Softball: A Mishmash of Challenges

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raymond...@gmail.com

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Mar 13, 2024, 3:07:51 AMMar 13

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Dear People,

In another match for the ages at suggestively unmown Golden Gate Playground, my team battled Anthony’s in a magnificent exemplar of high aerobic drama and dynamic casting. Indeed, the great Darryl Gruen returned to the community after several years in exile, and despite his prolonged absence, he supported my own team with focus and alacrity. Meanwhile on the Antman’s contingent, Jerry Dalo’s awesome 12-year-own son Luca made his heroic league debut with a stellar command of both bat and base (Luca, it turns out, is our own Luke’s 5th cousin twice removed, through ironically, neither was aware of the obvious connection until they read this very missive).

Needless to say, the action on the field was often taut and spell-binding, as when I was forced to move from 1st into the frightful muds of treacherous center-left after Darryl pulled up gimpy with a bitterly torn 7th-inning hammy (for a germane protein of reference, see D.K. Slater’s remarkable new history, Not Really Kosher: Industrialization, Hormel, and the Rise of Big Bacon in Post-War Duluth, 1945-1949). In any case, and with all due modesty, I actually caught a deep fly ball with just a touch of depth-perceptionless-squinting, and even better, I made no errors across two critical innings!

Anthony, alas, had a somewhat more painful experience in that same position, especially when he tried to catch a similar 8th-inning blast with his little left patella. To be sure, most orthopedists would recommend against such tactics if not wearing knee pads, but here’s the thing: As the Antman quickly hobbled home to soak and soak hard, I could feel his peeps engorge anew with the vengeful juices they needed to validate his sacrifice. Fine. Whatever. The point is that the score was tied up at 16 when Anthony left for the day, but the bitter reality is that it’s hard to fight back against a contingent in the throes of their simmering emotive resolve, and thus when it was all said and done, his peeps pan-fried my own in a nasty wok of ghee, onions, and loser-liver, 24-22.

And now, please don’t blame the messenger: If I get enough commits by this Friday morning, there will be a game this Sunday at 11 at either GGP or Codornices, because, ya know, if you’re the Berkeley Department of Parks and Wreck, apparently the last thing you want to allow is your city’s tax-paying citizens the chance to enjoy their own parks.