Heartthrob. Nice guy. Native American role model. Oh, and he plays a mean game of baseball. Readers counted the ways they love Jacoby Ellsbury. Plus, takes on military bases, cooking smells, and platonic friends.
Ellsbury Fan Club
Thank you for one of the best articles I've read in the Globe Magazine ("The Jacoby Factor," March 30). I was moved by the story and hope Jacoby Ellsbury will remain with the Red Sox for years. I'm sure he'll steal a lot more hearts than bases.
Ed Vieara
Watertown
I am a fan of Ellsbury and also Nathan Gerbe, a Boston College hockey player. Both bring unmatched speed and creative instincts to their respective games. If you could only figure out how to teach some of what these kids do.
Having just read Plenty-coups: Chief of the Crows (I've read it twice, and I'll surely read it a third time), the introduction to Neil Swidey's story rings true. It was a great approach without overemphasizing Ellsbury's Indian culture.
Pete Thalmann
Holliston
I so enjoyed Swidey's article on Ellsbury. I was a teammate of Billy Mills for three years on the Marine Corps track teams at Quantico and Camp Pendleton. Mills was and still is a very humble and gracious individual, devoting a great deal of time to Indian affairs. I can really relate to the story of Ellsbury's speed and his innate sense of when to use it. For years and from personal experience, it has been clear to me that managers, coaches, and owners have no idea what having speed really means. Speed gives someone like Ellsbury the power to excel beyond normal athletes. Do you think Nolan Ryan ever wondered whether he couldn't blow a 100-mile-an-hour fastball by the best of them? Would some coach that couldn't break a pane of glass tell Ryan to throw a change-up?
Tony Wayne
Rancho Mirage, California
Ellsbury is an electrifying player, and I think Swidey was able to capture that feeling. He was also able to make Ellsbury out to be an actual human, which oftentimes is hard these days with many athletes.
Maria Giobellina
West Boylston
I'm an American Indian, Choctaw. Swidey's article is terrific. I've just written a novel, Miko Kings, about American Indians and baseball, set in 2006 and 1907 in Indian Territory, which discusses American Indians inventing the game of baseball. Certainly they were playing it by the time Lewis and Clark's Corps of Discovery came up into the Northwest in 1805.
Leanne Howe
Interim Director, American Indian Studies University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Urbana, Illinois
Seen on the Web
From Outsports.com's "Jock Talk Blog" regarding Swidey's line about Ellsbury – "Teeny-bopper girls, women of all ages, and gay men love his looks, a mix of boyish cute and rugged ethnic":
I can't believe they grouped us with the teeny-boppers! Anyway, I hope the steroid era in baseball is over and has given way to a new era that can once again inspire the nation: a fitter, cleaner-shaven era of cuteness. – Ryan Quinn
Off Base
Writer Scott Lajoie should please get his head out of the sand ("Perspective," March 30). I don't usually agree with John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, and William Delahunt, but they are right on this one. The fact that we have this sizable security asset in the military base in Bourne shows the rest of the world that we have the potential to protect ourselves and our children. Cutting down this strategic defense position would be suicidal.
Lester Seymour
Boxford
The Massachusetts Military Reservation on Cape Cod will continue to be a busy, relevant military installation serving homeland security and defense training. Our space requirements are justified. For example, the Coast Guard, with more than 600 members assigned to the MMR, will continue to operate its helicopters and jets flying homeland security, search and rescue, and fisheries enforcement missions, and manage a 500-unit housing area for more than 2,000 residents from all of the armed forces. Due to recurring service-member relocations, coupled with the high cost of housing on the Cape, these quarters are in demand.
Captain Dan Abel
CUS Coast Guard Commanding Officer, Coast Guard Air Station Cape Cod
Bourne
Daddy Day Care
Regarding Keith Flannigan's story about forgoing yardwork to play with his daughter ("Tales From the City Extravaganza!" March 30): I've been in touch with St. Peter, and Flannigan's place in heaven is assured!
Peter W. Bertschmann
Sherborn
Friends, Not Lovers
Thank you for the March 30 "Coupling" essay. As a 30-year-old woman who doesn't have any male friends for many of the same reasons Ethan Gilsdorf wrote about not having female friends, I'm glad to know that someone else out there is in the same boat. It actually takes supreme effort on my part not to look at every guy who comes my way as a potential date. I don't think it's a desire for attention, as Gilsdorf wrote, but the fact that we both know our mate is eventually coming along, and we're just checking to see if he/she is that person.
Barbara Bellesi
Newton
I went out with a good male friend recently and was faced with the situation that Gilsdorf describes. The whole night I kept thinking, should I? Will he? Should we? Good judgment (or just plain freaked-out energy) prevailed, and I did nothing except exchange some inappropriate texts with him afterward.
Indeed, being friends with the opposite sex can be tricky but also wonderful. The world we live in, as well as the lack of boundaries we operate in create a jumble of interesting but confusing possibilities.
Rosanna Y. de la Cruz
Somerville
There definitely is a dance that occurs in cross-gender friendships, the official When Harry Met Sally syndrome. Just wait, though. Things get a bit more complicated on the friendship front when you are married and you have to find other couples whom both you and your spouse like.
Jodi R R Smith
Salem
Odor Eater
In response to D.C. in Boxborough who was trying to avoid a downstairs neighbor's strong Indian cooking smells ("Miss Conduct," March 30): I cook quite a bit of Indian food myself, and as soon as I finish cleaning up after the meal, I place about three small dishes of white vinegar where the smells are strongest. Within hours, the odors are gone.
Christine Lewis
Andover
