Softball: Contrasts in the Content of our Characters
Dear People,
In one of those sublime see-sawing battles of pristine competitive splendor, Pace’s team barely staved off my own, 18-17. In brief, it was a 10-inning reminder of why, despite the sheer existential despair of our generally pointless lives, it is better to have been born and lived than to have never existed at all. Yet let’s not paint with too broad a rhetorical brush, for each player must make that call for themselves, perhaps reassessing the tone and general thrust of their concurrence on a painfully daily basis.
For example, Jonny finally returned to Melbourne on that cold, bittersweet night, and as he headed off for the airport, I couldn’t help but think how Sartre himself would view the athletic life in question. To be sure, Jonny’s final performance was respectably adequate (what kindly grade school teachers might call “an essentially feckless but solid C”), and yet the fact is that after four shoddy games of pop-outs, missed opportunities and a ceaseless display of unsightly errorage, he departed from our shores with his basic aerobic dignity essentially in tatters.
I mention all this because I am, to put it bluntly, utterly demoralized by Mark McGuire’s recent admission of his steroid use back in the day—when he hit 70 homers in a single season, when his biceps swelled with both muscle and pride, and of course, when his testes shriveled into tiny record-breaking raisonettes. The point is that in our community, I’d like to think that we all play clean, for indeed, it would’ve been easy for someone like Jonny to partake of the magic needle juice and rise to the pros and make his gazillions, and yet I think we all know that he would’ve felt tawdry for doing so.
Now look, I’d be the first to concede that when taken as a whole (from Jo’burg to Berkeley to Melbourne), Jonny’s is a story of staggering athletic failure. Yet unlike Mark McRoid-Nose, our floundering Aussie hero will be able to look in the mirror and know that his heart and nards have always been pure, and for me, that is the very essence of a life well played. And therefore there will be a game at Codornices this Sunday at 11, IF I get enough commits by this Friday morning. . . Raymond
1/13/10
Softball: Quickly (from Boalt, again)
Dear People,
There will (hopefully) be a game this Sunday at 11, and as of now, it is full. As always, please let me know ASAP if you committed and need to cancel, and feel free to contact me later for reopened slots.
If it rains a lot between now and then or conditions are ambiguous, you will need to check email that morning.
Also: I will be out of town until Saturday night, so 'til then, it would be better to communicate through email instead of phone.
$4 for the field/See ya Sunday...Ray 845-7552
1/17/10
Softball: No ;-(
Just got back from Codorenices; She is muddy, malarial and officially closed.
Until next week…Ray