Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Softball
It's not unreasonable to expect playing in and managing a C-minus level city league softball to be fairly stress-free. Especially in the chilled out, it's-So-Cal-baby beach vibe of Santa Monica, where stress is usually only served behind the wheel on Freeway 10. It's the Corona League, right? Jack N' Chug?
Not Thursday night, for a game in which our men's team "The Santa Monica Pier Pressure" was desperately trying to wrest away a victory after an 0-4 start that included two narrow losses in a row in which our team was leading going into the final inning. Perhaps I started things on an auspicious note when in an email to our team I called the game "The Point of Know Return" a reference to the song from 70's prog rock greats Kansas that contains these lyrics:
"They say the sea turns so dark that
You know it's time, you see the sign
They say the point demons guard is
An ocean grave, for all the brave,
Was it you that said, "How long, how long,
How long to the point of know return?"
Not exactly a light hearted folly, I guess...but our team was swiftly becoming like a turgid, bombastic 70's rock ballad, so it felt right.
I got home from a late night at work Thursday evening about 40 minutes until our scheduled 8:20 warm-up time...and my roommate Chris and I came to an unfortunate conclusion - every single one of our bats and balls were locked in the car trunk of one Ryan Ferrell, who had left earlier in the day on a plane to Kansas City. With thoughts of trying to play softball with broomsticks and tennis balls in my mind, we hurried to the only sporting goods store in the area that was still open - Big 5 - which was a good 15 to 20 minutes away. There we bought a shiny new bat and a bag of balls and quickly sped off to the game.
But that's when Chris's stomach started to implode. For the few days he'd been back from the (jungles? steppe? tundra?) of Honduras, his stomach had been off-and-on been nauseaded and worse. He'd been OK that day, but all of a sudden his eyes were watering and he grabbed his chest like someone just stabbed him there. The tapeworms had finally taken over. Either that or he got the Monkey-itis. I thought he was going to drive straight home to hit the bathroom...but like a True Soldier, he kept on driving to the field.
Chris sprinted to the bathroom for relief as I instantly recieved bad news from our trusty bench coach Scott Butts - Andy and Joel, our #1 and #2 hitters and left fielders and shortstop were drunk from too much (get this) Passover wine. "Heyyyyy Smittayyyyyy!" yelled Andy as I approached. Yep, drunk. Meanwhile, I was told that our one sub for the game wasn MIA - meaning that if Chris couldn't stomach (ha!) playing, then we'd be down an outfielder. But Chris emerged with a thumbs-up, meaning he'd play...which was good because we needed all the help possible against a team that beat us 22-5 in game one.
I honestly thought we were going to get torched after the first inning. IMD (no idea what it stands for) kept getting base hit after base hit. It didn't help things though that two balls dropped 10 feet in front of Joel in left field as he walked slowly to them with an aloof, slightly confused look on his face as if wasn't sure if it was a softball or rotten piece of fruit that fell from the sky. The second misplay was enough for me, and I made him switch to left center for Ryan "Dread Pirate" Roberts.
After what seemed like an eternity, we went to our bench down 8 to 0 after the top of the first inning. "We're in for a long night, boys," I muttered. But just like that, the comeback began...we strung together a few base hits, and we ended the first inning down 8 - 5. (I think).
By inning 3, we cut the lead to 11-10, but things hit a huge snag for me personally during my 3rd at bat. I hit a grounder up the middle, and I felt something pull hard in my right thigh as I sprinted down the first base line. I pulled up lame and nearly fell to the ground in pain as I was called out at first base. I limped back to the dugout holding my leg in pain as the umpire says "You better not let the ladies see you holding that." Being a great fan of crotch-related humor I smiled dutifully through the pain.
I wasn't sure though if I was going to even be able to continue to play though at first. Walking was hard, running was impossible. But since we had no other subs - had barely had anyone else even practice pitching...I tried to go on. The first problem though, was that I couldn't even go through my regular "take two steps and toss" pitching routine because it hurt too much. Soon, I had walked two out of the first three batters I had faced. So I forced myself to stand rigidly like a robot and throw without moving my legs at all. It was awkward at the first, for sure, and I walked a third man before finally settling down into a rhythm.
Unfortunately though they were able to scrape in a few runs. At this point, my memory of the game sort of became a blur and I can’t place things in a very sequential order in my mind. But I do remember the following things occurring:
-We scored a boatload of runs on a series of walks and a dramatic close-play-at-home-ending with a slide and a cloud of dust home run by Tim Fescoe- who nearly lost every skin cell on his right leg in the process.
-Things began to collapse in the bottom of the 6th inning after we let a 3 run lead quickly turn into a 6 run deficit. It was so bad, with all of our infighting that I thought there was going to be a “Lord of the Flies” type team rebellion mid-inning. Our umpire asked one of our guys “Are you cussing at your own team?” and when he said yes, the ump said “Well, go ahead then.”
-Down 6 runs with 3 outs left, we started an improbable comeback on the back of several walks by the other pitcher. I came up to bat with the bases loaded and with us down 4 runs and one out. Now, because my leg felt like warm Jello, I hadn’t plan to swing at all, and hoped to get lucky with a walk and be able to use a pinch-runner. I even tried to walk up to the plate in a way that disguised my injury, but as I stood there, the left fielder for the other team yelled “He’s not going to run!” as I glared at him like he just question my sexuality.
The first pitch dropped right in the middle of the plate for a strike. All of a sudden I had a decision to make – do I dare risk get a strikeout looking with our game on the line, or do I try to get a hit and hobble lamely to first base. The answer struck me like a bolt of lightening – I would try and hit a little flare over the 3rd baseman’s head and hop on my left leg to first. And so on that second pitch, I waited on it and trying to hit it just like that.
Now…I’d like to say, in my dream of dreams, that I became a Kirk Gibson-like folk hero by hitting a dramatic home run. I wish I became The Natural and exploded the scoreboard. Alas, I ended up hitting a grounder to the shortstop. That’s all I saw, because I instantly threw my bat aside (I’d half thought about using it as an impromptu crutch) and began wildly hopping towards first. But maybe 15 feet away, I lost my balance and began to stumble while I noticed out of the corner of my eye, the 2nd baseman begin to throw to first to get me out. As a last resort, I did a headfirst, arms out dive into first base, which I clutched like a dying man in the desert would for a glass of water. I was safe, if only because the first baseman dropped the ball.
-It still felt like destiny that we were going to win this game…after a couple more hits and walks, we had the bases loaded, two outs, and we were only down 3 runs. And our intoxicated shortstop whose favorite team last year inexplicably won the World Series was up. We all waited nervously as he stood at the plate… and even more nervously as he grounded the ball to the shortstop, who threw it to third base….just a split second before Chris slid into the base. Game over.
We stood around stunned. It was an emotional roller coaster and we had reached the unfortunate end. Meanwhile, previous tension involving two of our teammates reached a boiling point, and one threatened to slap the other and then turned and walked off.
I just shook my head and limped back to the car…wondering if anything in life could be more stressful than rec league softball. I’ll let you know.
It's not unreasonable to expect playing in and managing a C-minus level city league softball to be fairly stress-free. Especially in the chilled out, it's-So-Cal-baby beach vibe of Santa Monica, where stress is usually only served behind the wheel on Freeway 10. It's the Corona League, right? Jack N' Chug?
Not Thursday night, for a game in which our men's team "The Santa Monica Pier Pressure" was desperately trying to wrest away a victory after an 0-4 start that included two narrow losses in a row in which our team was leading going into the final inning. Perhaps I started things on an auspicious note when in an email to our team I called the game "The Point of Know Return" a reference to the song from 70's prog rock greats Kansas that contains these lyrics:
"They say the sea turns so dark that
You know it's time, you see the sign
They say the point demons guard is
An ocean grave, for all the brave,
Was it you that said, "How long, how long,
How long to the point of know return?"
Not exactly a light hearted folly, I guess...but our team was swiftly becoming like a turgid, bombastic 70's rock ballad, so it felt right.
I got home from a late night at work Thursday evening about 40 minutes until our scheduled 8:20 warm-up time...and my roommate Chris and I came to an unfortunate conclusion - every single one of our bats and balls were locked in the car trunk of one Ryan Ferrell, who had left earlier in the day on a plane to Kansas City. With thoughts of trying to play softball with broomsticks and tennis balls in my mind, we hurried to the only sporting goods store in the area that was still open - Big 5 - which was a good 15 to 20 minutes away. There we bought a shiny new bat and a bag of balls and quickly sped off to the game.
But that's when Chris's stomach started to implode. For the few days he'd been back from the (jungles? steppe? tundra?) of Honduras, his stomach had been off-and-on been nauseaded and worse. He'd been OK that day, but all of a sudden his eyes were watering and he grabbed his chest like someone just stabbed him there. The tapeworms had finally taken over. Either that or he got the Monkey-itis. I thought he was going to drive straight home to hit the bathroom...but like a True Soldier, he kept on driving to the field.
Chris sprinted to the bathroom for relief as I instantly recieved bad news from our trusty bench coach Scott Butts - Andy and Joel, our #1 and #2 hitters and left fielders and shortstop were drunk from too much (get this) Passover wine. "Heyyyyy Smittayyyyyy!" yelled Andy as I approached. Yep, drunk. Meanwhile, I was told that our one sub for the game wasn MIA - meaning that if Chris couldn't stomach (ha!) playing, then we'd be down an outfielder. But Chris emerged with a thumbs-up, meaning he'd play...which was good because we needed all the help possible against a team that beat us 22-5 in game one.
I honestly thought we were going to get torched after the first inning. IMD (no idea what it stands for) kept getting base hit after base hit. It didn't help things though that two balls dropped 10 feet in front of Joel in left field as he walked slowly to them with an aloof, slightly confused look on his face as if wasn't sure if it was a softball or rotten piece of fruit that fell from the sky. The second misplay was enough for me, and I made him switch to left center for Ryan "Dread Pirate" Roberts.
After what seemed like an eternity, we went to our bench down 8 to 0 after the top of the first inning. "We're in for a long night, boys," I muttered. But just like that, the comeback began...we strung together a few base hits, and we ended the first inning down 8 - 5. (I think).
By inning 3, we cut the lead to 11-10, but things hit a huge snag for me personally during my 3rd at bat. I hit a grounder up the middle, and I felt something pull hard in my right thigh as I sprinted down the first base line. I pulled up lame and nearly fell to the ground in pain as I was called out at first base. I limped back to the dugout holding my leg in pain as the umpire says "You better not let the ladies see you holding that." Being a great fan of crotch-related humor I smiled dutifully through the pain.
I wasn't sure though if I was going to even be able to continue to play though at first. Walking was hard, running was impossible. But since we had no other subs - had barely had anyone else even practice pitching...I tried to go on. The first problem though, was that I couldn't even go through my regular "take two steps and toss" pitching routine because it hurt too much. Soon, I had walked two out of the first three batters I had faced. So I forced myself to stand rigidly like a robot and throw without moving my legs at all. It was awkward at the first, for sure, and I walked a third man before finally settling down into a rhythm.
Unfortunately though they were able to scrape in a few runs. At this point, my memory of the game sort of became a blur and I can’t place things in a very sequential order in my mind. But I do remember the following things occurring:
-We scored a boatload of runs on a series of walks and a dramatic close-play-at-home-ending with a slide and a cloud of dust home run by Tim Fescoe- who nearly lost every skin cell on his right leg in the process.
-Things began to collapse in the bottom of the 6th inning after we let a 3 run lead quickly turn into a 6 run deficit. It was so bad, with all of our infighting that I thought there was going to be a “Lord of the Flies” type team rebellion mid-inning. Our umpire asked one of our guys “Are you cussing at your own team?” and when he said yes, the ump said “Well, go ahead then.”
-Down 6 runs with 3 outs left, we started an improbable comeback on the back of several walks by the other pitcher. I came up to bat with the bases loaded and with us down 4 runs and one out. Now, because my leg felt like warm Jello, I hadn’t plan to swing at all, and hoped to get lucky with a walk and be able to use a pinch-runner. I even tried to walk up to the plate in a way that disguised my injury, but as I stood there, the left fielder for the other team yelled “He’s not going to run!” as I glared at him like he just question my sexuality.
The first pitch dropped right in the middle of the plate for a strike. All of a sudden I had a decision to make – do I dare risk get a strikeout looking with our game on the line, or do I try to get a hit and hobble lamely to first base. The answer struck me like a bolt of lightening – I would try and hit a little flare over the 3rd baseman’s head and hop on my left leg to first. And so on that second pitch, I waited on it and trying to hit it just like that.
Now…I’d like to say, in my dream of dreams, that I became a Kirk Gibson-like folk hero by hitting a dramatic home run. I wish I became The Natural and exploded the scoreboard. Alas, I ended up hitting a grounder to the shortstop. That’s all I saw, because I instantly threw my bat aside (I’d half thought about using it as an impromptu crutch) and began wildly hopping towards first. But maybe 15 feet away, I lost my balance and began to stumble while I noticed out of the corner of my eye, the 2nd baseman begin to throw to first to get me out. As a last resort, I did a headfirst, arms out dive into first base, which I clutched like a dying man in the desert would for a glass of water. I was safe, if only because the first baseman dropped the ball.
-It still felt like destiny that we were going to win this game…after a couple more hits and walks, we had the bases loaded, two outs, and we were only down 3 runs. And our intoxicated shortstop whose favorite team last year inexplicably won the World Series was up. We all waited nervously as he stood at the plate… and even more nervously as he grounded the ball to the shortstop, who threw it to third base….just a split second before Chris slid into the base. Game over.
We stood around stunned. It was an emotional roller coaster and we had reached the unfortunate end. Meanwhile, previous tension involving two of our teammates reached a boiling point, and one threatened to slap the other and then turned and walked off.
I just shook my head and limped back to the car…wondering if anything in life could be more stressful than rec league softball. I’ll let you know.
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