Softball: Ponderings on the Fountain Most Sought
Dear People,
Let the record show that with my team trailing by two runs with two on and two out in the bottom of the 9th, I grounded out to short for the fourth time in a row, thereby destroying the inchoate glories of our stirring final-inning rally. The bottom line is that my side went down in flames 14-12, and needless to say, I'm not only completely responsible, but in some ways I'm nothing less than a poster child for the conceptual limits of athletic failure itself. Of course it nearly begs the question; Does all this make me a “bad man” in the broadest, most ethical sense of the term? I honestly don't know.
What I do know is that by any objective standard, mine was the most feckless performance by a captain in the history of our community, with the possible exception of those ghastly games a few years back in which Jonny's leadership was so utterly bereft of cohesion, coherence and cojones that he eventually fled to Australia out of pure Hebraic guilt. Indeed, I would suggest that Jonny showed an even more disturbing and consistent display of negative feck than I ever have, and this likely explains why he still keeps his Soutie-Yankee-Aussie ass in Melbourne-anonymous, discrete and cleansed of his disgrace only by the sheer salve of staggering distance. Yeah, if you must know, I miss him more than life itself.
Of course a comparative analysis of aerobic ineptitude is fraught with subtle complexities that make definitive declarations nearly impossible, but what was clear until last month is that as the years passed, the athletic skill-sets of both Jonny and me would continue to degrade with the ceaseless aging of our tragically carbon-based corpi. Fortunately, though, and as the article below shows, an actual reversal of this process at the cellular level has now been achieved in certain hideous rodentia. . .
http://www.newser.com/story/106375/scientists-reverse-aging-in-mice.html
Now look, I realize that I'm not a specialist in gerontological biophysics (or, for that matter, even particularly “literate”). Still, I think we can all read between the lines and understand that when they blandly write of the biochemical rejuvenation of chromosomal telomeres in mice, what they're really saying is that it's only a matter of 6-12 months before we as a determined recreational people will be able to successfully graze on a variety of age-reversing cocoa-flavored enzyme drops, and in so doing, live for 2 billion years with the physical body of a typical 20-year-old gymnast (or, perhaps if things go somewhat awry, with the physical body of a vibrant prepubescent rat).
The point is that in the year 2525, if man is still alive (and if woman can survive), I plan to organize a game in which Jonny can return from his long and harsh exile down under, and I'm not saying that just because I like to occasionally throw in starkly poignant cultural references from the melodious days of my turbulent youth. And therefore there will be a game at Codornices this Sunday at 11, IF I get enough commits by this Friday morning…Raymond
PS: Revisiting a Case of Anti-Aging Overreach…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7eCsqkNs2Q
12/17/10
Softball: Assume Nothing….
Dear People,
There will hopefully be a game at Codornices or elsewhere this Sunday at 11, and as of now there are still three slots left. For the record, I realize that there are certain party poopers who are predicting cataclysmic rain through the weekend, but I think we all know that when it comes to predictive accuracy, meteorologists are generally more pitiful than your average professional astrologer.
Regardless, you must assume nothing and check email that morning, since even if Codornices is flooded out, we may be able to play at Maxwell Astroturf Field (next to Memorial Stadium on Gayley). Cal is now closed for the holidays, which means that if there's a break in the weather, we might be able to occupy Maxwell before the usual hordes of softball-hating soccer players get to it first. Such operations often involve the tactical exploitation of rapid-fire speed and raw deception, which of course makes any occupational success all the more fun.
If there's any reasonable way for us to play, I'll try to make it happen.
Stay tuned…Raymond 845-7552
12/19/10
Softball: Sunday 8AM: Screwed Again (Again) ;-(….
Dear People,
It's rainy, windy and icy as I peck these very words, and while I can think of nothing more I'd love to do than play a bracing game of softball, I simply will not expose you to the heightened risks of flu, scurvy and drizzle-triggered chlamydia.
Until next week….Raymond