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penfieldUsually, softball is a sanctuary for me. For example, on Wednesday I had a miserable day at work, repeatedly screwing up a press release and yawning through an important preparatory meeting for an upcoming board of directors summit. It was the kind of day that makes you ruminate on the glamorous life of a medical test subject.
By 6:30, though, I was flying across a green field, 93-degree temperature be damned, with 20 other like-minded individuals. It may not be exercise, per se, but it is an exercise in joy.
No matter what else is going on in my life, no matter how confusing everything else may be, everything makes sense to me on a softball field. As much as there is something abstractly poetic about a baseball/softball game, there is also order, reason and fairness.
And sometimes, there is winning. Like Wednesday:
June 21, 2006
Blue Team (5-2)
WIN, 22-6
BATTING: 3-5, 1 double, 1 triple, 3 RBI, 3 runs
PITCHING: 4 innings, 3 runs
FIELDING: 6 innings, 0 errors
And the game was not even really that close. We are playing marvelously lately, and if not for an unfortunate late-inning collapse on June 7 (which led to a one-run, extra-inning loss), we would be riding a five-game winning streak. As of this writing, my Blue Team is ranked #31 in the league, with the top 32 teams qualifying for the tournament. After Wednesday night, I thought we had a chance to get to the postseason and really do some damage.
Then came Thursday.
I am searching for the proper metaphor to illustrate the sheer horror of this game, but every exaggeration seems to fall short. Let's start with the numbers:
June 22, 2006
Green Team (1-3)
LOSS, 39-11 (6 innings)
BATTING: 3-3, 2 doubles, 2 RBI, 2 runs
PITCHING: 3 innings, 25 runs
FIELDING: 6 innings, 1 error
This game, also, was not as close as the numbers suggest, which is really saying something. To be outscored by 28 runs without even playing a full seven innings is bad enough, but the domination was so thorough as to render mere numbers insignificant. A more accurate score would have been [infinity]-to-Absolute Zero.
- The opposing team, which is ranked in the league's top 10, appeared to be composed of normal Capitol Hill staffers. But in fact many of their key players are corporeal manifestations of the 1927 Yankees. The female members of the team, assuming their performance is not enhanced through the use of bovine hormones, would easily qualify as "top prospects" in the Kansas City Royals system. Their uniforms even boast "3-Time Congressional Softball League Champions," probably because their diamond-encrusted championship rings do not fit underneath their German-engineered batting gloves.
- They were hitting such spectacular bombs that our left fielder was playing as far away from the plate as Wisconsin. One shot in particular, easily 400 feet, would not just have escaped RFK Stadium, it would have escaped our nation's borders had it just been able to clear customs. One of their female players, so small that I could have squeezed her into my toiletry bag*, hit a ball 50 yards over the head of our right fielder and rolled all the way to the Air and Space Museum. We began playing with five outfielders in the middle of the second inning, so that there would be someone nearby to talk to as you were chasing the ball down the street.
- A colleague with more advanced softball knowledge than me tells me that they were using professional-grade equipment, such as a $400 DeMarini bat. A cursory Internet search tells me that DeMarini bats constitute "the world's most technologically advanced aluminum composite hybrid. DX-1 custom alloy design, doublewall construction and the Half & Half composite handle combine for unbeatable balance and intensity." I don't know what any of that means, but anything that sounds like an Italian sports car and embodies "unbeatable intensity" is not something I want to stand in front of for an extended period. We should seriously look into using these bats as close-range combat weapons in the War on Terror, if they are not already outlawed by the Geneva Convention.
- I'm totally guessing about the 25 runs I gave up from the mound. Part of me was happy that the opposing team kept slamming home runs, because it meant that the ball wasn't leaving a gaping hole on its way through my chest. Besides, they were scoring so many runs in the first three innings that I could not keep track of the tally without the use of a complicated mathematical algorhythm. I was relieved from mound duty after that as a precaution against a repetitive whiplash injury. The relief pitcher fared better than I did, perhaps because the other team was tired or because they decided to try batting with their eyes closed.
In this contest there was no joy, no poetry, no reason -- and I'm still not entirely convinced about the fairness. It was as miserable and humiliated as I have ever been on a softball field, and that includes 7th Grade Gym Class.
So I worry about my Blue Team coming up against these guys in the tournament. It might be more efficient -- and more fun -- just to beat the shit out of them with our plain old ghetto softball bats.
Season-to-Date
BATTING: 52 AB, 35 hits (.673 AVG) 13 doubles, 4 triple, 5 HR (1.365 SLG) 28 runs, 26 RBI
PITCHING: 40.2 innings, 110 runs (18.93 RA, per 7 innings; 24.34 RA, per 9)
FIELDING: 62.2 innings, 7 errors
By 6:30, though, I was flying across a green field, 93-degree temperature be damned, with 20 other like-minded individuals. It may not be exercise, per se, but it is an exercise in joy.
No matter what else is going on in my life, no matter how confusing everything else may be, everything makes sense to me on a softball field. As much as there is something abstractly poetic about a baseball/softball game, there is also order, reason and fairness.
And sometimes, there is winning. Like Wednesday:
June 21, 2006
Blue Team (5-2)
WIN, 22-6
BATTING: 3-5, 1 double, 1 triple, 3 RBI, 3 runs
PITCHING: 4 innings, 3 runs
FIELDING: 6 innings, 0 errors
And the game was not even really that close. We are playing marvelously lately, and if not for an unfortunate late-inning collapse on June 7 (which led to a one-run, extra-inning loss), we would be riding a five-game winning streak. As of this writing, my Blue Team is ranked #31 in the league, with the top 32 teams qualifying for the tournament. After Wednesday night, I thought we had a chance to get to the postseason and really do some damage.
Then came Thursday.
I am searching for the proper metaphor to illustrate the sheer horror of this game, but every exaggeration seems to fall short. Let's start with the numbers:
June 22, 2006
Green Team (1-3)
LOSS, 39-11 (6 innings)
BATTING: 3-3, 2 doubles, 2 RBI, 2 runs
PITCHING: 3 innings, 25 runs
FIELDING: 6 innings, 1 error
This game, also, was not as close as the numbers suggest, which is really saying something. To be outscored by 28 runs without even playing a full seven innings is bad enough, but the domination was so thorough as to render mere numbers insignificant. A more accurate score would have been [infinity]-to-Absolute Zero.
- The opposing team, which is ranked in the league's top 10, appeared to be composed of normal Capitol Hill staffers. But in fact many of their key players are corporeal manifestations of the 1927 Yankees. The female members of the team, assuming their performance is not enhanced through the use of bovine hormones, would easily qualify as "top prospects" in the Kansas City Royals system. Their uniforms even boast "3-Time Congressional Softball League Champions," probably because their diamond-encrusted championship rings do not fit underneath their German-engineered batting gloves.
- They were hitting such spectacular bombs that our left fielder was playing as far away from the plate as Wisconsin. One shot in particular, easily 400 feet, would not just have escaped RFK Stadium, it would have escaped our nation's borders had it just been able to clear customs. One of their female players, so small that I could have squeezed her into my toiletry bag*, hit a ball 50 yards over the head of our right fielder and rolled all the way to the Air and Space Museum. We began playing with five outfielders in the middle of the second inning, so that there would be someone nearby to talk to as you were chasing the ball down the street.
- A colleague with more advanced softball knowledge than me tells me that they were using professional-grade equipment, such as a $400 DeMarini bat. A cursory Internet search tells me that DeMarini bats constitute "the world's most technologically advanced aluminum composite hybrid. DX-1 custom alloy design, doublewall construction and the Half & Half composite handle combine for unbeatable balance and intensity." I don't know what any of that means, but anything that sounds like an Italian sports car and embodies "unbeatable intensity" is not something I want to stand in front of for an extended period. We should seriously look into using these bats as close-range combat weapons in the War on Terror, if they are not already outlawed by the Geneva Convention.
- I'm totally guessing about the 25 runs I gave up from the mound. Part of me was happy that the opposing team kept slamming home runs, because it meant that the ball wasn't leaving a gaping hole on its way through my chest. Besides, they were scoring so many runs in the first three innings that I could not keep track of the tally without the use of a complicated mathematical algorhythm. I was relieved from mound duty after that as a precaution against a repetitive whiplash injury. The relief pitcher fared better than I did, perhaps because the other team was tired or because they decided to try batting with their eyes closed.
In this contest there was no joy, no poetry, no reason -- and I'm still not entirely convinced about the fairness. It was as miserable and humiliated as I have ever been on a softball field, and that includes 7th Grade Gym Class.
So I worry about my Blue Team coming up against these guys in the tournament. It might be more efficient -- and more fun -- just to beat the shit out of them with our plain old ghetto softball bats.
Season-to-Date
BATTING: 52 AB, 35 hits (.673 AVG) 13 doubles, 4 triple, 5 HR (1.365 SLG) 28 runs, 26 RBI
PITCHING: 40.2 innings, 110 runs (18.93 RA, per 7 innings; 24.34 RA, per 9)
FIELDING: 62.2 innings, 7 errors
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*
Date: 2006-06-23 05:17 pm (UTC)Then, with her team at-bat and up by at least 30 runs in the fifth inning, she tried to make a 100% bullshit call on a play at first base, despite the fact that she was 20 feet away from the bag and picking her ass at the time.
I can't remember the last time I so desperately wanted to call someone the C-word. Every time up at bat, I was aiming right for the little princess, hoping that I could hit a ball hard enough and straight enough at her to knock her teeth out.
Is that wrong?
Re: *
Date: 2006-06-23 05:36 pm (UTC)(b) I remember playing on the wrong side of a blowout in which the other team was so completely dominant than they decided to only take one bag on each hit. I was hugely deflated when I thought I held someone to a long single in right field only to see that everyone had only moved up one base on the hit.
Re: *
Date: 2006-06-23 06:12 pm (UTC)Re: *
Date: 2006-06-24 01:54 am (UTC)Re: *
Date: 2006-06-26 04:50 pm (UTC)