Softball: 9:37 (A Tale of Two Gentle Giants)
Dear People,
My team fought Jim McGuire's to an arduous 14-14 draw at the end of 9, and thus as we all faced the risk-laden gamut of enervating extra innings, I trembled at the likelihood of interminable competitive carnage. And so it was, except for the interminable part. Indeed, in the top of the 10th, my side drained every bloody drop of hope from their metaphorical veinage, with an additional 14 runs on 10 hits, 34 errors and the most ghastly implosion of an otherwise honorable defense that I think I've ever seen. Nasty.
Tragically, the great Steve Powers had flown up from LA to play his first community match in over six months, and yet he likely flew back that evening knowing that because Enid's languid little 2-on 2-out grounder rolled right between his normally flawless gams, that single error cost his team another dozen runs and ultimately the game, 28-18. Or, perhaps he's never studied proximate causation and he actually never realized it at all, in which case he flew back chipper despite the loss, fully at peace with himself and utterly oblivious to the stark profundity of his dispositive aerobic failure. Yeah, may his fetching Midwestern innocence protect him, and may he never read these words.
In any case, Jim's contingent did not immediately succumb in the bottom of that fateful inning, in retrospect, perhaps, because I decided to let Jerry rest after a match well-pitched. In his stead, I placed the great Michael Davey (upon the insistence of the great Michael Davey), and sure enough, the Daveyator took to the mound with an outsider's inscrutable dominance. That is, if by 'dominance' one means the giving up of 1 hit and 2 walks over 4 batters on 187 pitches, of which 163 landed somewhere between 10 feet from the plate and the much beloved drinking fountain behind the batting cage.
Nevertheless, and just to be clear, while Chris Fure was called in to more efficiently snuff out Jimmy's team for good, the fact is that Michael gets the official win as the starting pitcher of the last inning when the game was still tied. Now look, if either Jerry or Chris have a problem with that, they can refer to the codified regulations of Major League Baseball, or our own 17 years of practice, or even the official handbook of the National Association of People for the Defense of Dumbass Rules in Sport (or as it's more commonly known in scholarly circles, NAOPFTDODRIS).
Oh sure, sometimes “the law” is an unjust and counterintuitive monstrosity, and yet in Mikie's case, I think we can all agree that it worked with a certain subtle elegance in terms of its inadvertent moral support for the visually impaired. And therefore there will be a game at Codornices this Sunday at 9:37AM (or more specifically, 143 minutes before that first ravenous wave of 6-year old nutso imperialist girly-girls arrive to seize our homeland), IF I get enough commits by this Friday morning…Raymond
10/16/14
Softball: It's a Boy!!!
Dear People,
There will be a game at Codornices this Sunday at 9:37, and as of now it is already full. As always, please let me know ASAP if you committed and need to cancel, and if you still want in, feel free to get on the wait list or contact me later for news of reopened slots.
Please remember that the first wave of ankle-biters from the Albany-Berkeley Girl's Softball League will be seizing the field at exactly noon, and thus we need to throw out the first pitch no later than 9:45 sharp. SO, please get there no later than 9:37, which is just like 11:04 except that it's actually 87 minutes earlier.
This week's field fee is just $4, which I happen to think is a small price to pay for the nurturing warmth of your fellow athletes . . . Raymond 845-7552
A PS of Transformational Import!: I am delighted to tell you that Kira and Michael Tucker gave birth on Tuesday to an awesome baby boy, James Levi Abrams Tucker (as best I can tell, Kira did the actual birthing and Tucker took the pictures).
Little Levi weighed just 9 pounds 6 ounces, and as you can see from the attached photo, every fiber of his newly-born being is screaming out to join his parents in a bracing game of unaffiliated email-organized softball. And yeah, I for one plan to make sure that happens, in the Fall of '26.