1/8/14

Softball: A Comeback for the Ages

Dear People,

In a stunning triumph of stark Rothkoesque pulchritude, my team rallied from a grisly 7th-inning 22-9 deficit to smash Chris Fure's on the last hit of the game, 26-25. I still get verklemptuous goose-bumps when I think of how we pulled it off, for as I assessed our prospects in the top of that fateful inning, five runs had just come across, there were still two on, and on top of all that, their most powerful sluggers were lining up to punish us still further. Truth be told, I feared that we were starting to lose control of the match, and with it, control of our dignity, our hopes and even our very innards (though not necessarily in that order).

Of course the aerobic zeitgeist of any given game is a tempestuous mistress indeed, and when she swerves, she swerves hard and raw. I mention this because as soon as Darryl singled straight up the middle, Frank decided to 'test' our demoralized ramparts by darting past second and straight on to third, despite the fact that the ball was already back in the infield. It was, in retrospect, an utterly transcendent turning point, for suddenly Tucker, Kira, Paul H, Mateo and myself all came alive with the sheer elation of hunting that presumptuous bastard down.

Frankenstein himself began to quickly falter, as if he were a bushbuck antelope trapped by a pride of famished river sturgeon, and as Paul's coup de tag-out silenced his giggles for good, I could feel the swelling chi of my entirely revitalized posse. Indeed, their mojo died right then and there, and with Saadia's 3-RBI homer leading the way, we cut their dozen-run lead in half by the end of the 7th. Two innings later, Mateo delivered the final 2-RBI game-winning blast to the sturgeon-free tundra of deep center right, and with that, it was once again shown that no matter how deep the abyss and how demoralized, listless and even jejune the individual players are, there is, within the bosom of every dying team, an infracaninophilic spark just waiting to be lit. Yeah, there's a reason we call Frank 'the lighter' (even if we actually don't).

The point is that I wasn't going to organize a game this Sunday because our cherished San Francisco 49ers will be fighting for their lives in North Carolina that very morning. But then I remembered that as a softball-lovin' folk, we're doers, not watchers, and regardless, we certainly know how to use Tivo, or DVRs or Snapchat or non-catalytic converters or whatever it is that our stupid youth are using to record nowadays. And therefore there will be a game at Codornices this Sunday at 11, IF I get enough commits by this Friday morning….Raymond


1/10/13

Softball: Doers, not Watchers

Dear People,

There will be a game at Codornices this Sunday at 11, and as of now there are still five slots left.

Please bring $5 for the field, which for this week only includes a grilled 49ers gulch rabbit with butternut squash purée, braised Carolina endive and black olive tapenade, and I'm not saying that just because I have no idea what a tapenade is…Raymond 845-7552

A PS Reminder: Our own singer-songwriter extraordinaire, the great Steve Seskin, this Sunday night in downtown Berkeley! . . .

http://www.thefreight.org/steve-seskin-craig-carothers-don-henry-2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuxhE93_HEI


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