{"id":6720,"date":"2019-07-03T15:52:22","date_gmt":"2019-07-03T22:52:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/hi-lo\/i-can-give-billie-jean-king-good-fight-new-library-name\/"},"modified":"2019-07-04T13:07:36","modified_gmt":"2019-07-04T20:07:36","slug":"i-can-give-billie-jean-king-good-fight-new-library-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/commentary-2\/i-can-give-billie-jean-king-good-fight-new-library-name","title":{"rendered":"Take away tennis and I can give Billie Jean King a good fight for the new library name"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the risk of sounding perhaps a tad self-absorbed, or possibly arrogant or imperious, I take a smidgen of an exception to the City Council\u2019s headlong and rash decision to name the dazzling new Main Library after Billie Jean King<\/a> rather than, just to pick a name out of a hat, me.<\/p>\n

OK, you just made that \u201cpffftsh\u201d sound. I\u2019m sitting right here. That\u2019s a hurtful and dismissive sound, and a little sloppy, too.
\nHere, take this simple quiz:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. What should the new library be named:
    \nA. Billie Jean King Library
    \nB. Timothy J. Grobaty Library<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    All right, that totally didn\u2019t go the way I expected. I\u2019m not married to the \u201cTimothy J\u201d part, it could just be Tim Grobaty Library, or even the Grobaty Library if you want to honor my wife and kids, too. Whatever it takes to change your vote.<\/p>\n

    It\u2019s easy (and, I would argue, lazy) to argue in favor of Billie Jean King: 39 Grand Slam titles, former Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year and Time magazine\u2019s Person of the Year, recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2014 for her advocacy for women and the rights of the LGBTQ community.<\/p>\n

    Councilwoman Jeannine Pearce, who will be recommending the name in Tuesday\u2019s Council meeting, said in a statement that King \u201cis more than an athlete.\u201d Well, so am I. So much so that \u201cathlete” isn\u2019t even the first word that pops into your head when you hear my name.<\/p>\n

    Let’s do it this way: King went to Poly; I went to Wilson. Point, Grobaty.<\/p>\n

    King\u2019s written books; I\u2019ve written books. And, because I\u2019ve read all of mine and none of hers, I\u2019m going to go ahead and take that point, too.<\/p>\n

    Neither one of us graduated from college, but I got an honorary degree from Long Beach City College. King has a china cabinet full of honorary degrees, including from Northwestern, UMass Amherst, Cal State L.A. and several others, but certainly that doesn’t diminish the LBCC honorary associate’s degree that I have somewhere around the house. Is she in the Long Beach City College Hall of Fame? No, because she didn\u2019t go to LBCC. King has an excuse for every one of her failures when it comes to beating me.<\/p>\n

    I called, in a bit of a snit, my best friend Mayor Robert Garcia to make the case for slapping my name on the new library. He kicked the can down the road.<\/p>\n

    \u201cYou\u2019ve gotta make your case for the Century Club,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

    The Century Club is the city\u2019s longtime athletic outfit that funded King\u2019s trip to Wimbledon in 1961. Its current president, the first woman to hold that position, is Shar Higa, who happily is the wife of my faithful colleague Mike Guardabascio. All I\u2019ve gotta do is tell Mike to make his wife change her allegiance in my direction. I told my mayor my plan.<\/p>\n

    \u201cI don\u2019t know, Shar\u2019s pretty excited about Billie Jean,\u201d he said. \u201cSeriously, it\u2019s hard to think of a more deserving person than Billie Jean King.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Hard, or impossible?<\/p>\n

    Garcia threw us a bone: \u201cIf it makes you feel any better, there\u2019s a restroom in El Dorado Park with your name on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Seeking clarification, we asked, \u201cOn it, or in it?\u201d<\/p>\n

    \u201cBoth.\u201d<\/p>\n

    You know, the way the politics in this town work, I think I\u2019ll take it. Come by for a rest sometime. On me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Councilwoman Jeannine Pearce, who will be recommending the name in Tuesday\u2019s Council meeting, said in a statement that King \u201cis more than an athlete.\u201d Well, so am I. So much so that \u201cathlete” isn\u2019t even the first word that pops into your head when you hear my name.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":208,"featured_media":70359,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2791],"tags":[69],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[2792],"class_list":["post-6720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary-2","tag-tim-grobaty","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/208"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6720"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=6720"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=6720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}