Softball: The Return

[raymond...@gmail.com]

Dear People,

 

First things first: I think we can now say that we’re a significantly more resilient folk than any of the other email-organized softball leagues West of the Sacramento River, if for no other reason than after we found ourselves suddenly ousted from our backup Bushrod homeland, we didn’t just hang it up in despair and retreat to a local Whiskey, Weed, and Make Out Bar like all those other lily-livered players would’ve done. 

 

No, we grabbed the bull by the diasporic balls and calmly fled to Golden Gate Rec, where, incredibly, a half-dozen Oakland city park workers invited us into our old alternative backup digs after having just freshly mowed and dragged it that very morn.’ Yeah, we may identify as Berkeleyites to the marrow of our bones, but I for one see that Oaklandian spirit of civility and inclusion as an integral part of who we are as a people, and no arbitrary, cruel, or dumbass municipal border can ever cleave that gift from our yearnful communal bosom.

 

But I digress.

 

As soon as those dedicated workers finished up with their magnificent horticultural manicure at 11:19AM, my team took on Jim McGuire’s in a classically taut and see-sawing masterpiece that reaffirmed why this game is the salubrious escape of choice for these increasingly interesting times. To be sure, it’s hard to focus on anything but the task at hand when you find yourself tied at 13 after six, and that was indeed the case for 22 of the finest and most focused brains that I’ve ever had the pleasure to play with.

 

Unfortunately, though, my own frontal lobe appeared to sputter under the stress, for in the top of the 7th with two on and two out, I left vital ducks stranded on the pond as I pitifully popped up to the plate, and then, in the bottom of that critical tranche, with the score still tied and two on and two out again, Patricio ripped a shamefully cringey 3-foot bullet down the first base line. As the laser-focused catcher that I am, I quickly snagged the ball in question, instantly looked deep into Burt’s piercing dark pupils at 1st, and then, for reasons I don’t pretend to understand, promptly threw said orb 5 feet above and past his desperately flailing arms. Sure, the result was a ghastly and preventable run, but we got the out on the next play and there were still two vital innings to go. Of course, as my teammates and fellow barristers Saxon and Amir know all too well, direct is the link between proximate cause and dispositive disgrace.

 

And so it was as the great Michael Hersh came to bat for Jim’s team in the bottom of the 9th with the score tied again, and this time, with two on, one out, and our fate in the balance. Needless to say, we still had high hopes as a tremulous cackle of North Oaktown rutting geese neighed frantically in the distance, but as Bobby Fulgham’s two-pinkie slider came across the plate, the Hershinator unleashed a blistering walk-off line drive to deep center-left, and with that, my heartbroken peeps went down, and down hard, 18-17. Yeah, this is clearly something that Saxon and Amir are gonna’ have to atone for in the guilt-ridden years to come, but at the end of the day, I think we can all agree that this is what grace and law are for. 

 

The point is that our recent games South of the border have been a joyous mélange of aerobic release and exotic locales, but we now have an open homeland to seize, and therefore there will be a game at our cherished CODORNICES Park this Sunday at 11, IF I  get enough commits by this Friday morning . . . Raymond