Softball: WWJP?

[raymond...@gmail.com]

Dear People,

 

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “Ray, today is the 2,030th anniversary of the birth of the great Jesus Christ, give or take a decade, and with all due respect, I think we can all agree that Christmas has nothing to do with softball, so maybe next week, OK?” Listen, I hear ya, and normally I’d say that we should wait until the first Sunday of the new year to make this happen, but then I started thinking about my own musings on this deeply misunderstood topic, and while I’m obviously not going to quote myself verbatim, I still get a bit misty-eyed when I read what I wrote all of you just 15 years ago this very day . . .

 

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Most seem to forget that when the Three Wise Guys arrived in Bethlehem, they gave Mary and Joseph a congratulatory basket of solemn Lord-birthing presents, including some fresh Myrrh, Frankincense and several yellow-colored orbs of the finest Samarian leathers. Well, in both Luke and Matthew, it is said that for his entire life, Jesus cherished those soft mysterious balls more than all his other possessions, and that includes both his favorite loin cloth and the Condo in Jericho. So yeah, nobody’s forcing you to enjoy an invigorating game of softball this upcoming weekend, but yes, in this most majestic of seasons, I would gently ask you, "What would the Christmeister play?"

 

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To be sure, I think we can all agree that this cogent blend of robust logic and biblical scholarship seals the deal, though of course I know what else you’re thinking. You’re thinking “But Ray, my heart cleaved into a thousand shattered pieces of total aortic sorrow when you cancelled last week’s game, and I just don’t think I can go through that again.” Listen, I feel your pain, but I happen to know a thing or two about moisture and soil, and since all the major weather sites are predicting rain for the next couple days but then merely showers on Friday before  glorious sun all weekend long, every fiber of my being says that Bushrod #1 will be moist and shaken but utterly playable come this Sunday morn’ (for a germane point of reference, see D.K. Slater’s enticing new masterwork, Moist and Shaken: A Social History of Creamed Spinach and the Emergence of other Pureed Foods in Post-War Rural Kansas, 1945-1949. [And for this enticing oeuvre, be grateful I went with this subtitle and not my original idea focused on The Andrews Sisters]).

 

The point is that nothing is guaranteed and the heartbreak from an aerobic release denied could happen again, but the bottom line is that as we barrel toward the end of this wretched year, staying indoors and glued to your screens is no way to revitalize yourself. Indeed, no matter how increasingly vile the kakistocracy becomes and how totally disappointing the human species is, life is still with people. And therefore there will be a game at Bushrod this Sunday at 11, IF I get enough commits by this Friday morning, and Merry Xmas despite it all! . . . Raymond