8/10/05
Softball: Slippery Slopes (Confessions of a News Hound)
Dear People,
As the top of the 9th began, my side held on to an unassailable 11-9 lead, and I think that’s all the context you really need to know when deciding whether or not you personally believe Chris Fure’s team "won," just because they ended up with 19 runs and we still only had 11 when the game officially ended. In any case, as captain I take full responsibility for whatever it is that happened in that last curious inning, and thus I’m simply not going to suggest that others may have been more responsible for the ghastly unraveling in question. That’s just not my style.
Still, I think we can all agree that it wasn’t particularly helpful that Alan Brill decided to walk Ruth and Chris D. when the bases were already loaded, thus bringing in both the tying and go-ahead runs. In retrospect, this strategy may have established a somewhat disruptive tear in the aerobic zeitgeist, as seen by the fact that for the next 11 hitters, my entire defense played with the calm and seasoned grace of a team that’s just been blinded by mustard gas. Of course, I was the captain and as I said, I take the blame, but just between you and me, it ain’t easy leading a bunch of losers.
In any case, I was thinking about all of this yesterday when I happened to read that a group of clever little Brazilian thieves stole the equivalent of $65 million dollars from a Central Government Bank by digging a four foot deep 90-yard tunnel from a distant house to the middle of the building’s impenetrable steel vault. No one was killed, injured, threatened or even annoyed, and while I recognize that what they did was technically "illegal," I have to tell you, my first reaction wasn’t "Oh my God, the scourge of crime knows no bounds," but more along the lines of "Wow, that’s so totally way cool; Aren’t the soils in El Cerrito also really porous?"
Nevertheless, my own reaction leaves me frightened of my very self, just knowing that the germs of evil intent could reside within my own heart. Indeed, I remember a few weeks ago when Nanci was catcher and I was facing a 3-1 count, and since she got momentarily distracted, she glibly asked if I thought the next pitch was a strike or ball. Well, the fact is that I saw it graze the edge of a loose green carpet thread, but rather than fess up, I just stood there dumbly and mumbled "I dunno." In other words, I lied, and she gave me the benefit of the doubt and God only knows how that twisted the final denouement of that week’s game, but the point is that just a couple weeks later I’m reading about bank robbers and thinking to myself that it’s easy to criticize, but at my current UC librarian’s salary, an equivalent coup would save me 1,468 years of part-time employment, and that’s not even including Kaiser.
Yes, the human bosom is a muddled creature, and while I will always seek the path of pure and righteous gooditude, I think you need to know that somewhere within me must be a nihilistic sicko yearning to lie, cheat, and rob careless Brazilian banks. And therefore there will be a game at Codornices this Sunday at 11AM, IF I get enough commits by this Friday morning…Raymond
8/12/05
Softball: A Minor Pet Peeve
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 $3 for the field, which for this week only includes a special post-game Duo of Double Lamb Chops with Cabernet Reduction,
Peas and Morel Mushrooms, and I’m not saying that just because I like to see chefs use words like "reduction" as if basic grammatical decency had no place on the menu…Ray 845-7552
BACK