Softball: Our Crisis of Uncertainty
Dear People,
I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that I have no respect for your temporal integrity, and that by wooing so many of you into such a solemn yet ultimately pointless commitment of your time---twice in two days!---I exposed myself as a sicko organizational nihilist who is no longer worthy of tending to your most basic aerobic yearnings. Listen, I hear ya', and if I weren't who I am, I'd be the first to call for my resignation.
The problem, though, is that I am me (or at least me qua me in the strictly Jungian sense), and more to the point, you'll be counting on me in the days and weeks ahead to lead us through a nearly existential confluence of challenges that will test our very mettle as a flailing recreational folk. Yeah, I'm not ashamed to say that I get a tad queasy just thinking about it.
However, let me be clear: Despite the increasing calls for converting this community into a seasonally indoor league devoted to mahjong, curling and twister, I'm determined to keep us playing the sport that we love, no matter how many contemptible storms, insensate city authorities or exclusionary campus policies try to crush us as a people. And therefore there will hopefully be a game somewhere this Sunday at 11, IF I get enough commits by this Friday morning . . . Raymond
PS: The actual sitch: We officially have San Pablo #2 reserved (and will continue do so through February, when Codornices reopens), but if it continues to rain heavily for the next several days, it would likely take a nuclear-powered water-sucker to make her playable by Sunday. In the meantime, I'm continuing to investigate three potential AstroTurf alternatives, but as of this pecking, I'm getting conflicting information from both campus and city bureaucracies on their potential availability (incredible as that sounds).
Stay tuned . . .
12/5/14
Softball: The Season of our Wandering . . .
Dear People,
There will hopefully be a game this Sunday at 11, and as of now there are still three slots left.
Here's where we stand as I peck these very words:
We have San Pablo #2 reserved, but because it doesn't drain like Codorncies, it probably won't be playable Sunday morning. Still, I don't want to rule it out yet since there's the small possibility of a weekend so dry and warm that it would invite the spontaneously impassioned use of shovels, buckets and hoes. Yeah, hoes.
Campus Astroturf fields Underhill and Witter are only reservable at least two weeks in advance (for $300!) so that's not going to happen. However, neither has anything officially scheduled on Sunday and both have recently been unlocked and accessible at various random times when they really shouldn't have been. In other words, I sense the potential presence of fortuitously wayward groundskeepers.
SO, the bottom line is that I'm going to take a quick tour of the various fields tomorrow to see if the odds of a game actually occurring can justify keeping you hanging on until Sunday, and I will get back to you by late Saturday afternoon.
Resolve . . . Raymond
12/6//14
Softball: Saturday, 5:33PM: Probably!! (The Tormenting Uncertainty of Being Us)
Dear Frightened Ones,
There will probably be a game tomorrow at 11AM at North Oakland's Bush Rod Park---Billy Martin Field #1 (!), at 61st and Racine-Take Telegraph to 61st and then turn West. If it doesn't rain tonight and it's sunny tomorrow, she will be close to dry with just a few treatable puddles in the infield. Even better, Jerry and Anthony will be there by 10:15ish to seize her for our people (there are in fact two huge fields opposite each other)
To be clear, she's not the most gorgeous park around. Her grasses are a bit clumpy and threadbare and she's steeped in the 'tude of a certain defiant grittiness-or as Bruce once sang, “You ain't a beauty, but hey you're alright”-and damn it, if we end up playing there, I plan to cherish her as if she were my own herbal kin.
For the record: San Pablo #2 is officially closed, and more importantly, is and will continue to be an unplayable suck-swamp of malarial mud-laden filth (as is the softball field at Willard Jr High, which is really too bad since the gates are open). And finally, both AstroTurf fields mentioned earlier are now locked up and most likely will be tomorrow.
In other words, the Man is trying to crush us, and crush us hard, but if we aren't the personified essence of self-reliant organizational defiance, then I don't know what.
No backing out!/Two slots left/Go-ahead email tomorrow by 10:25.09 latest! . . .Raymond 845-7552
PS: Assuming I give the go-ahead, extra brownie point for getting there as early as possible to back up Jerry and Anthony.
PPS: http://www.yelp.com/map/bushrod-park-oakland
12/7/14
Softball: Sunday, 10:21AM: Complications! Please bring buckets…
….and get there soon. Field #1 has a group of other softball players practicing. However, Field #2 is fine but needs 20 minutes of major water remvoval from one hideous puddle by shortstop and will take 15 minutes with a few people toiling. I think. Jerry reports we can also play with no dirt infield with no problem. The point is we're going to make this happen, so stop panicking!
See ya at Bushrod at 11, and much earlier if possible with buckets and shovels and rakes and hoes (yeah, hoes). . . Raymond (leaving now---please only call if you're wussing out and please don't do that)
PS: Lest you weren't paying attention: Take Telegraph to 61st and then turn West
. . . http://www.yelp.com/map/bushrod-park-oakland