Watching the Phillies with women

By now, we have all seen the very famous and incredibly well-written Men's Health article, "The Secret to Talking Sports with Any Woman."

Men's Health is comfortable handling such a sweeping generalization as they are known as a versatile publication, featuring myriad covers anywhere from a man glowering to a man laughing to a man screaming and stories ranging from penis myths to pop-up ads for sex tips. Recently, they wrote this:

Not all women share your passion for sports, in case you hadn't noticed. The reason? They need story lines.

They took it upon themselves to tackle the "Women vs. Sports" issue once and for all. In three entire paragraphs - one of them two lines, one of them one line, Teresa Sabga lays out the extremely difficult task of taking a woman's brain in your hands and molding it in a way that allows it to understand sports. What it boils down to is explaining the stories behind each player, rather than focusing on the stats they produce while playing the actual game.

We contacted our own Philadelphia-region expert on the topic, Dr. Clete Hornswater, PhD, who was thrilled to be a part of a brief, three-paragraph blog post that no one will read. He is the author of such works as:

• Watching Sports with Women
• Watching Women with Sports
• The Menstruation Epidemic*
• Yes, Vagina, There is a Santa Claus and Throwing Snowballs at him is Cool

"Watching sports with women is an experiment in fool-tility," he explains via skype. When pressed if he meant to say "futility," he began a very fake coughing fit, then continued on.

"Basically, a woman's brain can't handle the idea of competition. A man watching sports on the couch is the modern day equivalent of driving a stage coach through dangerous territory, being fired upon by vicious bandits. It's just the cool, manly thing we do now. Women were left out of that practice in the old west, often cowering inside the wagon, and so it is best to leave them out of it in the present day as well."

Women next to you on the couch leave you at extreme risk of conversation, affection, or attention, all things that pull you away from your sports-watching/bandit-killing. But instead of angering or divorcing them, Hornswater agrees that "bringing them into your world" is the new 20th century solution, a far cry from the stage coach-era solution of "tossing the woman from the horse in hopes that she is enough of a distraction to keep the outlaws busy while you escape to a mountain hideout."

"What Men's Health has tried to do here is break down how exactly one should communicate with a woman, despite this being one of the most impossible things in the known world, like splitting an atom, but the atom just wants to ask you about your feelings," Dr. Hornswater explains. "First, you have to tell them what position a guy plays. Then, deal with the endless questions that follow. 'Why is the shortstop #6 on the score sheet?' and such. As men, we of course know the cool answer to this, but explaining it to a woman is [makes dismissive hand gesture]."

"But instead of then explaining all the great stats we know by heart, you have to branch into his life; basically make each player into a woman's ideal mate, so that they can coo and clasp their hands together and you can finally get a moment's peace to watch the fuck outta some sports. Right? [Tries to fist bump via Skype]"

Dr. Hornswater, whose doctor title comes from being known as "Dr. Boner" among his work buddies and "PhD" being a clever abbreviation for "Pretty Hard D***," went on to explain that talking about Chase Utley's work with the PSPCA, or Jimmy Rollins' Family Foundation, or The Hamels Foundation will be sure to buy you some quiet sports-watching. Knowing Jimmy Rollins just wants kids to have access to fresh food will keep her instinct to nurture at bay while you scream until you taste blood about him not running out a pop-up.

Thanks to noted "sexperts" like Dr. Boner, we men, among the many, many challenges society puts upon us, are able to undertake our biggest daily struggle: Interacting with women.

Apologies for our "talk sports with her" story. It missed the mark and the negative feedback is justified. We've deleted it. [part 1]

— Men's Health Mag (@MensHealthMag) October 7, 2014

*The Menstruation Epidemic was actually a work of fiction meant to be the first novel of a trilogy, in which women in a small Pacific Northwestern town contract a virus that transforms them into slobbering zombies upon the onset of their monthly cycles. Publishers called it "lacking even a single correct thought" and the project was shelved, the shelf in question being inside a furnace.