Manning is twenty-eight years old now, soon to be twenty-nine. And she’s been touring since long before Steven Bobovnik stopped trick-or-treating. She’s dressed in a shape-fitting leotard, rubbing the back of her neck with a fluffy towel after a rehearsal in prep for a tour--one that’s been planned to kick-off in December ever since her latest release began to pop. She’s been convalescing and rehabbing since a tough injury set her back. She seems better now, though. She’s working hard to be at the top of her game.
Addy, her nine-year-old daughter, adopted with husband Lucas McNeill, is giggling and dancing with three of Manning’s entourage in the corner of the room.
She’s responding to inuendo cast by the young Brooklyn pitcher that suggested she’d been engaged in an affair with one of Bobovnik’s teammates.
“I get it,” she said. “I’ve been around the game long enough to see the guy’s just getting into the league, and just getting his big boy pants on. But to be honest, it wears pretty thin. I mean, this is 2038 for crying out loud. How misogynistic are we going to be? I’ve got better things to be doing than hanging out at the local Holiday Inn and hooking up with a kid who probably thinks he’s some kind of gift to women just cause he’s got a … um … microphone. I’ll take a pass on the idea that microphones in my business are the size of buttons, but I will say that if I wanted another guy, I think I could pull better. I mean, has he ever seen Trevor Iglaine?”
Manning and Iglaine, who recently received an Oscar nomination for his role in “The Case for Humility,” teamed up to do a benefit for Columbian farmers last spring.
She pauses the interview to take a call from Sammy, the Lucas-Manning’s 14-year-old son, also adopted, who needs a ride from basketball practice. Then the stage manager arrives to discuss lighting for the encore production of My Man Hits the Double. “We’ll do the purple spot here,” Manning responds as she points to where she’ll be, “but the real focus has to be on the guys stage left. We want white and gold.”
Then he’s gone.
“So, yeah,” Manning said, “where was I?”
“Steven Bobovnik,” I remind her.
“Ah, yes, Bo-bo,” she shrugs. “He’s got a lot of followers, you know. And his daddy was a Hall of Famer, too. He could make a real difference in people’s lives with that kind of weight. So, I hope that one day he grows up and does something more useful than talking about women like they’re just some kind of meat.”
