11/16/05

Softball: A Broad Universal Perspective on Animal Behavior

Dear People,

Chris Fure’s team crushed my own 24-15, and in all candor, it was initially an uncomfortable and bitter defeat. Not because my team blew a decisive 7th inning 15-15 lead, but because I once again had that lingering suspicion of ethereal alien scrutiny, as if some bewildered gang of Martians were secretly hovering over all of us. Of course, whether such beings truly exist is beside the point, because the objective reality is that if they did, no one could blame them for wondering why on earth we continue to comport ourselves like drugged-out maniacal psychopaths, pointlessly chasing around this utterly worthless leather orb as if it were something we could actually use or love or eat.

So yeah, I was feeling pretty down that evening, but then I happened to start thinking about the March of the Penguins, that wondrous documentary on the Antarctic’s inscrutable avian culture. I don’t write that with any disrespect, but the fact is that those dumbass birds have had the chance to make a beeline for the Chilean and New Zealand Rivieras for over 300,000 years, and yet each long and frigid winter they choose to stay at the bottom of the world, freezing their fatty butts off in giant communal cuddle orgies. Sure, the young usually make it to adolescence and the males return to the sea and they all survive the six dark months of –60 degree windchill and all the rest of that "Isn’t nature amazing?" kind of crap, but the real point is that I think any fair-minded creature from another galaxy would agree that all things considered, we as a softball-playing people are simply not as retardo as the penguins.

Indeed, by the end of that night I was more convinced than ever, and that’s in large part because of that afternoon’s game, with its sublime feats of kiniseologic genius that no stupid bird could ever approach, much less duplicate. I refer you specifically to Chee’s rally-killing 7th-inning one-man triple play (!!!), in which he single-handedly stopped a blistering line-drive cold, then quickly stepped on second to oust Tom O (one out), tagged Jonny as he took off for third (two outs), and then hurled the ball to first in time to pick off the hitter, whose identity I forget because at that point I was already swooning like a randy pixie-tailed Sinatra groupie in the Summer of ’41 (three outs).

The point is that we may look as ridiculous at our chosen pastime as we do when we engage in our various carnal pursuits, but every once in a very long while, one of us will accomplish something so utterly magnificent that even the most jaded homosapien-hating extraterrestrial observer would concede that there is something about the human species which makes us inherently superior to a bunch of wingless overrated ice-fetished water fowl. And therefore there will be a game at CODORNICES (On Euclid, across from the Rose Garden, one mile North of campus) this Sunday at 11AM, IF I get enough commits by this Friday morning…Raymond


11/18/05

Softball: Homecoming

Dear People,

There will be a game at CODORNICES this Sunday at 11AM, and as of now there are still two slots left. Please note that Codornices is not San Pablo #2, and that if you show up at the latter, you’ll feel and look like an illiterate bozo.

This week’s field fee is just $3, and remarkably, that even includes a post-game pork loin with chanterelle mushrooms à la crème and braised endive….Raymond 845-7552

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