put me in, coach!

I played softball today.

I’ll pause here to give all who know me a second or three to rub their eyes in disbelief, reread the above sentence and then gasp in amazement.

You guys ready to read on?

Good.

Mike said “Come to softball this Sunday.” I was all teary eyed due to a horrible no good very bad tax problem I was having Friday afternoon. He also said, “Bat your eyes, I can’t stand to see them all glassy like that. Man, you’re killing me.” But I digress. An invite to softball at a time of utter weakness is not to be passed up. So I said ok. I got a ride. I wore my hoodie.

I thought I was just going for the fresh air but lo and behold if the team wasn’t short a player. Would they forfeit? Would the game be lost by default? Heck no! I was the stand in Bad News Bear for the morning. We lost by trying, not default! That’s better right?

I played right field, and for those of you who don’t know much about softball, right field is where the weakest link goes. NO ONE hits to right field unless they are either:

a) left handed or
b) a "booger-eatin' moron"

I was pretty much left alone in my right field realm with the exception of two fouls and pop up fly ball headed right at me – which I dropped. But I got a thumbs up from my team mates nonetheless!

We play in a league made up of newspapers. We played against a daily today. Not the Big Daily, the Little One. Makes them somewhat more down to earth and slightly less corporate. They all appeared to be sober and somewhat athletic, however. Unlike our team. Ah, our team. 75% of us were hung over and still had the club stamps on the inside of our wrists. 50% of us had an appropriation of the word “Rock” included on our team jerseys or baseball hats. Rawk. Rox. Rok. You get the picture. Two of us had on chuck taylors. At least three of us hadn’t held a baseball bat in over 10 years. We were a force to be reckoned with … when it came to the one liners anyway.

We lost both games. By at least 15 runs.

The highlights:
• We recruited a 9 year old boy to play on our team. He could throw better than me!
• I got to first base twice!
• Jessie got hit in the cheek with a ball!
• Brian hit a home run!
• We tried to talk the opposing team into forfeiting the second game and going to get hamburgers and beer drinks instead! They declined.

I’m now on a mission to "suck less" at softball. The next few weeks are gonna be all 80s style movie montage of intensive softball training. Think Karate Kid. Think Flashdance. Think me going to Target and buying a baseball glove. Perhaps come next Sunday I’ll be able to hit the ball past the second baseman. Maybe I’ll be able to throw more than 20 feet. Maybe I’ll bring along a Clif bar cuz I got kinda hungry come the second game.

In the immortal words of Coach Morris Buttermaker: “Listen, you didn't come into this life just to sit around on a dugout bench, did ya?”

No sir, I didn't!