Softball: Seedlings for the Future

[raymond...@gmail.com]

Dear People,

 

Let the record show that in the throes of our recent aerobic diaspora, our plans for a game at Bushrod Park had to be aborted at the last minute thanks to the discovery of shameless interlopers on both BP fields. Now, to be clear, I didn’t use ‘aborted’ just so that I could glibly segue into the fact that as a vulnerable folk which society so shamelessly discards, we ourselves are all about embryonic inclusion. Indeed, I happen to believe that without enough carbon-based human beans, there is no softball, and thus if we’re going to be truly serious about saving both the babies and this league, we have no choice but to welcome all of the day-old frozen Alabamian embryos into our embracing aerobic community. No worries—I’ll handle the paperwork.

 

The point is that any other group that had just lost its backup-backup field would’ve thrown in the towel and immediately retreated to the emotional succor of a good local whiskey bar, but then, we’re not like those losers, are we? In fact, because we’re both incredibly resourceful and have no standards, we immediately returned to Golden Gate Park, where the pungent blend of apparently broken sewer pipe and six inches of mushy mud-laden bog-suck brought a certain je-ne-sais-quoi to the center field experience. Luckily, the infield was pristine, and I was playing 1st.

 

Even better, my team took on the legendary Anthony Weatheroy’s in another match for the ages, though frankly, we struggled just to stay close for the first nine grueling innings. And then, in the bottom of that fateful tranche, with one on, one out and my peeps desperately trying to close a 2-run deficit, the great Steve Powers unleashed a searing line drive to deep center-right, where James ‘Steady Eyes’ Smith was waiting to crush our dreams. Fortunately, good ol’ Eyeball Boy apparently lost his conceptual mastery of Euclidean line theory, and thus he ran 15 feet past the incoming orb as it rapidly bounced past his fecklessly lurching body. Half a minute later, the score was tied, and two minutes after that, we all went into tense extra innings as a feral kune kune pig neighed nervously in the distance. 

 

Anthony’s contingent put two on in the top of the 10th, but then Kira shut down their scoreless 2-out rally with a heroic 3-second stumble-triggered super-sliding glove-extended force-out at 2nd against the Antman himself! To be sure, it was a moment of irrefutable majesty, but it must have shaken him to the core, for just a few minutes later with two on, two out and the winning run at second (me!), the inimitable Joe P hit a solid but playable hopper up the middle that Tony initially fielded clean. Alas though, and for reasons I don’t pretend to understand, our hero promptly hurled the potentially life-extending orb a good 10 feet above Bobby F’s delicate post-surgical shoulders at 1st, and with that, I headed home as Captain Weatherbeaten’s contingent went down, and down hard, 17-16. 

 

Sure, Anthony would later walk home and tell his mom and grandma and sister and most importantly, his beautiful daughter Annabell, that his team had come up just a tad short. Of course I know that they still feted him as the superstar that he is, for in this confuddling world of feral Alabamian embryos and frozen kune kune pigs, familial cohesion is a triumph in itself. And therefore there will be a game this Sunday at 11—location still to be determined as I await word from our friends at Berkeley Parks and Wreck—IF I get enough commits by this Friday morning . . . Raymond