Softball: Family (Issues of Transition, Near and Far)
Dear People,
On a blazing afternoon with one out, bases loaded and Chris Fure’s team trailing by just one slender little run in the bottom of the 10th, my side plunged deep into the vast communal well of our bloodied but courage-laden innards. Sure, that’s an utterly disgusting image and I’m not going to defend it, but the upshot is that Pace turned a final blistering line drive into a rally-crushing double play, and with that, my team offed the Furinator’s, 19-18. Good times.
Even better, this week’s game marked the community debut of my brother’s daughter, Sara Weschler, and I have to tell ya, as a childless man who’s as barren as the scorched dunes of the Algerian Sahara in August, I take infinite pride in knowing that a new generation of my very own kin will continue with the ancestral mantle of raw aerobic greatness. Oh sure, “technically” Sara went 0 for 5, didn’t hit the ball more than seven feet down the baseline, and, truth be told, blended the slugging prowess of Nanci with that of a half-stoned toddler learning to swing a golf club. And yes, “technically” I was forced to create the curious position of catcher’s aide when I discovered that she wasn’t able to throw the ball back to within 300 feet of the pitcher. Still, my niece was nothing less than the moral backbone of our breathtaking triumph, and regardless, who would deny that stark is the path from debutante to dominance?
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that I’m no longer the vital spring chicken I once was, and because I’m becoming more aged, erratic and jejune, I’m going to simply install Sara as our new kinesiological commissar, thereby turning our venerable little league into the first familial dynasty in the history of unaffiliated email-organized sport.
Maybe, maybe not.
The fact is that we are ceaselessly buffeted by a wide array of softball-hostile enemies, and as such, I think we all know that nothing will bring us greater security than a great leader, or a dear leader, or perhaps a new great dear leader with compelling Korean sagacity and stern recreational juche.
The point is that the City of Berkeley is once again treating us as if we were merely an annoying cackle of out-of-town squatters, and this time they’re claiming that the so-called Albany-Berkeley Girl’s Softball League has some kind of divine right to kick us off our homeland whenever they please. Given that I’ve likely paid more money to the City’s Department of Parks and Rec than any other person, it’s an outrageous attitude, and just one more reason I often consider packing up and moving us all to Fresno. In the meantime, though, we need to adjust, and for this upcoming Sunday, those darling little tykes officially have our field from noon to 6.
Now look, I happen to think that even if all 20 of them showed up and push came to shove, there’s a reasonable chance that we could actually kick their presumptuous little prepubescent asses. Nevertheless, I’m nothing if not about diplomacy, the high ground and avoiding unseemly incidents that could perhaps be misconstrued in the local press, and therefore there will be a game at Codornices this Sunday at 9:45AM (which is just like 11AM except that it’s actually 75 MINUTES EARLIER), IF I get enough commits by this Friday morning…Raymond
9/30/10
Softball: 9:45. . .
Dear People,
There will be a game at Codornices this Sunday at 9:45, and as of now, there are still three slots left. Lest you forget, 9:45 is just like 11:00, excpet that it’s actually 75 minutes earlier. Really.
This week’s field fee is just $4, and that includes a brief post-game symposium on the seminal early works of Rush, Foghat and Motorhead…Raymond 845-7552