Asked how she felt being the first woman to make a major-league team, she
said, "Like a pig in mud," or words to that effect, and then turned and
released a squirt of tobacco juice from the wad of rum soaked plug in her
right cheek. She chewed a rare brand of plug called Stuff It, which she
learned to chew when she was playing Nicaraguan summer ball. She told the
writers, "They were so mean to me down there you couldn't write it in your
newspaper. I took a gun everywhere I went, even to bed. *Especially* to
bed. Guys were after me like you can't believe. That's when I started
chewing tobacco -- because no matter how bad anybody treats you, it's not
as bad as this. This is the worst chew in the world. After this,
everything else is peaches and cream." The writers elected Gentleman Jim,
the Sparrow's P.R. guy, to bite off a chunk and tell them how it tasted,
and as he sat and chewed it tears ran down his old sunburnt cheeks and he
couldn't talk for a while. Then he whispered, "You've been chewing this for
two years? God, I had no idea it was so hard to be a woman."
-- Garrison Keillor
