5/26/04

Softball: Nettlesome Issues in Sport and Philosophy

Dear People,

Congratz to all on last week’s splendid little sojourn into the stark and compelling interface of mind, logic and quantum aerobics. I refer, of course, to that transcendent moment in the top of the 8th , with two out and two on, when Mike ‘big’n’burly’ Davey sauntered over to the plate. My team still held a 20-19 edge, and while we all respected the Daveyator’s raw and sensual power, we had learned to contain his annoyingly incessant drives to right with a rarefied strategy of pure tactical genius. Indeed, I had absolute faith in Chris when he once again shifted every one of our players to the right of 2nd base, thus leaving Mike’s most cherished target field as nothing more than a teeming and impenetrable suckzone of softball-snagging mobocrats.

Unfortunately, Chris may have "miscalculated," for in this particular instance, Mike proceeded to slam Peter’s very first pitch 300 feet down the 3rd base line, thus forcing our nearest player to hitch a ride back to the ball’s eventual resting spot. In retrospect, of course, it occurred to me that the Daveyator may have actually "adjusted" his swinging technique once he saw that our left fielder, 3rd baseman and shortstop were all counting aphids in the verdant grasses of deep center right.

Allow me to be blunt: The idea that a hitter would actually take into account how the opposing team chooses to field against him has profound implications for all of us, and while I am not yet willing to say that we have undergone a paradigm shift in how we perceive the athletic brain, I now believe that moving one’s entire outfield by 45 degrees is only advisable against those batters who are both legally blind and oblivious to the conceptual possibilities of unexpected opportunity. Alas, these restraints were not in place, which helps to explain why my team ultimately perished, 29-22.

The point is that life itself is never certain, and ultimately, this isn’t about knowing "how Mike thinks." Personally, I believe that the grand sweep of aerobic logic is played out in the nearly Borg-like calculus of the communal whole, and that to truly understand why any individual athlete does what he does is to actually observe the mind of God. And I’m not saying that just because I happened to be innocently reading the June issue of Harper’s Index when I came across the fact that Stephan D. Unwin, a British theoretical physicist who specializes in risk management, has quantified the odds of God’s existence at 2 in 3. Yeah, that’s 2 in 3, and not 1 in 3 to the 43rd , like some of you snooty secular types would have us believe. So sure, you could still say it’s all about Mike Davey’s hitting, but I think cognitive deistic statistics tells a different story. And therefore there will be a game at Cordonices this Sunday at 11AM, IF I get enough commits by this Friday morning…Raymond



5/28/04

Softball: Slottage for Six

Dear People,

There will be a game at Codornices this Sunday at 11AM. However, please be aware that as of now, we only have 16 players. This means that if you’ve already committed, you have a moral duty to seek out the timorous non-community little people who have always yearned to swing a bat, but who have been, tragically, too ashamed to try it because of their very timorositude. Psycho extended family and embarrassing paramours are also welcome.

$2 for the field/See ya Sunday….Raymond

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