4/29/09
Softball: Pork Chops (Recreational Prudence in the Wake of Crisis)
Dear People,
In a truly sublime masterpiece of spine-tingling athletic excellence, my team barely staved off Chris Fure’s, 25-23. The breath-taking denouement came with bases loaded, two out and a full count in the bottom of the 9th—the Furinator’s team trailing by those two tiny little runs with Liz Stock at the plate and Steve Vork on the mound. The Stockster is a rising new superstar who’s just joined the community while the VortexMan is a feared yet beloved and grizzled pitcher extraordinaire who’s just returned after a multi-year absence, and at any other time, these distant strangers would’ve been happy to break bread over a fine organic garden salad.
Yet on this historic day, because the stakes were so high and the tension so raw, it was as if they faced off as old mortal enemies. Thankfully my side deserved to win and the Lord is goodly, and thus as time itself froze and the whole world watched, Liz went down swinging on the Vorkster’s dreaded Estonian curveball! Yeah, there are reasons we’re known as the finest unaffiliated email-organized softball league West of the Sacramento River.
In any case, your kinesiological health is always my primary concern, and therefore I was seriously thinking of not organizing a game this week since I simply refuse to expose you to this contemptible swine-flu-virus-thing that apparently jumps from human to human with the unrestrained morals of a tawdry teen hussy. Yet at the same time, I don’t want to needlessly deny you the aerobic release you so intensively crave, and therefore I have come up with a subtle compromise which I believe strikes the proper balance between reckless endangerment and scaredy-pooh cowardice.
While I know that this plan will probably piss you off to no end, I must announce here and now that while I’ve decided that we can continue to play and play hard, I can no longer allow you to bring your wild boar, river hogs or domesticated Mexican house pigs to the park. Yes, I realize that for some of you this seems deeply unfair and even anti-porcine, and yet as a seasoned self-educated epidemiologist who clearly “gets it,” I think we all know that now is not the time to question my expertise. And therefore there will be a swine-free game at Codornices this Sunday at 11, IF I get enough commits by this Friday morning…Ray
5/1/09
Softball: Decisions
Dear People,
There will be a game at Codornices this Sunday at 11AM, and as of now, there are, shamefully, six slots still left. You are therefore welcome to commit anyone you know in the larger non-softball community, so long as they are sentient, moral and pure of athletic heart.
This week’s field fee is just $4, and that includes either a tuna carpaccio with shaved fennel and olives or 15,000 Facebook friends…Raymond
5/3/09
Softball: Brunch Instead!
Dear People,
Whenever I have to cancel a game, my eyes fill with the tears of 1,000 Argentine carpenter ants who’ve just been told that some human idiot stepped on their queen. Yet the hard reality is that it’s cold, rainy and bitter as I type these very words, and even worse, Codornices is now a hideous bog of unspeakable mud, filth and tragically drowned ant carcasses. There is much to grieve.
However, in order to maintain community cohesion, Chris Fure, Frieda and I will be going to Chester’s for a delicious brunch at 11:30 (at Walnut and Vine, next to Peet’s inside Walnut Square). If you’d like to join us, let me know by 11 so we can save you a seat….Ray
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