Softball: Nature’s Path for Escape and Atonement

[raymond...@gmail.com]

Dear People,

 

Let the record show that my team battled Chris Fure’s  with valor, tenacity and righteous resolve, and despite the jitters that understandably come with being assigned to a contingent whose captain has lost six consecutive games, I think all the players in our league are savvy enough to understand that such an admittedly curious streak could not possibly imply anything about the odds of any given match moving forward. Indeed, no logician would ever suggest otherwise, if for no other reason than that each week’s rosters are chosen anew from scratch, and, regardless, my own leadership remains the universally accepted benchmark in methodical galvanization. 

 

’Nuff said.

 

In any case, we held our own for the first seven and a half innings, and that’s despite Eoin’s four RBI blasts deep into the forested yak-laden tundra beyond the left field perimeter. Other contingents would’ve no doubt fled in despair, but we kept coming back with magical execution, including a mid-inning pickoff of the Eoinatorat the plate that restored our faith in symmetrical justice. A few minutes later, Jim McGuire’s 3-RBI 4-bagger over Chris Fure’s discombobulated little head was particularly satisfying, and with those additional runs in our pocket, we entered the bottom of the 8th down by just one, 22-21. Moreover, we now had big ’Mo, and it was clear that we were stout and focused in knowing the critical defensive task before us. Yeah, we could practically taste the sweet promise of victory.

 

Until we couldn’t. In retrospect, my decision to try and snag Burt’s totally playable grounder to right while still gluing my desperately overstretched foot to 1st was arguably ill-advised, as was, five minutes and several errors later, my hopes of stopping Luke’s blistering follow-up hopper by simply closing my eyes and praying. Luckily, I emerged unscathed, but the tone was now set, the runs rolled in and when all was said and done, my side went down in a degrading wok of stir-fried loser lice, 29-21.

 

Now look, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “Ray, maybe this ceaseless talk of ‘curses’ is barking up the wrong manhole. Maybe with seven straight losses, the real problem is you, and if that’s true, maybe you should pay us more to get stuck on your team.” Maybe, though of course I think we’ve already established that inexplicably random streaks do not causation make, and for what it’s worth, every fiber of my statistical being says that the inevitability of a reversion to the mean is simply greater than karma, Voodoo, and suckage combined. And therefore there will be a game at Codornices this Sunday at 11 IF I get enough commits by this Friday morning . . . Ray