Spring Straining
Apr. 30th, 2008 05:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
penfield"The one constant through all the years has been Baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It's been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again. But, Baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, is a part of our past. It reminds us of all that once was good, and could be again."
- W.P. Kinsella, via Terence Mann, Field of Dreams
Today is the first day of the 2008 softball season, as my team will hold its "first practice" this afternoon. I put the phrase in quotes because (a) it will probably be our only practice, given everyone's busy schedules and the difficulty in finding nine willing bodies for games that actually count, and (b) there is not enough instruction or regimentation to really call it a "practice." It is more of a collective shaking off of the winter cobwebs. We just have to be sure we stretch adequately before shaking too vigorously.
I'll be playing on a team I'll call the "Grays," in honor of the former Washington D.C. Negro League team as well as the color of our uniforms. I've been with this team for four years now, to the point where I'm one of the senior veterans. The team is affiliated with a federal government agency, but I remain an outsider; the team graciously allows me to take my hacks with them since my actual work colleagues has neither the inclination nor the youthful flexibility to play anything more physically challenging than "Brickbreaker" on their Blackberries.
There is a chance that I will moonlight with a second team this season -- a friend's former team, with whom I played for several years before they folded up their jerseys and stayed home in 2007. This made total sense, since their 2006 roster included barely enough people for a game of Pictionary, much less softball. At one point that year, they were desperate enough to recruit my girlfriend, who detests the sport so much I worry that she will poison my Big League Chew. Naturally, their first game has already been cancelled due to a lack of interested players, which suggests that they may be selling off their equipment before next week.
As I did in 2006, I will be keeping track of my batting average, hits, runs and runs batted in (RBI), as well as my Earned Run Average (based on softball's standard seven innings) as a pitcher. This will be used to prove or disprove the sneaking suspicion that my athletic peak has passed me by. My offhand impression is that my game has really gone south since entering a committed relationship with J. I do not mean to suggest that she has put any kind of hex on me, but I distinctly remember being a lot more conscientious about my physical fitness when I was out there competing for women's attention.
Of course, no statistics accumulated during today's practice will count toward my season total, which means I ought to do pretty well. Either that, or it will rain.
- W.P. Kinsella, via Terence Mann, Field of Dreams
Today is the first day of the 2008 softball season, as my team will hold its "first practice" this afternoon. I put the phrase in quotes because (a) it will probably be our only practice, given everyone's busy schedules and the difficulty in finding nine willing bodies for games that actually count, and (b) there is not enough instruction or regimentation to really call it a "practice." It is more of a collective shaking off of the winter cobwebs. We just have to be sure we stretch adequately before shaking too vigorously.
I'll be playing on a team I'll call the "Grays," in honor of the former Washington D.C. Negro League team as well as the color of our uniforms. I've been with this team for four years now, to the point where I'm one of the senior veterans. The team is affiliated with a federal government agency, but I remain an outsider; the team graciously allows me to take my hacks with them since my actual work colleagues has neither the inclination nor the youthful flexibility to play anything more physically challenging than "Brickbreaker" on their Blackberries.
There is a chance that I will moonlight with a second team this season -- a friend's former team, with whom I played for several years before they folded up their jerseys and stayed home in 2007. This made total sense, since their 2006 roster included barely enough people for a game of Pictionary, much less softball. At one point that year, they were desperate enough to recruit my girlfriend, who detests the sport so much I worry that she will poison my Big League Chew. Naturally, their first game has already been cancelled due to a lack of interested players, which suggests that they may be selling off their equipment before next week.
As I did in 2006, I will be keeping track of my batting average, hits, runs and runs batted in (RBI), as well as my Earned Run Average (based on softball's standard seven innings) as a pitcher. This will be used to prove or disprove the sneaking suspicion that my athletic peak has passed me by. My offhand impression is that my game has really gone south since entering a committed relationship with J. I do not mean to suggest that she has put any kind of hex on me, but I distinctly remember being a lot more conscientious about my physical fitness when I was out there competing for women's attention.
Of course, no statistics accumulated during today's practice will count toward my season total, which means I ought to do pretty well. Either that, or it will rain.
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no subject
Date: 2008-05-04 09:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-05 01:28 pm (UTC)Flirting with the opposing team's catcher is an underrated part of my game.
Personally I think I did well, putting a charge into some of my batting practice swings and making some decent pickups in the field. My endurance is not quite up to snuff, though; I was cooked after an hour.
First game is on Wednesday, supposedly -- but I'm doubtful that it will actually happen for reasons I'll expand upon Thursday.