May 19, 1997

Softball and the Character Issue

Contemplations on the Social Dynamics of Organizational Cohesion Within the Humble Context of a Lowly Softball Game

Dear People,

There will be a softball game this Saturday (5/24) at 4:30PM, IF at least 18 people commit to playing (or, there are at least 16 commits + 4 or more probables). Responses should be emailed to me by this Thursday evening (5/29). At the risk of sounding like some anal bureaucrat run amuck, the following guidelines, and the logic behind them, are presented for your reading pleasure:

1. We need the minimum number of commits in order to make sure there are enough for a game. However, it is obviously quite naughty to say you're coming, and then not show up without explanation. In the future, please call/email if you commit and then have to cancel. This might give me the time to call on my list of those w/o email (the non-technologolized little people waiting in the wings). My number is xxx-xxxx.
    
   
2. In hopes of avoiding my surly indignation, you might be tempted to avoid a true commitment (A typically male way to behave). All I can say to this is that if we don't reach the minimums, the games won't happen. "Maybes" are encouraged to show up, but we all know that ethical and athletic progress is based upon the moral fortitude of those whose voices ring unequivocal and true.
    
   
3. The game is set for 4:30. Not 4:39, or 5:16. Softball is not a dinner party. It is an insurrection by which one social class violently seizes power from another. OK, it's not that either. Still, it's sort of a drag when a dozen people have to sit around half an hour or more waiting for the last few to show up. Please get there within the half hour leading up to 4:30, but no later than that (i.e......tell yourself it's at 4:00).
    
   
4. Getting back to me after the requested deadline isn't really helpful, since I need to know by the day before the game whether we'll have enough people. You're welcome to not respond at all, hurling me into a cyberspacial torpor of bewildered adolescent rejection, but sheesh, how much work is it to write "I can't make it this week"?
    
   
5. If at all possible, please get yourself a mitt.

By now, many of you have no doubt pegged me as some kind of authoritarian weirdo, merging the best of Yogi Bera and Heinrich Himmler. Sorry, but regularly played coed pick-up softball games do not spontaneously erupt, flouting the laws of thermodynamics. Once again: The next game is tentatively set for Saturday at 4:30 (Codornices Field), but since it is Memorial Day Weekend, its hard to say if we'll have enough players. So please get back to me by Thursday night, and be sure to check your monitors on Friday. I'll leave you with one final thought. If this systems starts to work well, I envision adding glorious ball games on occasional weekday evenings, where your pitiful and weary bones can end their daily travails in crepuscular community, excellent and fair....Wuv, Ray

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