Line #13 Main/SportsWidow


1	->''The other six months out of every year''\
2	''We are hardly ever seen apart''\
3	''But then the [[UsefulNotes/MajorLeagueBaseball Washington Senators]] take over my place in his heart''\
4	''Six months out of every year''
5	-->--'''Meg''', ''Theatre/DamnYankees'', "Six Months out of Every Year"
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7	A man's life stops when his team is playing. The children could be [[RunsWithScissors running with scissors]] or playing with matches, but the father is completely oblivious to anything but whether the umpire's call is fair (and whether the mother can get him a beer in time). The girlfriend could walk in front of the TV in the most {{stripperiffic}} lingerie known to man, but all the guy wants is for her to get out of the way so he can see the instant replay of the game-winning one-handed catch.
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9	Sometimes the girl, in the interest of not losing her man for months, will attempt to follow his team. She will either be obnoxiously ignorant or [[ConvertedFanboy pick up on the game so quickly that she will become a far more rabid fan than he.]]
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11	The term is usually written as sport-specific - "football widow", for example. And can be extended to any fanatical hobby that the spouse doesn't share, such as "gaming widow" for TabletopGames or "[=WoW=] widow" for ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft''. And this behavior isn't exclusive to men, either- a [[SoapWithinAShow soap-opera-loving]] {{Housewife}} may be more invested in the relationships between soap opera characters than her relationship with her husband, and a YaoiFangirl may be more invested in [[MostFanficWritersAreGirls reading or writing sexual fanfiction]] than [[ComeBackToBedHoney actually having sex with her boyfriend]].
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13	Compare AppointmentTelevision, which is simply about the need to watch programs on TV, such as sports games, the moment they're broadcast. They aren't mutually exclusive, but there is a lot of overlap between "someone who must drop everything to watch TV the moment their team is playing" and "someone who ignores their significant other when their team is playing".
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15	Not to be confused with Kathleen Chapman, whose husband [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Chapman Ray Chapman]] of the [[UsefulNotes/MajorLeagueBaseball Cleveland Indians]] was fatally injured in 1920 when a pitch struck him on the head (in the days before batting helmets), or with Sharon Hughes, whose husband [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Hughes Chuck Hughes]] of the [[UsefulNotes/NationalFootballLeague Detroit Lions]] died in 1971 of an in-game cardiac arrest.
16	----
17	!!Examples:
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19	[[foldercontrol]]
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21	[[folder: Advertising ]]
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23	* In a commercial for [=McDonald's=], a woman tells her boyfriend that her sister's boyfriend says that Sundays are only for watching football. Since he [the boyfriend we see] is so intelligent -- evidence of which is that he ordered off the [=McDonald's=] dollar menu -- he's able to come back with, "He's a jerk."
24	* Similarly, this 1984 Creator/{{Sony}} ad for their [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-F-e6Xtf_c Trinitron TV sets]]; with the husband watching the game with his friends on the Trinitron while his wife and kids are stuck watching a set that based on the very poor picture and the son having to adjust the antenna constantly is clearly on its last legs.
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26	[[/folder]]
27
28	[[folder: Fan Works ]]
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30	* The ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' of Creator/AAPessimal sees [[DraftDodging Heidi van Kruger]] settle the issue of ''not'' doing her National Service, once and for all, by marrying Danie Smith-Rhodes. [[note]]Married women are exepmt from conscription; in a conservative society, marriage and the promise of motherhood are seen as acceptable reasons not to be drafted[[/note]]. Danie, however, on emigrating to Ankh-Morpork, found ''his'' community among like-minded [[AmoralAfrikaner expatriots]], in the bros and the okes of [[RugbyIsSlaughter fifteen-a-side foot-and-hand-the-ball]]. Heidi accepts that on Saturday afternoons and training sessions, the Springboeks come first. Danie is seen reflecting on the inconvenient fact that women, for reasons known only to themselves, have a distressing habit of scheduling weddings to happen on Saturdays. He is seen wondering if he can persuade her to have the wedding first thing in the morning, so as to have his afternoon free for the game. He considers this a wholly reasonable thing to ask for. Her reaction is not recorded.
31	** A few years later, their niece Rebecka Smith-Rhodes meets a pleasant and engaging guy who she really likes. But ''his'' Saturday afternoons - and Sundays - and the occasional five days in the week - are devoted to [[UsefulNotes/{{Cricket}} Crockett]]. She realises where a lot of ''her'' summer Saturdays [[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12650047/42/Strandpiel are going to be spent]]. With the added kicker that the Morpork Crockett Club (M.C.C.) rules have a lengthy sub-section about the proper role of the distaff side in the genteel sport of Crockett. Which is to uncomplainingly be present in the pavilion to prepare and serve cake and sandwiches. And to pour the tea. To her great surprise, Bekki finds herself doing this. As a Witch, this irritates her somewhat.
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33	[[/folder]]
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35	[[folder: Film ]]
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37	* Both versions of ''Film/FeverPitch''. In both cases, the female lead starts falling for the male lead, who completely changes personas when Arsenal/the Boston Red Sox season starts.
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39	[[/folder]]
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41	[[folder: Literature ]]
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43	* Creator/IsaacAsimov's
44	** "Literature/TheMartianWay": Dora Swenson complains to her husband that she hates the way he would spend months away from home, wishing that he would find employment in any other job, as long as it was on Mars, so that they could actually live together and he would be present to help her raise their son, Peter.
45	--->"You can make a decent, honorable living right here on Mars, just like everybody else. I'm the only one in this apartment house that's a Scavenger widow. That's what I am- a widow. I'm worse than a widow, because if I were a widow, I'd at least have a chance to marry someone else-"
46	** ''Literature/Opus100'': Dr Asimov describes being married to a writer as a fate worse than death because he is "physically home and mentally absent". This book was published while he was married to his first wife, Gertrude Blugerman, who disliked his decision to write. [[Creator/JanetAsimov Janet Jeppson]] would have a different opinion.
47	* Several of Creator/DaveBarry's columns illustrate this phenomenon. In one of the illustrated ones, two bar patrons angrily yell at the owner to change the channel back to the sports game instead of the young woman prancing around in her underwear.
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49	[[/folder]]
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51	[[folder: Live Action TV ]]
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53	* ''Series/HomeImprovement'': Jill knew that Tim was basically useless when the Detroit Lions, Tigers, Red Wings, or Pistons were playing.
54	* ''Series/SexAndTheCity'': One of Samantha's Guys of the Week would refuse to have sex while his basketball team was playing. Sam tried to indulge his fandom, but when he turned out to have a team for every season, she walked away.
55	* In one episode of ''Series/MyNameIsEarl'', the [[MonsterOfTheWeek Karmic Restitution of the Week]] is fixing a relationship Earl ruined by making a guy obsessed with golf and getting dumped after turning his partner into a golf widow.
56	* ''Series/TheLeague'': Ruxin's wife Sofia knows to leave him alone when he and the rest of the league show up to watch. Averted by Kevin and Jenny: she's a bigger football fan (and better team owner) than he is.
57	* Ricky and Fred on ''Series/ILoveLucy'' get this way when watching a boxing match on television.
58	* ''Series/MarriedWithChildren'': Not exactly this but Al Bundy has a specific way of spending his holidays - totally isolating himself in front of TV. Otherwise he might snap.
59	* An episode of ''Series/StepByStep'' featured this, with Frank and Rich watching a basketball game and completely ignoring Carol and Dana, their wife and girlfriend, respectively. They finally snap out of it when Carol's French friend Jean-Luc shuts the television off and convinces them to have a formal dinner with their ladies.
60	* Debra Barone in ''Series/EverybodyLovesRaymond'' is a ''professional'' sports widow; husband Ray is a staff sports writer for a newspaper and is paid to go to sports events, watch them at home on newspaper-funded premium cable TV, and later satellite TV ([[{{TechnologyMarchesOn}} both of which were still in their infancy at the time]]), and to write about them afterwards. He also plays a lot of golf.
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62	[[/folder]]
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64	[[folder: Tabletop Games ]]
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66	* In the 5th Edition of ''TabletopGame/BloodBowl'', the background material for [[OurBansheesAreLouder banshee]] Star Player Gretchen Wächter mentions that she was, in life, a widow to her husbands' obsession with the game and developed an intense hated for it as a result. Gretchen was so incensed that her husband buried her wearing the strip of his favourite team, her spirit returned to torment him in death. When the necromancer Dirk the Abhorrent was forming his experimental ethereal Undead team, the Falorn Phantoms, he summoned Gretchen to terrify opposition players and the banshee finally found something she enjoyed about the game.
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68	[[/folder]]
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70	[[folder: Theatre ]]
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72	* In ''Theatre/DamnYankees'', Meg laments that she loses her husband to the Washington Senators "six months out of every year." Her voice is joined by a chorus of other baseball widows (and their umpire-berating husbands).
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74	[[/folder]]
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76	[[folder: Video Games]]
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78	* ''VideoGame/HarryPotterHogwartsMystery'' has "Face Paint Kid", a member of the player character's house at Hogwarts who is also a huge fan of Quidditch. Nobody knows his real name, and he's always decked out in face paint flaunting the house's colors to show team pride; he's also ''only'' involved in questlines or events that deal with Quidditch, although he finally broke out to participate in a Festival event... which took place on the Quidditch pitch.
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80	[[/folder]]
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82	[[folder: Web Comics ]]
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84	* Cindy and the other club wives in ''Webcomic/LarryLeadhead'', who are in various degrees resigned to coming second to their husbands' obsessions with toy soldiers and models.[[note]]not the MsFanservice kind. [[GetYourMindOutOfTheGutter Plastic, resin and metal scale models and construction kits.]] Although there ''is'' a dark RuleThirtyFour side to the hobby, Larry and the guys do not go there. [[/note]]
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86	[[/folder]]
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88	[[folder: Web Original ]]
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90	* Nikki & John Pranksters in Love: Nikki is a victim of this in the gaming sense when John is playing video games on his X-Box. Naturally, this is the basis of numerous pranks by her to him. She destroyed his X-Box with a baseball bat, then switched out his new X-Box's hard drive with a new one to make him think she deleted everything on it, and then hid his copy of ''[[VideoGame/CallOfDutyModernWarfare3 Modern Warfare 3]]'' a day after it came out in stores.
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92	[[/folder]]
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94	[[folder: Western Animation ]]
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96	* ''{{WesternAnimation/Futurama}}'' flips the genders. Fry's mother is a hardcore Packers fan, and his father is too busy preparing for the latest conspiracy to give a damn what ''anyone'' else is doing.
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98	[[/folder]]

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