Softball: The Speculator’s Imperative
raymond...@gmail.com
Dear People,
My team battled Jim McGuire’s in one of those matches that will go down among the most spine-tingling in modern league history, and I’m not adding ‘modern’ just because I happen to know that reportage from our games in the calamitous 14th century is most likely lost forever. In any case, there were a cornucopia of quirks, thrills, and cringe-inducing performances that set the tone for the first seven innings, including the great Paul Horsepool’s scorching 3-inch single down the first base line that spun foul for a full four seconds before reversing its centrifugal yaw into a breath-taking stop in fair territory. To be clear, within our league this hasn’t occurred in the trajectory of a less-than-one-foot-hit since 1384!
Of course the real drama was sparked by players on both sides who appeared determined to sabotage their own teams, as perhaps best exemplified by Aaron ‘DartBoy’ McQuade, whose 6th-inning 2-out dash from 2nd to 3rd and then on to home resulted in a throw out at the plate about two hours before he actually arrived. Now in fairness, he was merely following the impassioned exhortations of the great Paul Horsepool (yeah, that one), and yet we can still question Aaron’s ‘judgment’ given that Equine Boy was our 3rd basemen and not his 3rd base coach. Whatever.
At least Aaron wasn’t personally responsible for half the runs that my side gave up, which I only mention since Erica’s two RBI blasts over Chris Fure’s discombobulated little head were actually matched by an additional two RBI flies that twice again sent our hero staggering backward into the black orb-sucking center-left hole that his own geospatial ineptitude had clearly created from scratch. That’s not a diss or a scold, just objective analysis in its bluntest form.
Still, while the Furinator was largely responsible for the dreadful 25-12 deficit that we faced as we crawled into the top of the 8th, he was also the moral backbone of our entire contingent, and thus the 13 remarkable runs that we amassed over the next two innings clearly brought him a modicum of dignity and atonement. Regardless, the score was suddenly even at 25 as Jim’s team prepared for their final and legally guaranteed tranche at the plate, and yet, in all seriousness, what the F is really guaranteed in this life?! Yeah, it was 1.21PM when the kindly yet impatient cackle of field-reserving interlopers celebrating a 75th birthday decided to pull the plug on our technical overstay, and with that, we all found ourselves facing an actual and tawdry tie game, and to be clear, only the third one in the history of this community.
Truth be told, I’m at peace with that result though no doubt Professor McBitter will point out that after stopping our rally at full equilibrium, his peeps were literally robbed of their God-given right to score one last time, and this was all the more painful since he himself would be leading off, and this was even more agonizing given that his contingent had scored at least one run in every previous inning but one. Moreover, and funny story––A full 15 minutes after chasing us off the field, the birthday bozos had yet to put a single player on the diamond, as if to rub triumph-denying salt in the open wound.
Look, I get it, and yet let’s be clear: We don’t live in 1384 anymore, with their clownish tunics and hot air balloons and flip phones, and in fact, the reality is that I was just able to use ChatGPTScore-4.06 to actually finish off this game with an estimated accuracy of 99.9%, and so I can confidently report that had we continued playing until its natural end, my team would’ve stopped Jim’s cold in the 9th before edging them out in the 10th, 82-25. So yeah, perhaps Jimmy finally understands that there’s a reason the Stones so passionately sang that you shouldn’t wish for what you want unless you truly don’t really need it, and therefore there will be a game at Codornices this Sunday at 11 IF I get enough commits by this Friday morning . . . Raymond