Softball: The Usual Musings on Garments and the Nativity
Dear People,
Chris Fure's team methodically shoved mine right through the brutalizing wood chipper of limitless shame, 27-11. The fact is that we held a narrow 10-10 lead as late as the 6th, but once the light pounding drizzle began in earnest, the delicate balance of aerobic power fell starkly out of kilter. Indeed, I believe that the shift started precisely when Paul Fine blasted Jerry's lingering knuckle ball a full 1/8th of an inch straight up the middle, where it curiously burrowed itself into the dampened home plate soils. Paulie instantly took off for 1st like a shell-shocked cheetah in estrus, and once it was clear he had beaten the throw, his joyous relief was palpable. “Hey” he told me with beaming delight, “I just made a hit that was physically impossible!!” I smiled warmly, but truth be told, I now knew it was my bitter duty to inform Chancellor Birgeneau that one of Cal's greatest bioscientists was in shocking denial of the well-settled nexus between logic and physics.
In any case, as the sprinkling intensified amidst a series of more traditional hits, my own team began to crater. I remember a particularly painful moment about 6 runs and 8 minutes later, when Dan May slammed a searing bases loaded 1-out line drive to 3rd. Paul Horespool had been breaking in his trusty new mitt, and after a couple quick secs of understandable bobbling, he quickly gained control for the decisive throw to home. Unfortunately, and for reasons I don't pretend to understand, good'ol Equine-boy hurled the ball 30 feet to the left of home plate, and as the 7th runner scored that inning, even the distant yak could hear the poignant shriek of Paul's “Oh fuck me!!”
About 4 runs and 8 minutes later, we finally stopped the hemorrhaging and began to slouch off the field with a 10-run 7th-inning deficit. We had been spiritually beaten and beaten bad, and thus as a way to lift our spirits, I cheerfully teased Mateo for wearing pants that looked more like pajamas than my cherished Vietnamese shorts looked like boxers. “Dude,” he corrected me, “these are pajamas.” Oh sure, in theory there were two innings left to turn it all around, but the reality is that I was captain of a team that was now in free-fall, and whose star center-left fielder was playing in his all-woolen PJs. Needless to say, we didn't turn it around.
The point is that next Tuesday is the 2017th birthday of the great Jesus Christ, give or take a decade, and therefore I was assuming that I wouldn't bother to organize a game this weekend. But then I started thinking about all the travails that the three wise men must have gone through just to make it to Bethlehem in time for that awesome holiday parturition, and so it occurred to me that if we didn't play, we'd basically be dissing all three of them-St. Balthasar the Astronomer (likely from present-day Yemen), St. Melchior the Philosopher-King (from what is now central Iran), and St. Gaspar the Stickball Coach (from the Haifa University Department of Biblical Athletics). Do you really want to engage in that part of the War on Christmas that specifically disses the three wise guys? No, I didn't think so. And therefore there will be a Gaspar-lovin' game at Codornices this Sunday at 11AM, IF I get enough commits by this Friday morning…Raymond
12/21/12
Softball: The Varied Sources of Buzzkill
Dear People,
Stupid rain permitting, there will be a game at Codornices this Sunday at 11, and as of now there are still three slots left. You will need to check email that morning since Yahoo Weather is suggesting that the stupid rain will not be permitting.
$4 for the field if the weather cooperates (50/50) and the world doesn't end (50/50)….Raymond 845-7552
12/23/12
Softball: Sunday 8:15AM: Hosed Again/Brunch it is!
Dear People,
Since it rained heavily last night and it still sucks as I peck these very words, I have to assume that Codorncies is a brackish quagmire of unspeakable filth. I'm going back to sleep.
However, Chris and I will be having a succulent nature-dissing brunch at 11AM at Au Coquelet Café ( http://www.aucoquelet.com/ ), at the corner of University and Milvia. So I can save enough seats, let me know by 10:30 if you'd like to join us.
Courage….Raymond