I play softball through my church in a league that consists of teams from other churches in our area. We play in a “C” league which basically means were not very good. This is my second year on the team. Last season, I primarily played outfield and I took my lumps trying to field some of the blasts that were hit my direction. Our team last season consisted of a few veteran guys who were skilled enough to make up for my fielding and throwing blunders to make the team pretty competitive against the rest of the league.
Fast forward to this season: most of our big hitters and slick fielders have moved on and they’ve been replaced by fringe players and a few scrawny high schoolers. Since I’m no Ozzie Smith in the field and I don’t possess a JaMarcus Russell like arm, they’ve put me behind the plate as catcher, a position I’m glad to fill.
We started off our season last week with a win over a team we pounded last year 20-2. This year’s score was much closer at 16-15. The closeness of this game gave me the feeling that this year’s squad wasn’t going to be a completive as last year’s edition.
Week 2’s games were played last night and we were matched up against a team that looked like it was one its way to the College World Series in
We were the home team so we were in the field first. Our opponents proceeded to blast the ball around the field with relative ease (and the help of some absolutely brutal fielding) and put 6 runs on the board before we could even make an out. After allowing the other team to bat around in the top of the first we finally got out of the inning just down by 9.
Our turn to bat in the bottom of the first yielded two runs to close to gap to just 9-2.
Ding! Inning number 2. Our opponents broke out their whoppin’ sticks and put up six more runs to safely put the game out of reach. Our new left-center fielder is a guy who looks like he just walked out of Dunwoody Institute with a degree in Auto Mechanics. Well, old grease-monkey boy gets eaten up to a hard liner hit to him that rolls all the way to the fence. Well, instead of going and chasing down the ball, auto junkie decides that he’s going to give up and let someone else get the ball. This leads to a standing up inside-the-park home run. Needless to say his lack of effort pissed off most everyone on the team. Now, I’m not a real serious softball player and I can take an ass kicking with extreme humility, where as some guys are down in the dumps if we lose a game, but come on chief, you’ve at least got to turn and run after the ball! A few of our real gung-ho players were pretty irritated with lazy boy in the outfield.
The game went five innings before it was ended because of the merciful “run rule.” In this case we trailed by 15 runs after five innings. Besides, our entire team was deflated as a Glen Mason led Gopher football squad.
Next game is Monday night! Fire up!
2 comments:
Personally I enjoy a good "beer league" game.
I think you need to make some free agent acquisitions. I might be available for a third round pick and a hefty signing bonus.
I played church basketball for a year in high school we were about as good as your team sounded. One of our teammates father "coached" us. Being arguably the worst player on the team, he shook his head everytime he realized he had to put me in for at least a quarter(as were the rules). Everytime he sent me out on the floor he made some stupid comment that he thought would improve my game, like remember to wipe the dust off of your shoes." And I would think, "what am I, Majic Johnson? the dirt on my shoes is not going to affect my inability to put a ball in a basket." Needless to say at the end of the ear I scored a single basket putting two tallies in my score column for the season. To this day, I hate the sport because of church basketball.
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