5/24/99
Softball: To Chart One's Own Path
Dear People,
Congratz to all on last weekend's deliciously scintillating 12-9 manifestation of sheer aerobic will. I take particular pride in being on a team that almost rallied from an 11 point deficit, especially given that our initial fielding efforts clearly revealed that half our players had arrived under the somewhat disadvantageous influence of either significant sleep deprivation or multiple doses of crack.
In any case, in deciding how to most effectively woo you for the upcoming Memorial Day weekend, I am certainly aware that this is a tempting time for many to stray from the immediate Bay Area in order to go camping, or fishing, or god knows what else deluded urban dwellers such as yourselves do in order to get back to "nature," as if "nature" really offered anything more than a bunch of snakes, rats and other contemptible human-hating vermin. Fortunately, though, it turns out that this Sunday, May 30th is the 112th anniversary of the day that Louisville Colonels southpaw Thomas "the toad" Ramsey threw what most historians now consider to be the first knuckleball in the history of professional baseball.
Admittedly, 'ol toadie's innovation has had only a muted impact on our own time, and to be brutally honest, I don't even really know what a knuckleball is. Yet I do know that the Memorial Day weekend is a time to honor those who fought for freedom, and I can think of nothing that exemplifies liberty more than the right to play softball and hurl exotic pitches such as the knuckle, slow-curve and earwax-laced sinker. Therefore, there will be a game this SUNDAY, May 30th, at Noon at Kleeberger North, IF I get enough commits by this Friday morning. So forget the mosquito infested campgrounds, stay home and make that commit; Do it for Thomas "the toad" Ramsey, whose maverick leadership on the late 19th century mound is the foundation upon which each new generation of pitchers probes the outer boundaries of athletic expression....Raymond
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