3/26/14
Softball: The Incalculable Ripples of a Breach in Expectations
Dear People,
Jim McGuire's team beat back my own with nary a dropped orb to spare, 10-9, and while I'm obviously not going to cast targeted aspersions on any specific individual among my particular peeps, rare is the retrospective obviositude of such sweeping aerobic culpability. Of course perspective itself is an unusually subtle mistress, and thus I didn't internalize the severity of the potential problem when Kira unleashed a solid 2nd-inning blast straight down the right field line, and just over Mike Davey's disoriented little head. Indeed, the Daveyator didn't seem unduly concerned by the developments at hand, and as Kira darted past second and the ball in question rolled gently ever onward, our curiously inert hero suddenly turned to me in belated perplexitude. “Hey, wait a second” he blurted out, “that thing was foul, wasn't it?”
Needless to say, that thing wasn't foul by 20 feet, and yet by the time Michael realized that he should've been fetching said ball, Kira was well on her way to home. And so the damage was done, and done unseemly, and while it was only a single run, its significance grew mightily as our two contingents battled to a bitter 9-9 tie as the final inning commenced. Alas, Saadia's searing double to center suddenly gave them the go-ahead run, but we held fast and stout, and sure enough, we soon found ourselves with two on and two out in the bottom of the 9th, and even better, with the tying run at 3rd and the winning one at 2nd! Even beyond better, Mikie himself was at the plate, and given he's the most fearsome slugger in our entire community, I could practically taste his imminent and game-winning redemption!
Regrettably, what I was really tasting was the doubling down of feckless execution, for as Michael's can of hope-shattering corn fell gently into Ali's mitt, I found myself wondering which of his broadly spaced failures was the true teleological agent of our wretched collapse. Of course causation is a multi-faceted mystery, perhaps not unlike some of those other inscrutable riddles of the so-called hard sciences, such as what came 'before' the big bang or how did aerobic life first emerge or what is the nature of consciousness? Or more specifically along those latter lines, why did Mikie go into REM sleep right after Kira hit that ball?
The point is that I don't do deep and unfathomable, and so in that sense I suppose I'm like Frederick's Dad in Hannah and Her Sisters, who, when asked by his son why there were Nazis, indignantly replied “How the hell do I know why there were Nazis?!; I don't even know how the can opener works.” To be sure, I don't actually “get” how the cosmos exist or why these newly discovered gravitational waves reflect cosmic birth pangs or how a delayed-choice quantum-eraser is even possible (you think I'm joking?!-Wiki it!), so as you can imagine, I don't think we'll ever understand what our distracted protagonist was “thinking” when he apparently wasn't.
Yeah, the hard truth is that we're all drifting about in an athletically cold and pointless universe not of our own making, and in fact, that may be the best reason we have to just flout the absurdity and play one more time. And therefore there will be a game at Codornices this Sunday at 11, IF I get enough commits by this Friday morning….Raymond
3/28/14
Softball: Tongues!
Dear People,
There will be a game at Codornices this Sunday at 11, and as of now there are still three slots left.
Please bring $5 for the field, which, in celebration of my 2nd-year anniversary of watching Mexican telenovelas, includes a special post-match demonstration of my somewhat tentative progress in mastery of the Spanish trilled R….Raymond 845-7552
PS: If it rains a lot between now and then or climatic conditions are ambiguous that morning, you will need to check email around 10. However, remember that Codornices has drainage to die for, and as you know, we are a stout and hearty folk who are not easily deterred from our aerobic passions (except in those cases where we are).
PPS: Have you ever wondered how you'd renew your Danish passport? Of course you have, and now you can find out!*
*Note the vital linguistic denouement at video's end . . .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taqIrvA1ppg#t=12
PPPS: My Generation . . .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMAIsqvTh7g
3/30/14
Softball: Sunday 9:17AM: Drainage of the Gods!
Dear People,
Codornices is moist but gorgeous, and puddleless in the outfield. I'll bring a shovel, bucket and possibly a hoe (yeah, a hoe), for the small puddle at the plate and the curious shallow crater near the mound.
See ya at 11….Raymond 845-7552
BACK