Softball: A Somewhat Discursive Trek from Ma to Sartre

[raymond...@gmail.com]

Dear People,

 

First things first: Cultural historians of the athletic arts will clearly look back on Sunday’s stirring battle royale as a Mother’s Day masterpiece, and not just because there were actually three moms who were playing (Kira, Karen and Erica), but also because Anthony Weatheroy was leading his own team against mine with the nurturing presence of his cherished mother Charlotte. Yeah, she was there in the bleachers unabashedly rooting him on, and needless to say, it’s almost impossible to overcome the familial fillip that comes from such vital maternal guidance. In theory.

 

That’s right, the odds were stacked against my peeps, but we had the dominating moxie on both sides of the performative gamut, starting early with Jim’s utterly playable 3rd-inning 3-RBI 4-bagger that ricocheted directly off James’ greasy little glove. Luckily, we also had the son, not the dad, and thus when Porter threw out Romeo at the plate with a 300 foot bullet that Kira snagged clean and glorious in the very next inning, he not only ended their rally, but he also made sure that Papa James got the post-F-up message loud and clear––fathers are generally turgid, erratic, and athletically dispensable, but when moms come to play, they clearly rock.

 

Of course Charlotte was only an adoring fan, not a player, and so she must’ve been worried stiff as her son’s posse entered the top of the 9th down by 6. Truth be told, I heard her softly plea for her boy to ‘swing like you mean it,’ and sure enough, Tony dutifully replied in a way that only a loving son could. ‘Yes, mother’ he ruefully sighed as he came to the plate, but alas, the Antman didn’t swing like he meant it, or get on base, or even sufficiently galvanize his team as only a captain can, and thus with the yearnful eyes of his cherished mom, his darling daughter, and the weary American people all looking on, his side went down and down hard in a heartbreaking loss of unparalleled filial failure, 21-17. Sure, life goes on, but that’s gotta hurt.

 

The point is that motherhood, fatherhood and childhood are all pretty dang grueling, and if that quirky inconsistency in the semantic load of everyday English makes you feel unclean, I hear ya, because just being human is challenging enough. Yet the reality is that you can take our inscrutable tongue and the warming climate and the annoying cicadas and the despicable bird flu and that vile orange wanker and the sclerotic bureaucracies and the stubborn inflation and the countless social crises and the horrifying wars and the illiberal wokesters and the populist autocrats and, yes, the eternal existential reality that we’re drifting ever more pointlessly in a universe not of our own making, and still take solace in the love and reason of family. Unless, of course, they’re all wacko too, and therefore there will be a game at Codorncies this Sunday at 11, IF I get enough commits by this Friday morning . . . Raymond