The intersection where he died was my frequent mourning spot, almost daily on my drive to and from school. The gravestone was large and obviously very expensive. It has a beautiful picture of him and the quote “You got this”, that he used often as a self-reassuring phrase. At some point after the 1-year, I stopped wearing the bracelet he made me. Was it time to let go? How long does one mourn?
The rest of my high school journey was tainted with the memories of him and the phantom memories of where I imagined him being. At my graduation, we had an honorary memorial and scholarship dedicated to him and his character. Then I went to college. I was already dating who would become my husband a number of years later.
Years have passed. There is no happy ending. I'm still here. Aging. Growing older while I can still see the face of my 15 year old friend. He isn’t growing. He’s in the ground. Resting. It feels like a lifetime until I can see him again. I’ve had dreams of him. Unprompted visions of him were prevalent for about 2 years after he passed. You would think this story would get easier after the number of times I’ve played in my head over all of these years. But it hasn’t. I’m in the acceptance stage of grief. I’ve lived life, gotten married, laughed again, and see a bright future for myself. Though I do often think, Where would Dakota be now? Would we have become closer friends? Would he be married? He would have made a good father.
Again, I have no answers to these questions that I suppose may eternally sit with me. I do have some answers though. I’ve learned how to not take people for granted. I’ve learned how to recognize depressive symptoms and how to be a listening ear for someone who feels hopeless. I’ve learned how to find purpose in helping people. I’ve learned patience. Sometimes patience is agonizing, which means the reward is definitely worth the wait.

Wish I was posting this story acting as if I’m entirely shocked but I’m not. So I regularly golf with my twin brother and older brother. My older brother has of anger in all things he does. Today we had a 9 AM tee time in central PA. I anticipated the round would be sluggish because it rained the past few days and tomorrow is Mother’s Day. Therefore, everyone and their brother was out to play a round.
Needless to say my older brother plays the first two holes struggling, but nothing out of the ordinary for our skill range. By the third hole, he hears older ladies laughing on the first tee box that runs parallel to the first hole. Not at him, but just general morning conversation with others in their tee box. That pisses him off and he doesn’t finish that hole.
He proceeds to sit in his cart while my brother and I finish the hole. Unknown to us, he takes to google reviews to shit on the course about the wait time and being cart path only. We play through the front 9 and things seem to get better. When we get to the 11th hole, shit hits the fan.
A lady (the general manager) drive up to us and asks for my brothers name, which struck me as odd. She asked why he left that review and he muttered several remarks about pace of play. She then told him that his round was finished, and she would reimburse him for the back 9 but they didn’t want him at their privately owned course any longer. They continue a shouting match that I attempted to defuse telling him just to leave.
Hilariously he asked if he could just finish the round and amend his review if things got better by the end. My brother having seen him pull this in a softball league and other areas were not leaving with him after we paid our money to play. He told us after that we showed no support and is pissed off for not having back when he’s just expressing his freedom of speech. We told him he had that right but the golf course also had the right to deny him service based on those actions.
Apparently the police were called to the clubhouse and he ultimately went home. Fairly certain we are done playing with him all together. Has anyone ever witnessed anything crazy like this?
TLDR: my brother gave a 1 star google review while still playing the course and was thrown off the course by management.

Let me start this out by saying this is going to be a long one and it happened years ago so this is the full story. I wanted to post in sweet revenge but getting approval over there is pretty hard. I figured the community of reddit would love this one and it's been long enough I can tell people now. Im also dyslexic so plz don't come for me for bad grammar. This spans over a 2 year time period.
At the time l 13 female had what I believed to be a fairytale romance with my bf male. We grew up together as our families had a lot of common activity's and we'd end up being around each other a lot. He was always a rude kid and he'd pick on me but when we got older we stopped going with our families to events due to teenage angst but randomly we met again and started dating (such a fairy tale I know) I got "lucky" because I never got his contact info but one of his friends "Devon " little sister "Lucy" got us in contact with each other because my boyfriend was always at her house and I had a bunch of classes with her in middle school. He was a highschooler so we would not have bumped into each other making it perfect he was always at my friend’s house. Everything was perfect to 13 year old me, however things were not as they seemed and he was worse than he was as a child. He would fist fight his dad in their driveway ,yell at me, on numerous occasions he cut me with a switchblade during our intimate moments (He wanted me to "scream louder"), he would roll over and cry if I did not want to do the deed, he would steal money from me, he would be pissed at me for having extracurricular activities like softball because it would take away from the time I had for him, he got me into drugs, he stole pain medication from me when I had shoulder surgery and so many more red flags I did not see coming. I was so blindsided by what I believed to be a perfect story of reconnecting with a childhood friend and falling in love that i ignored this. One day about a year into our relationship his best friend (Ryan) called a group of us together and he told my boyfriend that he had slept with me the night before. I was entirely blindsided one because I thought Ryan was also my friend and two because we had done no such thing! Ryan showed screenshots of us texting but the number attached to my so called "texts" to the friend was not mine. He also described my home perfectly but he had been in my house because I would let Ryan and my bf go to my house when no one was there to steal alcohol from my parents on multiple occasions. I tried to explained all of this but my bf and all his friends dog piled on me and slut shamed me. My boyfriend claimed I could have been using a free texting app and that Ryan has been to my house but how would he remember all the details when they were just there to steal booze. For some reason my ex decided we were not going to break up and I also stayed with him. Maybe it was the trauma and the public humiliation I felt making me believe this was the best I could do now. No one was nice to me for the longest time. Every class I had people would tell me to "just admit to it" but I wasn't about to admit to something I hadn't even done. This probably didn't help me either tho because people just believed I was a cheater and a liar now. After this my bf would cheat on me openly with any girl who would let him and l'd always find out but l'd tell myself "it will never happen again he loves me" he would go on to cheat on me and abuse me for another year until I finally snapped when I found out he had cheated on me with Lucy the very girl that had gotten us together 2 years prior. Mind you she was a year younger than me and people were already telling me he was gross for dating me because of our age gap. I snapped and broke up with him which in turn made them start dating. I was absolutely heart broken and I'm not proud but i believed he was the only boy that would ever want me he had broken me down time after time to believe I was worthless and it worked. I went to his house to talk and we ended up sleeping together meaning he had just cheated on his new girlfriend with me. Which I am not proud of by any means and to make it worse her brother Devon walked in as we were doing the deed. They stayed together and idk if Devon told his sister. One day after I had come to terms with us being over I was at the school, I had left my bike chained up to a fence. Around lunch lucy walked up to me and told me that my ex had taken it. I was so mad because he knew my bike lock combination and just thought he’d steal my bike. We left the school together and the whole walk to my ex's house I was going off telling Lucy everything he has ever done to me and berating her, just being very mean. She walked and listened. When we got to the house he was nowhere to be seen so I took a rock and smashed his bike lock open and stole his bike as Lucy watched. My ex was riding home on my bike as I was walking back to school with his and we met in the middle and made a trade. I was so mad I wanted nothing to do with him anymore. A couple months later I heard that my ex and Lucy were having a big issue apparently she cheated on him with Ryan. I wasn't sure I believed it at first because I went through the same thing but Lucy confirmed it and she also got pregnant by Ryan. Lucy also gave my ex HSV 2 in the process of cheating on him. Lucy and Ryan became a couple to raise their child and my ex had to just sit in his anger alone. No girl wanted my ex anymore after knowing that he had HSV 2 and Lucy made sure to tell people.
That is the story of the amazing karma everyone who did me wrong received but their is a happy twist for most of us. Years later I reconnected with Lucy and apologized to her for everything I did and said back then and she actually thanked me. She told me if it wasn't for me she would have been manipulated just the same but because I told her everything when he stole my skateboard she never let him get away with any of it thus protecting herself in the process. Lucy and Ryan are living a super happy life still with their son. Ryan has even recently reached out to apologize for saying those things all those years ago and has publicly acknowledged he was lying to other people from back then. And we are all friendly when we see each other. I've had a bit of a glow up and left everyone in the dust. My ex is still as miserable as ever to this day he is alone and pathetic. P.s. all names are changed