Softball: Hanky-Panky, Now and Then
Dear People,
Anthony’s team ruthlessly crushed my own 28-11, in one of those long, grueling ordeals in which the gap between potential and execution was so frightfully vast that it now seems obvious someone spiked our Gatorade with an insidious blend of Liquid Meth and Nyquil. Why else would Michael Tucker, Chris Fure and I all leave the sanctuary of our protective bases to pointlessly dart directly into a pick-off, a double play AND a two-runner train-wreck, all in three fully separate but equally pitiful displays of lemming-like athleticide?
For that matter, how else do you explain how 27 line-drives straight up the middle all got by at least three layers of our magnificent aerobic defense? No, my friends, there was something louche and untoward that fateful day, and yet I concede that without the spiker’s confession, I cannot prove what I know for certain, deep within my bosom.
I mention all this because ironically, next weekend marks the 110th anniversary of the birth of the legendary Yankee outfielder Whitney “Hundred Eyes” Witt, who was almost certainly knocked unconscious by a thrown bottle on September 16, 1922, while playing Centerfield at St. Louis’ Sportsman Park. As most of you probably know, both the Cardinals and the American League actually denied that the Wittster was a victim of assault, claiming instead that the bottle was already on the ground when our hero stepped on it inadvertently, causing it to somehow fly directly into his innocent little hippocampus. Yeah, right.
Well, the hard reality is that over the last 85 years, not a single physicist, vitriologist or jar-dude has been able to reproduce that alleged trajectory, which only adds to the certitude of my convictions. Indeed, these two incidents span decades, but in their own profound ways, they both tell us much about the vulnerability of the human spirit in its ceaseless war with the temptations of triumph. And therefore there will be a game at San Pablo #2, this Sunday at 11, IF I get enough commits by this Friday morning….Ray
10/26/07
Softball: Bruce
Dear People,
Just got back from the Springsteen concert, and I can tell you right now that the most awesome part was when he sang out those immortal lyrics:
Someday girl, I don’t know when, we’re going to get to that home plate where we really want to go, and we’ll bat in the sun, but ’til then…kick-ass softball tramps like us, baby, we were born to run! (From 1st to 2nd to 3rd, oh, wow oh, wow, wow….!!)
The point is that there will be a game at San Pablo #2 at 11AM, and as of now there are still four slots left.
$3 for the field/Cocktail attire….Ray 845-7552