3/13/13
Softball: A Cohesively Strained Sojourn into Failure Analysis
Dear People,
My side demolished Kora's 21-11, and truth be told, I'm still wracked by deep Hebraic guilt. To be sure, I felt giddy playing shortstop in the bottom of the 9th, and since we were starting up by two touchdowns, I wasn't even tremulous. Yet as the inning progressed, I felt increasingly unclean, and as I looked over to the bench at their despondent little faces, I knew why. The fact is that since the beginning of the 4th, we had treated them as if we were a rasorial cackle of kookaburras feasting on a perfectly innocent garden bunny, and while I realize that this is the way that competitive athletics “has to be,” I had already concluded that my inner recreational scholar needed to know why.
This much is clear: They had the hitting, fielding and alluring good looks to beat us in any given match, yet something befell them in the middle innings, and when they began to flounder, they floundered hard. Yes, once again I started out in awe of a contingent with staggering athletic talent-indeed, Alan Shabel, Jim McGuire, Tony MacIntosh and Chris Fure were merely the tip of their fearsome aerobic spear!-and yet there they were, plunging deep into the childhood purview of that most tragic query in all of sport: “Mama, why do great teams so frequently suck?”
The hard truth is that I still don't know for sure, and given it's multi-disciplinary dimensions, I'm not sure I ever will. Just yesterday, though, I was making my usual rounds for Boalt Express, stopping off at the Bioscience, EdPsych and Astrophysics libraries, and at every one of them, I quickly glanced around for some potential clues. For example, I learned in the Journal of Fish and Shellfish Immunology that certain types of saltwater crabs will retreat into sheltering sand burrows when they see that their little crabby friends are feeling sickish or unwell, and frankly, it makes me wonder if this type of tacit signaling could spread ineptitude amongst our more impressionable human athletes.
Indeed, in an eerily similar article from Teaching Quarterly, I learned that a major doubled-blind study in Croatia has shown that children will often 'mirror' the scholastic underperformance of their older friends and siblings. Most children are morons, of course, but this makes me wonder if Jim succumbed to psychoanalytic bonding after seeing both Alan and Chris pop up to short, and more specifically, whether he subconsciously told himself, “Well, since those guys aren't hitting either, I'll play it mellow and bat with my eyes closed.” Is this the inscrutable contagion that shut them all down?! I honestly don't know.
Finally, I browsed through some recent issues of Physics Today, where I saw a couple references to quantum entanglement. This kick-ass theory posits that the measurement of any one particle will instantaneously change the properties of another-and that's even if they are separated by the entire universe! The underlying process apparently occurs at 10,000 times the speed of light, which, as you can imagine, pissed off Einstein to no end. Yet in comparison with those pitifully craven crustaceans, I believe it offers the most robust and deeply intuitive explanation for the seemingly random collapse of superstar-laden teams. And therefore there will be a game at Codornices this Sunday at 11, IF I get enough commits by this Friday morning…Raymond
3/13/13
Softball: Holy! (Quickly from Boalt)
Dear People,
I've always believed that the thrill of a newly elected Pope brings out great athletic passions amongst the human flock. And thus: There will be a game at Codornices this Sunday at 11AM, and as of now it is already full. As always, please let me know ASAP if you committed and need to cancel, and if you still want in, feel free to get on the wait list or contact me later for news of reopened slots.
$4 for the field/See ya Sunday….Raymond 845-7552_
PS: “Nanci commit rules” are now in effect for the next few weeks: You can and should commit as normal, but if you've played three or more weeks in a row, I reserve the right to automatically wait-list you until I see how full the game will be. Call me a monster if you must.
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