Softball: The Human Spectrum, from Glorious to Grotesque

[raymond...@gmail.com]

Dear People,

 

On a gorgeous East Bay day under cloudless blue skies, my team took on Chris Fure’s with the galvanizing tonic of three former community superstars who hadn’t played in over a year. Even better, because all of them unexpectedly performed as if they had never been gone, we had the admittedly unfair advantage of unbridled kinesiological kickass. 

 

That’s right, the magical Olivia Beckley flew in from world-famous Venice, Florida, and her cherished bro Brian skateboarded in from the Southside of campus, and together, they formed the backbone of my side’s ferociously hermetic outfield. And finally, the athletically sublime Sydney Mayes, recently back in Vacaville after two long years at my UCSB Alma mater, returned to dominate at short as she always had before, and as a trio, frankly, their very presence rendered the Furnator’s peeps a discomforting blend of tremulous, confuddled, and woefully bereft of brio.

 

Nevertheless, they also had some admirable focus and even an occasional burst of dignity-restoring pluck, and thus as we entered the critical 7th, my side was only up 15-13, and as you certainly know, when games are that close, the pivots of kismet can be dispositive indeed. To put it bluntly, Chris’ side needed inspirational leadership, and yet when my peeps loaded the bases with two outs and the fate of his contingent now in the balance, Chris himself snagged a blistering line drive toward left, spun back with elan, and then, for reasons I don’t pretend to understand, threw said orb 10 feet over Greg’s head at 3rd and onto the dead zone behind home plate. Curious.

 

Compare that with my own team’s face off with loaded bases at the bottom of that very tranche—six preventable runs and 12 minutes later— when a blistering hopper up the middle was resolved with a perfectly played inning-ending DP from Bobby W to Sydney to Burt. Yeah, execution truly does matter, and after my team went on to a searing 26-14 display of mercurial momentum as destiny, I’d like to think that Captain Calamity finally understood this.

 

In any case, the real point is that we have over 28 years of long lost heroes who have drifted away for a year or ten or more to exotic locales like Osaka, London, and El Cerrito, and for the 200 or more of you who are among that diasporic group, and who are still on this list, and who are now considering flying in from wherever for perhaps one final and yearned for triple on this mortal coil, let me assure you: Unlike so many of those other leagues who no longer have a league, we will continue to unapologetically keep out refugees, windmills, and Tylenol. And therefore there will be a game at Codornices this Sunday at 11, IF I get enough commits by this Friday morning . . . Raymond