Softball: Orwell
Dear People,
Chris Fure's team barely staved off my own in an epic yet somewhat ineffectual 10-hour 43-error pitcher's duel, 36-34. The hard truth is that I myself made two of those blunders from two different positions in two consecutive plays in the top of the cataclysmic 7th, and for that I guess I'm arguably “responsible” for the three dispositive runs that needlessly scored in those very plays. I accept all of that, although it's important to note that I must've been deeply shaken after I dropped Steve Bedrick's fresh can of corn to hard shallow right, for just two minutes later, I reclaimed my expertise in the infield by letting Joe P's bouncing grounder to 1st pop straight out and away from my lubricious little mitt. Moreover, that latter ball was hopping straight toward me at a blistering three miles per hour, yet I guess we all know that history rarely records the mitigating factors of guilt once ascribed.
In any case, it's worth noting that the reason I found myself playing two positions in one inning is that Caleb had to leave early and I had to immediately make some dramatic and desperate changes to our imploding defensive flanks. Luckily, Darryl traipsed in to play post-softball frisbee just as we were taking the field, and while not what he had prepared for, our hero immediately “volunteered” to join us (in much the same way that kidnapped American sailors volunteered to join the Royal Navy in the years leading up to 1812). Regardless, while it did take a few minutes for him to put on his heels, he soon took center-right with a beaming confidence I have rarely seen in all of sport, and when combined with his legacy of fearsome athletic domination, I knew that our triumph was now pre-ordained.
Except that it wasn't. And thus I think it's fair to say that the guy who claimed that 90% of life is just showing up is a demonstrable moron. The fact is that the Darrylator infused us with a galvanizing wave of mojo, but that quickly fizzled, and in the end we came up two runs short. That's something Darryl will have to ponder long and hard if he ever wants to reappear as a kind of mystical mid-game savior, though just to be clear, his failure was still honorable by general community standards. I mention this because many of you have recently been asking me if I've been keeping track of your historical stats, and the truth is that above and beyond these weekly missives, I may keep some modest error-focused spread sheets, algorithmic analyses and discreetly recorded webcam footage, but just for my personal files.
For what it worth, these various archives show that over the years, some of us have been involved in some fairly ghastly (and lovingly codified) episodes, from falling face-first into steaming piles of deep left-field doggie-dung, to, as we saw last week, trying to catch blazing throws with our chins, noses and skulls. In addition, many of us have shown up hung over, drunk, and stoned, and as a result, we have, among other things, thrown up in mid-play, illegally overrun our own fellow base-runners and given up 21 runs in a single inning. In brief, we have, as a collective whole, much to be ashamed of.
Nevertheless, and just to be clear: The fact is that I consider these records as nothing less than a sacred aerobic trust, and while it's quite obvious that every two-bit organizational data-whore from the NSA and Google to Major League Baseball, Al Qaeda and Comedy Central would love to get their hands on them (for their own varied and despicable reasons), you can be sure that these well-documented troves of digitized aerobic disgrace will remain totally private and fully secured-Unless of course, I'm offered some reasonably significant bank. And therefore there will be a game at Codornices this Sunday at 11, IF I get enough commits by this Friday morning…Raymond
PS: Life is with People. . .
http://vimeo.com/66753575
6/14/13
Softball: Procreative
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 $4 for the field, which for this week only includes a rare post-match performance of Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 1 in D Minor and Snoop Dogg's Don Doggy in C Major ….Raymond 845-7552
PS: Darryl Gruen, quasi-hero of last week's game and a sporadically attending moral backbone of this entire community, has some great news to share below:
[6/12]
Victoria Quinn Gruen was born today at 3:51 PM. She is 22 1/2 inches long and 7 lbs. 12 oz. Mama and baby are both healthy and happy. Here is a picture of her….