5/24/06
Softball: Peaks and Valleys and the Inner Me
Dears,
Sometimes people will come up to me after a game and ask why I continue to subject myself to all of this after so many years of grueling organizational toil, and each and ever time, I look straight into their tiny little corneas and I tell them that “there is no other sport in all the wretched world which allows you to so thoroughly explore the vast emotive range of the American experience.” By the time I finish that sentence I’m usually drooling so much spittle that most people tend to just smile and slink away, but the point is that for this last game, not only did my team stave off Ken’s, 22-16, but I actually journeyed to the opposite borders of that very range. If you’d be so kind, allow me to explain:
With my team floundering badly in the bottom of the 4th, Anthony slammed a ground ball down the right field line, but fortunately, I was perfectly positioned to scoop it up, step on first, and end the inning, right then and there. In retrospect, the hit wasn’t so much slammed as puttered, and as it rolled toward me at a blistering 3-5 MPH, I found myself thinking that this was the kind of hit that even Nanci, Terri and Helen Keller would all easily grab without ever blowing it (OK, truth be told, Nanci would probably blow it about every third try).
In any case, and for reasons I don’t pretend to understand, the ball seemed to enter a subtle tear in the time-space continuum, somewhere between my glove, ankle and groin. Alas, I could instantly sense a wave of communal scorn as the ball bounced past my suggestively sexy gams, and given that the loudest cries of derision were now coming exclusively from my own teammates, I seriously considered running straight for the Yak-laden tundra beyond center-left. Yeah, I was feeling that pathetic, and if it took a more civil type of mammal to succor my psychic wounds, then so be it.
Instead though, I decided to stay put, keep a stout demeanor and endure my burning shame. And then suddenly, just one inning later, I found myself in the throes of an indescribable aerobic joy that washed all of my sorrows away! Yes, I was minding my own business with two on and two out, when Frank took off from 1st before the play in progress had actually ended. My heart skipped a beat as Sonny hurled the ball from 3rd, instantly trapping the Frankster as if he were a clueless baby harp seal encircled by an embittered pride of really surly mountain goats.
As Frankie tumbled on to the dusty baseline below, I quickly darted to within striking distance of this master of kinesiologic miscalculation, and I have to tell ya, it made me feel more vital and alive than ever before. Indeed, I was soon towering over his flailing and pitiful buttock cheeks, and while I initially felt a nanosecond of mercy, I solved that problem by imagining each marbled cheekage with the smug, contemptible faces of Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Bill O’Reilly and Senator Rick Santorum, respectively.
With these images now seared in my brain, I was able to tag Frank out four full and forceful times, ending the inning, achieving redemption, and showing once again that when it comes to softball, there is no other sport in all the wretched world which allows you to so thoroughly explore the vast emotive range of the American experience. And therefore there will be a game at Codornices this Sunday at 11AM, IF I get enough commits by this Friday morning…Raymond
5/26/06
Softball: The Dilemma of My Credibility
Dear People,
There will be a game at Codornices this Sunday at 11AM, and as of now there are still four slots left.
Please bring $3 for the field, which for this week only, will actually, truly, really—no shit—include a mini post-game b-day surprise party, featuring some modest but yummy treats of nutritive merit. Really!….Raymond 845-7552
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