Softball: Persistence

[raymond...@gmail.com]

Dear People,

 

First things first: The hard reality is that at 11:18AM Sunday morning, I was on the verge of failing to corral an 18-player minimum to frolic in the game at hand, and that would’ve been for the first time in nearly 10 years. Oh sure, it wasn’t my ‘fault’ since likely half our league regulars were trapped with totally nutso and distant relatives, far, far, away, and, obviously, I couldn’t predict the late double-cancel that had nearly transmogrified my tiny little brain into paralyzed cranial mush at 9:13 that uniquely stressful morn.’ Nevertheless, in this community we judge results regardless of intent or purity of heart, and thus as I stared down the prospect of a second deportation-triggering demographic fail in less than a decade, I noticed that a curious cackle of rugby-playing stud-muffins had just finished up their practice on the other side of the park.

 

Now look, I’m not saying that the optics of ambushing perfectly innocent athletes in the throes of their post-scrum exhaustion is not without problems, but I had a game to organize, and if that requires me to dive deep into my perennial social sluttitude, then that’s what I’m gonna do. And sure, while you may feel disturbed and even sticky and unclean just reading this, the upshot is that that when you combine such tactics with my earlier digital outreach in the days before, well, we ended up with a glorious match under cloudless blue skies that was the most cosmopolitan one we’ve had since the later aughts, and that’s thanks to superstar Japanese, Pakistani, and Tongan athletes adding a certain Je-ne-sais-quoi to the dazzling battle-royale itself. That’s right, my geography-lovin’ beatches, Tongan.

 

In any case, with nearly full rosters at 19 determined souls and under a magnificent winter sun, my team took on Chris Fure’s for the very last game of this ghastly year just passed, and as a community out to entertain both our fans and the local park rodentia, we didn’t disappoint.  Indeed, it was a superb and bracing match in which team hurlers Steve Bedrick and Bobby Fulgham delivered a crisp and equally effective array of brazenly pendulous curve, knuckle, and bull gravy balls, and as the taut balance of aerobic acumen came into sharp mid-inning relief, it was hardly surprising that we entered the top of the 9th tied at 13. Of course it’s in these final tranches on the razor’s edge of destiny when comparative managerial dominance is most easily discerned, and thus, needless to say, the Furinator’s peeps went down in a freshly canned jar of lightly salted heartbreak herring, 14-13.

 

The point is that I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “Don’t do it Ray! It’s supposed to rain from today until forever and I just can’t bear the thought of another soul-crushing cancel.” Listen, I hear ya, mes petites radis adorables, and yet if we’ve learned anything in these last few weeks, it’s that Bushrod has drainage to die for and the weather sites might as well take up my own logo as league historian—Accuracy, Shmaccuracy. Yeah, tomorrow is a brand new year, the game is five days out, and every fiber of my being says sunny skies will arrive in time to give you the vital aerobic release you both crave and deserve, and therefore there will be a game at Bushrod this Sunday at 11 IF I get enough commits by this Friday morning . . . Raymond