6/27/00

Softball: England

Dear People,

Congratz to all on last week’s blood curdling 16-14 come-from-behind paradigm of all that is cherished and feared in email organized amateur athletics. The shrill sound of tearing calve muscle and battered tibia were bad enough, but as I later witnessed the sudden full-speed collision of a darting base runner’s cherubic face with the opposing 3rd basemen’s elbow and sternum, I could not help but wonder if the thirst for pointage had now come too far. Fortunately, both players soon regained the cognitive abilities necessary for basic sentence structure, and undoubtedly, both will go on to forever treasure the moment of impact, when the admittedly ephemeral but glorious melding of formerly discrete and isolated souls brought each man closer to the other, and to the Universal oneness of the aerobic whole. As you can imagine, that’s a fairly rare occurrence.

In any case, I am well aware that this weekend will be an extended four day 4th of July holiday for many of you, and that you may be tempted to leave the immediate Bay Area in order to celebrate elsewhere. While I’m not going to exaggerate or claim that such an act of cowardice is either Anti-American or Bolshevik per se, I would like to gently remind you of what I myself wrote nearly three years ago:
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As the 4th approaches, I am reminded of the intense pressures that Jefferson, Adams and Franklin must have felt when they decided to pen that most momentous of definitive divorces, their very lives at stake as cunning little fish-and-chips eating British troops scampered throughout the Pennsylvania bush. These intrepid and indefatigable revolutionaries would have no doubt given anything to play an exciting game of softball, but stuck as they were in the 18th century, they had to settle for yeoman farming and really boring arguments about the nature of mercantilism. I think you see my point. Make that commit. Do it for the children. Do it now. Indeed, the line from Alexander Hamilton to Jackie Robinson to all of you is the very essence of the American experience.
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Well, it’s nearly three years later, and I for one am grateful for another 36 months of freedom from the tyranny of the British yolk. Oh sure, they still have those adorable accents and apparently they’ve done their fair share in the Genome thing, and there is no denying that I will weep with unbridled joy when the Queen Mother turns 100 later this summer, but ultimately, this is a question of honoring athletic sovereignty, and I think you understand that. And therefore, there will be a game at Codornices this Saturday at 5PM, IF I get enough players by this Friday morning……Raymond

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