1/9/01
Softball: Musings
Dear People,
Congratz to all on last week’s jubilant 15-14 prototype of all that is wondrous and sublime in unaffiliated amateur athletics. Ya know, sometimes I look at the broad geographic cyber-roots of the 250+ people who are now stuck on this list, and I wonder why I am no longer out there with them, living the Kerouacesque life of the vital 3rd tier never-shows, whether they be in France, Costa Rica, Mainland China or even San Leandro. And then I’ll participate in a game like this last one, with its inimitable pitcher’s dual and dazzling saved-on-the-last-hit denouement, and I’ll remember again with clarion gratitude why I initially chose to settle in this humble rural hamlet they now call Berkeley.
No, it’s not the climate, or the University, or even our world-renowned fields of fertile Rye, Corn and Sorghum. Rather, it’s simply the privilege of playing ball with decent folk like Peter, who go out and throw with the grace of the Gods, and then humbly withdraw until the following week, unrecognized by the press, ignored by the multitudes, indeed, for all I know, utterly despised by his wife, children and even his landlord.
In any case, I was thinking about this, and thinking about it hard, especially after witnessing that truly mesmerizing 7th inning performance in which Peter single handedly retired three batters in a row---two of whom had smashed a streaking projectile directly into the frontal marbling of his tiny little skull. Naturally, his glove was there to save both his team and his hippocampus, and thus I later found my awe turn to skepticism as I wondered how such awesome recreational strategery could be so routinely ignored by the powers that be.
I suppose I’m just quixotic, but the simple reality is that there are only two journals that I normally read from cover to cover----USA Today’s Baseball Weekly, and of course, The UCLA Review of Bovine Andrology. Obviously I don’t expect to come across our gentle hero’s name in the latter publication, if for no other reason than Peter is not a cow. Yet the former paper is another story, and yes, I truly believe that their brazen indifference to the towering giants of our league will one day be seen as a sordid stain in the precarious development of aerobic journalism. Thus, I for one will be doing substantially less reading on the antics of people like Pedro Martinez and Derek Jeter, for like many of you, I will be focusing instead on the alarming loss of plasma proteins recently found in the breeding semen of Scandinavian beef cattle.
And therefore, there will be a game at San Pablo this Sunday at noon, IF I get enough commits by this Friday morning….Ray
1/12/01
Softball: A Thousand Red Buckets (Would not Suffice)
Dear People,
As you know, my unshakeable faith in the goodness of the universal whole is grounded into a morbid abyss of existential despair whenever I have to call off a game. Unfortunately though, I have just returned from an exploratory excursion to our beloved San Pablo Park, and after studying her saturated soils with the dispassionate eye of a seasoned drainiologist, I am forced to conclude that there is no point in showing up this Sunday, unless, of course, you would care to partake in some deep-sea trout fishing or a few vigorous matches of Greco-Roman-mud-writhing.
For the rest of you, patience…..Raymond
PS: I’ll be in a far and distant land for most of next week, but through the magical toys of the modern age, I should be able to organize a game. I think. Maybe.
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