9/21/05

Softball: Unabashed Pride in the Local Gene Pool

Dear People,

As the hot baking sun shone, and shone hard, my team moved out to a
fragile 16-3 lead at the end of the 1st , forcing Nanci to ‘reassess’
her side’s basic strategic vision. Grabbing the bull by the managerial
balls, she gave the delicate task of aerobic triage to Chris ‘the
fixer’ Fure, who wasted no time in quelling the chaos. Indeed, he
immediately forced through a brazen 2nd inning trade in which Vince, an
unknown power-batting first-timer who was striking terror into Nanci’s entire defense, was exchanged for Chee, who may not be so frightening, but who is still the greatest Malaysian player in the history of our league (And just for the record, I have no shame in saying that I’d like to one day Google "the greatest Malaysian player in the history of our league" and have the Cheemeister pop right up).

In any case, a grueling three-hour battle ensued in which their team actually outscored my own over the final seven innings, and yet for all their raw determination, grace and spunk, they still went down in flames, 34-25. Yep, sometimes life is just deeply satisfying.

Of course satisfaction is now swirling throughout the East Bay air, given that three of this year’s 25 MacArthur Foundation Genius Awards have just been granted to UC Berkeley scientists. As you may know, not only do these academic whipper-snappers receive a veritable shitload of money, love and prestige, but as MacArthur Fellows, each of them is automatically eligible to join our unaffiliated email-organized softball community. So if any of you happen to know Michael Manga, Lu Chen or Nicole King, please give them the additional good news (Talk about icing on the cake!).

I know a lot of you will be thinking that this is just totally unfair, that just because your psychotic friends and ex-lovers are pitifully clueless when it comes to the geochemical content of spring waters along the Hayward fault, or how synapses are used to send chemical signals from one stupid neuron to another, or how the bacterium bacillus forms spores (as if that’s even any of our business!), they should still be allowed to join the email list before a cerebral trio of sport-ignorant lab nerds. I feel your pain, but at the end of the day, I think we can all agree that it is only through a rarefied blend of communal brawn AND brain that our community will continue to flourish. And therefore there will be a game at San Pablo #2 this Sunday at noon, IF I get enough commits by this Friday morning…Raymond


9/23/05

Softball: Chez Pretentious (The Continuing Abuse of Definite Articles)

Dear People,

There will be a game at San Pablo #2 this Sunday at Noon, and as of now there are still seven slots left. You are therefore invited to commit anybody you know, with special brownie points for MacArthur Fellows who are able to maintain a batting average that is higher than their IQ.

This week’s field fee is just $3, and for this week only, that includes a local sand dab baked in the wood oven with sweet and sour onions…Raymond 845-7552

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