Softball: The Varying Dynamics of Our Disappointing Species

[raymond...@gmail.com]

Dear People,

 

Let the record show that Sunday’s aerobic release was played out in pristine pre-ecliptic climes on a freshly mowed sod of verdant aphid-laden perfection. The game was softball, of course, and so the joie de vivre was both inherent and bountiful as usual, and yet, on the margins of the match qua match, where sport, ontological pragmatics and basic human frailty dance together Gangnam Style, you’d be hard pressed to deny the ubiquity of undeniable failure at every turn. So yeah, let’s not pretend otherwise, but rather, let’s face these issues with that venerable blend of contemplative self-awareness and fresh organic weed.

 

First of all, and for the second time in less than a year, we found ourselves filled to the gills with 22 players and yet without a single female to hold up half the sky. This is a demographic disgrace, of course, and while all kinds of glib hypotheses abound, it should be clear that the goal of critical recreation theory is to not merely interpret the world, but to change it; I’ll therefore initiate a Loya Jirga in the days ahead to consider the possibility of forming an Executive Committee to solve the problem. That’s right, bitches, governance.

 

Even more distressing, I personally failed at the most vital task for forming the cohesive glue of any given game, which, as you know, is the creation of meticulously balanced rosters on paper. Sure, I could claim that the egregious pairing that threw it all off kilter was excused by the fact that one of the players in question was making his community debut and so I just couldn’t know, but needless to say, you don’t pay me the big bucks to make vacuous excuses, and at the end of this lopsided and estrogenically bereft day, my team took on Chris Fure’s with a shameless advantage in athletic excellence and, as always, managerial acumen.

 

Still, and with all due respect, let’s be serious––Chris himself signed off on the rosters with alacrity and confidence, and it’s not like history isn’t filled with stirring inspirational underdogs, from the heroic Britons who crushed the despicable Roman Army in the great Boudican Revolt of 60AD to the wondrous ’69 Mets, whose own improbable triumph was even more harrowing. In any case, the Furinator failed to get the memo and was clearly not in the Boudicanian Zone, for his leadership was both uninspired and hebetudinous, and no more so than when the legendary Joe P’s modest 2-out bases loaded 7th-inning grounder to short darted right between his inexplicably splayed loser-gams. 

 

Yeah, they could’ve ended the inning down by just four, but the damage was done right then and there, and by the time they got that final out, their deficit doubled, their morale imploded, and they eventually went down in yet another bitter and self-fulfilling display of the soft athleticism of low expectations, 16-8. That’s not a diss, of course, just an observation––stern, pedagogically blunt, and fair. 

 

The point is that the ubiquity of subpar performance has even seeped into the city Department of Parks and Wreck, for despite their promises to not rent out our cherished homeland on Sundays until at least 1:30, as of now there is some amorphous group that reserved it several months ago that may or may not show up this week at 1:00. The fact that nobody can tell me anything more about this presumptuous cackle of interlopers only adds to my general despair around the bias toward annoying underachievement in the human condition, and yet at the end of the day, life is still with people, and people are difficult. And therefore there will be a game at Codornices this Sunday at 10:45 (which is just like 11:23 except it’s actually 38 minutes earlier!), IF I get enough commits by this Friday morning . . . Ray