5/1/13

Softball: An Existential Gloss on a Masterpiece

Dear People,

In one of those truly rare displays of transcendent competitive excellence, Anthony's team rallied from a 10-0 4th-inning abyss to crush mine on the last hit of the game, 19-18. Indeed, I'd say that this match demolished the very premise of that recurrent rabbinical query from the Medieval Castilian shul--“Given all the bullshit, is it really better to be alive than to have never been born at all?” Yeah, those guys were herring-eating downers, but I have no doubt that if they had lived long enough to see Maya's effortless 5th-inning grand slam to deep, deep right, or, in the very next inning, Alan Shabel's staggering grand slam to even deeper left, they would've dispensed with the usual Talmudic whining and immediately conceded the inherent splendor of the basic homosapian condition.

Of course that's all from the team-Tony perspective, for had they focused on my side's gradual descent from our double-digit dominance, this inspirational joie-de-human-kick-ass would've taken on a more sullen overlay. I refer you to that zeitgeist-shifting 4th, when we were still nurturing a shut-out with one out and bases loaded. Siobhan suddenly struck hard with a blazing ground ball straight into my trusty little mitt at 1st, allowing me to practically taste the inning-ending double-play. Yet then, and for reasons I don't pretend understand, I promptly threw the orb 10 feet over Chris Fure's desperately outstretched glove at 2nd. Eight runs and six more errors later (three on the very next play, of which two were by Paul H alone-just sayin'), the carnage of that inning mercifully concluded.

Remarkably, we still clung to a precarious 18-18 lead in the top of the 9th, but our hopes for advancing the go-ahead run at 3rd promptly collapsed when Michael Davey became ensnared in a tragic two-out pickle near 1st. Over the course of 20 horrific seconds, he was spotted, ruthlessly hunted down and then harpooned as if he were nothing more than a convenient source of protein-rich seal blubber. Alas, just five minutes later, the Antman himself drove in their game-winning run.

So perhaps you could claim that it's 'obviously' better to be alive than to have never been born at all, yet I think those sagacious Spanish Hebrews of a now-distant millennia were at least posing a question of discomfiting but genuine necessity. To be sure, they clearly knew that for every future athlete who would smash a grand slam to the Glory of God, there would be countless others who would metaphorically flounder, struggle and end up as grazing gruel for a despicable shoal of feral land sharks. And therefore there will be a game at Codornices this Sunday at 11, IF I get enough commits by this Friday morning….Ray


5/3/13

Softball: Pick-me-ups

Dear People.

There will be a game at Codornices this Sunday at 11, and as of now there are still five slots left.

Please bring $4 for the field, which for this week only includes an invigorating pre-match strawberry smoothie, boldly flavored with ginseng, nettles and marine phytoplankton…Raymond 845-7552

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