12/2/13
Softball: Struggles of the Athletic Mind
Dear People,
In one of those riveting paragons of pure competitive excellence that reminds me anew why we do we what we do, my team barely beat back Mike Davey's with a hearty strategic stew of courage, rigor and spine-tingling kick-butt, 9-8. Still, I would argue that every player on that field had reason to be proud, though perhaps uplifting communal platitudes can't displace the harsher and more complex reality of the individual's subjective experience. Indeed, Dave Ross played with his usual septuagenarian dominance until the very end, but then with two on and two out in the bottom of the 9th, he left his game-winning peeps stranded and his team's final hopes destroyed with a searing line drive straight into the viscous gloving of Jerry's brutally efficient mound-line defense. It was, to be sure, a denouement of exquisite pulchritude, and while I know that the Rosster may struggle to find pride in his objectively cataclysmic failure, I believe it's always somewhere within a ball well-struck. In theory.
Luckily, Dave is a beloved professional shrink with several decades experience as a practitioner of Jungian psychotherapy (or Freudian analysis or perhaps Pavlovian conditioning-who really knows?), and thus his ability to process the emotive wound of a hircine trip to the batter's box is likely without peer. I think that's an important point if you consider that an honest analysis of the game's captivating evolution would seem to suggest that had Michael Davey himself not let both Broh and Paul Horsepool triple over his disrespecting little head back in the 1st and 2nd innings, his team would've been up by 1 in the 9th, thereby obviating the need for Dave's tragic rendezvous with destiny.
Aerobic guilt, of course, can severely damage the unseasoned ego, and since Michael has no formal training in the Jungian conditioning of pre-Soviet schnauzers, I've decided to not dwell on the legal or ethical share of his relative fault. Still, Dave himself later insisted that his fearsome match-ending hit was in fact an honorable one, and thus if loss-causing aspersions were to be cast, he saw the Daveyator's early-inning dissage as the proximate cause of their ultimate failure (This is what we in the psycho biz call 'transference'). Alas, both giants of the community will have to be patient, for we all know that history bides her good time in the eventual ascription of worth, value and the indelible taint of blame and disgrace. And therefore there will be a game at Codornices this Sunday at 11, IF I get enough commits by this Friday morning . . . Raymond
PS: As most of you know, Chris Fure, Kora Cypress and Steve LaPorta are the moral backbones of this entire community, and lucky for you, their band SPOKEN ROAD is playing at Monaghans on the Hill this Thursday night (6-9pm).
12/4/15
Softball: The Ceaseless Need to Learn
Dear People,
There will be a game at Codornices this Sunday at 11 and as of now there is still one slot left.
Please bring $4 for the field, which for this week only includes a complimentary copy of Oxford's latest 2015 edition of Intermediate Estonian for Mechanical Engineers . . . Raymond 845-7552
12/6/15
Softball: Sunday 9:13AM: Courage!
Dears,
Remember, we are a stout and resilient folk, it only drizzled lightly last night, the current Doppler shows only pissant and diminishing threats, Codornices has God-like drainage, and just to be clear, if we cave, then nature wins, and I for one will not let that happen unless there is a true risk of river blindness.
I have to walk the dog, but assume we're playing---Update by 10:30 latest....Ray
Softball: Sunday 10:22AM: The Triumph of Hope!....
Dear People,
My intelligence operatives on the ground at Codornices report puddleless, moist and glorious conditions, the Doppler outlook is good and every fiber of my being says fewer than three of you will contract malaria. Wear woolen mittens/No excuses!/See ya at 11....Ray
PS: If this ends in disaster, blame Jay, Michael Davey and Alan Shabel, but certainly not me.
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