That’s really unfair of me to write, TBH. Emily officially stopped switch hitting off the course the day she signed those divorce papers, though in all likelihood she stopped long before then.
When this strip featured golf in the past, it was almost exclusively as a summer filler arc and predominantly involved someone hustling or otherwise cheating at the game. In the Barajas Era, it has been used as the vehicle to destroy the Thorps’ marriage, transforming Emily f/k/a Mimi from a generally pleasant, generally athletic wife and mother who could impart life lessons of her own into a miserable, misshapen lesbian who thinks only of herself.
That’s also really unfair of me to write, too. Emily doesn’t only think of herself; she also thinks about exacting revenge on her ex-husband. In so doing she follows in the footsteps of the pre-firing Luke Martinez and the God-only-knows-why Mitch Gerads. Pretty sure I’ve pointed this out previously but it is entirely possible for a coach of one of Milford’s conference rivals to have a relationship with another coach that isn’t based on seething hatred and spite. (See Andrews, Tod.)
Speaking of coaching relationships, anyone find it bizarre that Kim has this sort of fawning respect for Emily? After all, he was named VT’s AD after Luke’s firing; now she has his job yet he’s still on the staff. Don’t tell me Kim saw himself as a placeholder and now sees Emily as somehow being more worthy of the position?
I’m sure I’ll have more to say about this but it’s early Sunday morning as I write and I need to crash. teenchy out.
This Week in Milford 
Too Many Coaches Spoil the Broth
“As of 2025 the strip is carried by the lowest number of newspapers in its history. This has been accredited by long time fans as being due to the low-grade quality writing of Henry Barajas and the poor artwork provided by Rachel Merrill.[citation needed]“ – Wikipedia, as of today
SCENE: Editorial offices, Tribune Content Agency (TCA)
TCA Comics Editor 1: We’ve gotta do something about Gil Thorp. Papers are dropping it like a bad habit. At this rate it’s gonna have fewer readers than Gasoline Alley, even though that strip’s readers are all over 100.
TCA Comics Editor 2: Do we know why? Is it the way it looks or the way it reads?
TCACE1: Both. Ever since Whigham retired, it looks like it’s been drawn by a thumb. Weren’t we promised better? Merrill’s been working with Barajas on Death to Pachuco; shouldn’t her work for us look at least as good? Same goes for him as well. Neither of them are giving us their A game.
TCACE2: Game. Game. That’s the problem. The best writers write what they know.
TCACE1: What are you saying? That he’s a gender-fluid teenaged girl?
TCACE2: What? No! What I’m saying is that he doesn’t know sports. He knows Latino culture and social justice issues, but a strip about sports can’t be about those things all the time.
TCACE1: Right. We can’t just can both of them – well, at least not him. He got a contract extension and getting rid of him now would just create legal hassles. So what do we do?
TCACE2: Well, as far as the artwork is concerned, we can bring in a couple of “guest artists” and give ’em a trial run. Maybe a reader poll at the end of their runs to see who they like best?
TCACE1: Careful with that idea. If we listened to the readers now, we’d have killed this strip months ago. Okay, let’s say that solves the art problem. What do we do about the writing?
TCACE2: You know how Barajas likes to work using AI into the strip? Like how he has the coaches using it all the time? Maybe he could start using it himself. Just have him plug in what time of year it is, and the AI should be able to tell him what high school sports are being played. Then he could ask it what kind of terms are used to describe the sport, and it could churn out phrases he could work in instead of what he passes off as dialogue.
TCACE1: That’d be a start. Hey! You mentioned Latino culture. Wasn’t he just writing about a basketball player whose family might be illegal immigrants? What happened with that?
TCACE2: Well, you know Barajas. He’s on the record that characters are always more interesting to him than plot. Besides, while we’re trying out new artists, he can just spin his wheels writing dialogue for all the main characters. After all, we want to see how the new – I mean, the guest artist draws the regulars before we commit. Then he can get back to that story.
TCACE1: Yeah, I guess you’re right. That’ll give Barajas more time to figure out how to use AI to write his plots.