12/3/08
Softball: The Question of our Institutional Survival in Hard Times
Dear People,
In one of those long and arduous three hour paragons of puzzling aerobic tragedy, Jeff W’s team managed to rally from an utterly distasteful 17-2 3rd inning deficit to beat mine on the last hit of the game, 26-25. As captain of the losing bozos who gave up 11 runs in the bottom of the 9th, I take full responsibility in a somewhat meaningless way (yeah, like I’m gonna’ resign), though in all candor, I still don’t understand how we slid so quickly into transformative suckitude.
Perhaps it just wasn’t our ethical destiny to nail down that final triumph, if for no other reason than our initial dominance was not really built on our own athletic excellence, but rather on the 200 ghastly errors that Jeff’s side committed in the game’s calamitous early innings. Of course I now realize that aerobic karma is a stern and wily mistress, and that in retrospect, my reaction to their recurrent misfortune would’ve been better expressed in ways other than incessant giggling.
In any case, some of you may have heard that the National Bureau of Economic Research has just announced that the United States has officially been in a deep and annoying recession since December of last year. As a keen observer of the economic scene, I have to confess that I hadn’t even noticed there was a problem, with the possible exceptions of the imploding housing sector, stock market, manufacturing base, retail business, auto industry and every bank I’ve ever heard of. Now I mention all of this because a lot of you are no doubt worried that if so many venerable institutions could teeter on the brink—truth be told, AIG is my 7th favorite insurance company—then perhaps the softball community itself could crumble in a sea of debt, scandal and basic athletic retardation. I feel your fear.
Indeed, no one could deny that if a bunch of Martians landed and compared America’s urbane and impeccably dressed corporate elites with the motley recreational riffraff that define who we are, then they’d undoubtedly conclude that we as an unaffiliated email-organized community were the ones who are doomed. No, we don’t create wealth or value, and for that matter, we don’t look sharp, talk good or even smell pleasant. Moreover, the actual game we play is so utterly nonsensical that when seen from the perspective of contemplative little Martian eyes, we must look like a bunch of clinically insane psychopaths who run around in random circles as if we’d all forgotten our meds. Yeah, I get it.
Yet for what it’s worth, I also happen to know that as a people, we are more robust, stout and recession-proof than any piss-ant company on the face of the earth. Perhaps a dim-witted extra-terrestrial could never understand that, but I guess that just makes our resilience all the more wondrous. And therefore there will be a game at Codornices this Sunday at 11AM, IF I get enough commits by this Friday morning…Raymond
12/5/08
Softball: Hairy
Dear People,
There will be a game at Codornices this Sunday at 11AM, and as of now there are two slots left.
Please bring $3 for the field, which for this week only includes a complimentary post-match cut, blowdry and tint correction with your choice of EITHER a formal updo OR full highlights with an Ion reconstructor for damaged roots…Raymond 845-7552
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