9/29/04
Softball: Risks of Sporadic Sport in the Aging Male
Dear People,
For the second consecutive week, my team found itself deep in the existential lair of a horrific early-inning rout, and just between you and me, I’m not ashamed to say that we were both bitter and frightened by the harsh reality of facing a 14-3 whuppin’ at the end of just four. Yet my side once again staged a rally for the ages, thanks in large part to my cerebral, spindly-legged sib, Lawrence, whose foray into familial humiliation was thankfully limited to a somewhat unsightly streak of a half-dozen early-inning errors. Despite this good fortune, though, Peter’s team didn’t suck enough, and thus our rendezvous with destiny came up just shy of glorious, 16-13.
Speaking of Lawrence (or Ren, as we who are kin call him), he is still hobbling around my house as if a Baby Grand Steinway had fallen on his toes, but the fact is that this profoundly sedentary man withered the physical assault that is softball with his mind and body basically in tact. Indeed, as pitiful as he is, Ren is no Roger—my sister’s beloved s.o. who flew down from Seattle, played one match in which physical exertion was limited to a scrappy single and two dropped balls, flew back, and then spent the next three months recovering from the throbbing post-game ache in his back, loins and ego.
I think the point is that once-a-year softball is simply not for sissies, and thus, as this great leading edge of the boomer generation saunters into their vital post-half-century years, we should embrace their childlike delight at playing in an actual sporting event while preparing their live-ins for a more nuanced perspective on the fragile resiliency of muscle, tendon and bone. And therefore there will be a game at Cordornices this Sunday at 4:30PM, IF I get enough commits by this Friday morning….Raymond
PS: As mentioned last week, my brother Ren, the recently battered hunchback whose ceaseless errors cost my team the game, will be speaking tonight on campus at Wheeler Hall at 7PM, on "Serenity and Terror in Vermeer…"
10/1/04
Softball: Relentlessly on Message
Dear People,
There will be a game at Codornices this Sunday at 4:30PM, but shamefully, as of now there are still SEVEN slots left. Now look, normally I’d threaten to cancel the whole thing unless I got a reasonable quorum. But truth be told, I already went out and paid for the reservation slip, and while I am fully aware that this is the wrong game at the wrong place at the wrong time, I’ll be damned if I’m gonna just cut and run, leaving you aerobically deprived in your time of greatest need.
However, Saturday afternoon beg-calls are both unseemly and a nuisance, so please do the right thing and get me some more commits.
$2 for the field/See ya Sunday at 4:30…Raymond
PS: As an added extra bonus, my sister Toni will most likely be playing, thus assuring a second consecutive week in which there will be unsettling exposure to the athletic limits of the Weschler family gene pool.
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