Softball: Bushrod! (The Retreat to Bathroom Humor in Times of Grave Organizational Stress)

[raymond...@gmail.com]

Dear People,

 

On a crisp and climatically sublime East Bay Day, we began our annual diasporic wandering at North Oakland’s superb Golden Gate Recreation center, with its verdant disheveled grasses, understated two-diamond majesty, and arguably austere amenities. Yeah, there were issues, and we’ll get to that in a sec, but the point is that no matter where you go, there you are, everywhere is somewhere, and other Buddhist clichés, and thus when my team took on Eoin’s in a bracing match that was see-sawing and taut for the first five innings, it wouldn’t have mattered if we had been at GGRC, nearby Bushrod, or on the gaseous cyan-colored surface of Uranus, and I’m not saying that just because some rollicking pre-pubescent jokes still sound fresh 55 years later.

 

In any case, it was in the ‘bottom’ of the 6th with Eoin’s contingent down just 14-12 that their defensive ramparts began to crater, and none more notably than the left-side infield where Chris Fure arrived as a fragile rotator at the apparent nadir of his geo-positional acumen. With all due respect, I believe he dropped, bobbled, and misplayed more than a half dozen hits over the next couple innings, and while being a human sieve may have some lab-based occupational advantages, the reality is that even when cleaved from the harsh responsibilities of management, the Furinator’s ability to cause incalculable damage to his own peeps’ prospects remains shamelessly second to none. Yeah, their collapse was steady and tragic, and in the end, they went down, and down hard, 28-16. 

 

The point is that while GGRC is an honorable though still un-mowed winter home, we quickly came to learn that there are currently no satisfactory facilities of urinal emission (what the hoi polloi call ‘pissers’), and that could be problematic as I strive to reach a modest female player quota of 50% by January 1st. Incredibly, the city has informed me that the one porta-potty, yucky as it was, was removed until next March to discourage winter park usage (!), while other near-by facilities are closed on weekends. Even the best secluded shrub-covered cove is now strewn with the personal belongings of some poor down and out soul, which means that there is basically no decent place to do one’s business. Fine, it’s not a crisis, but it’s certainly a piss-off (for a germane point of reference, see D.K. Slater’s stunning new case study, The Puns of August: The Failure of Word Play in Germany’s Scandalous Diplomatic Wires to Russia, Serbia, and Uranus, 1911-1914). 

 

The broader point is that the deeper one digs into the East Bay winter park scene, the more intense is the anti-unaffiliated-email-organized-softball hostility that one discovers. The fact is that according to Oakland Parks and Wreck, all Oakland fields are closed and should be locked down until March. In the real world, they obviously aren’t and hopefully never will be, but FWIW, it makes me wonder how serious Oakland Public Works will take their promise to mow the grass at the GGRC in the days ahead. Regardless, city intent is clearly there, for I just got back from Bushrod, and while as of 6PM Tuesday it was open and bustling with dogs and their people, the porta-potties had been removed from there as well. However, there is a friendly KFC-Taco Bell with a customer bathroom just a two minute walk away which I assume could be accessed with either disarming charm or a token purchase of a coke, with ice to the top. 

 

Finally, if all that weren’t enough, I even visited Cerrito Vista Park in El Cerrito, and while I learned that it’s inviting and gorgeous, the public bathrooms are all locked shut and can only be accessed with official field reservations, which has its own considerable hurdles. In short, I think we can all agree that a trio of softball-despising East Bay cities have conspired to crush us as an aerobic people, and needless to say, this isn’t just a piss-off, it’s a crisis. 

 

Still, we need to keep our skivvies on and move forward methodically with grit, resilience, and joyous determination to explore the comparative perils, and because Bushrod is very likely to be free and accessible (I’ve driven by there the last two Sunday mornings), and also has two diamonds, and has cleanly mowed grass and better overall field conditions than GGRC, and has an enticing KFC-Taco Bell toilet just a two-minute walk away, I think we have no choice but to give it a go before deciding on which of the two locales is best for the bitterly cold winter to come. And therefore there will be a game at North Oakland’s dazzling Bushrod Park at 61st and Racine (one block West of Telegraph) this Sunday at 11 IF I get enough commits by this Friday morning . . . Raymond