Softball: Some Rapid-fire Forays into the National Scene
raymond...@gmail.com
Dear People,
In one of those rare paragons of dazzling competitive excellence that makes you almost forget about the annoying decay of civilizational norms everywhere, my team battled Anthony’s for almost three grueling hours. Yeah, it was tense, hot and sultry from the get-go, and when my own peeps realized that the Antman’s contingent had the synergistic firepower of Erica’s entire family –– including both spousal unit James as well as their thick-as-thieves sons Porter and Holden –– an undeniable wave of fear and even dread emerged within our ranks. Yeah, it's intimidating to take on a team with the dynamic edge of a familial whole (for a germane point of reference, see D.K. Slater’s sublime new bio, The Last of 20: Josie Duggar, Tonitown, Arkansas, and the Kin that Shaped a Nation, 2009-2024).
Nevertheless, even though we carried on bereft of core traditional sibs, we did have Burt, whose 4th-inning 3-RBI double down the 1st-base line redefined the outer perimeter of his timeless dominance, and Matt, whose masterful 6th-inning sacrifice-pickle not only got us the go-ahead run, but exposed Holden and Aaron for the callous ambush-lovin’ brutes that they are. And, of course, we had the great Paul Horsepool, whose 2-on 2-out failure to slide into 2nd in the 7th cost us the inning and critical momentum, but as Equineboy himself knows, when you fail to go down, you get right back up where you already are, and I think we all understand this.
The point is that the game was a stirring slugfest that may have seen, among other things, the longest 4-bagger in the history of this league with Eoin’s 2-RBI 6th-inning blast to the deep, high plateau of the sloped tundra beyond center-left, and while I assume he had used a discreet dab of tetrahydrogestrinone just before, who are we to speculate?! Regardless, the Eoinator was on the Antman’s team, and unfortunately for them, both sides staggered into extra innings with nary a weakness to spare. Alas, Anthony put Chris Fure on the mound to carry them home, and yet the poor lad promptly gave up two singles before the final walk off blast from Professor Jimmy McGuire in the bottom of the 11th, and thus they went down, and down hard, 27-26. Life is good.
In any case, and as some of you may know, tomorrow is the 248th anniversary of the U.S. of A, and so naturally I wasn’t going to organize a game this week so we could quietly celebrate the currently burgeoning strength of our universally admired democratic institutions. Yet then I started to think about what I wrote all of you just 16 short years ago today, and while I’m obviously not going to quote myself verbatim, I’d gently suggest that the following words have a certain timely salience . . .
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As the 4th approaches, I am reminded of the intense pressures that Jefferson, Adams and Franklin must have felt when they decided to pen that most momentous of definitive divorces, their very lives at stake as cunning little fish’n’chips eating British troops scampered throughout the Pennsylvania bush. These intrepid and indefatigable revolutionaries would have no doubt given anything to play an exciting game of softball, but stuck as they were in the 18th century, they had to settle for yeoman farming and really boring arguments about the nature of mercantilism. I think you see my point. Make that commit. Do it for the children. Do it now. Indeed, the line from Alexander Hamilton to Jackie Robinson to all of you is the very essence of the American experience . . .
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Yeah, I still get teary-eyed just reading that, and in all candor, when I think of what Jesus, Paul, and some of the other founders would do, I think it’s pretty clear how we should spend the 4th. And therefore there will be a game at Codornices this Sunday at 11, IF I get enough commits by this Friday morning! . . . Raymond