So, this may be weird for a minute. But bear with me.
I started dating my now ex-wife when we were 17. Back when we were 17 I took a picture of her out at a park or wherever and it was a good picture. She looked lovely in it and, for a few years, I had the picture in a frame on my dresser. Took it with me to college and stuff and kept it on my desk. If someone asked about my girlfriend I’d show them the picture because she looked lovely and I wanted to brag a little. I think everyone has done that with a picture of a significant other at some point.
As I got older and we got married and things, other pictures replaced that one and it was forgotten for a time. Then when I was, I dunno, 35, I found it in a box and looked at it. Of course she still looked lovely in it, but dude, she was 17 in it and I was 35 and there is something weird and wrong about a 35-year-old dude getting all moon-eyed and swoony at a picture of a 17-year-old, even if you took it when you were 17 and you were still with her now. Just an odd ethical area in some weird ways, right?
I never really reconciled how to feel about that and, thankfully, we’re now divorced, I don’t have that picture anymore and I will never again have to ask myself that question because the women I meet from here on out and get moon-eyed and swoony over will at least be in their 30s.
What made me think of all of that was going over to SB Nation this morning and seeing video of a 19-year-old Greg Maddux pitching in a minor league game. Obviously watching your man-crush when he was a teenager doesn’t raise quite the same ethical questions as looking at your teenaged girlfriend, but I feel like it’s almost in the same area code. It certainly stirs feelings inside of me that I don’t know quite what to do with because, well, I’m really damn weird when it comes to Greg Maddux.
Anyway, watch it yourself. And keep an eye out for Rafael Palmeiro and Dante Bichette too. And no, you may not see pictures of my ex-wife when she was 17. That’s way worse for you than it is for me: