We all know. I don't put myself on much of a deadline for the recaps. This is not because I'm busy -- no one whose self-imposed rules are so lax (no scotch after 1am on weeknights except if it's like a special one-time thing; try to change out of sleeping clothes before the 4pm Access Hollywood; remember to floss like, sometimes) could really be considered busy -- but rather because I consider these posts a treat. Like a post-1am scotch or a day spent entirely padding around my apartment, worrying about deadlines, wearing the misshapen clothes I slept in. That's some real Treat Williams ish right there. Y'all can't live my life baby bay-beh.
So, uh, yeah. I know it took kind of a long time for this. I actually got started on it early before work intruded. My original thought process: considering that this was probably my last game of the season -- if hopefully not the league's; keep reading! or skip to the end! -- I figured I may as well be about this here preview. It's a big one, and while I'm not going to forget just how brutal my own showing was in this game (ever, I will never ever forget it), I know there's a chance I might mis-remember a triple here or there. I don't want that. My new thought process: what the eff.
Also, and this is actually for real, this was actually a busy week for me: I churned out just-warmer-than-boilerplate copy about pro sports and professional athletes with a density of intensity that was really quite difficult for someone who doesn't care about it very much. And I don't, really, relative to this. I do care about baseball, but this -- our softball, our little weird humbling thing that we do -- is the sport I care about. You are the athletes I care about. Not Alex Rodriguez. Especially not him. I mean, I was into Madonna, too, circa Body of Evidence, but I was like 14. The Kabballah bracelet is not a good look, A-Rod. "Be adequite," playboy. Also: if there's any possible photo more heterosexual than the pic above of A-Rod with his wifey, it...I don't know, it would probably have to have Rip Taylor in it.
Ah, Rip. Anyway, while Labor Day Softball is apparently on for a second straight year, I will be missing it for the second straight year. Which means that this is not only my final in-season recap, but was my last official game of the softball season. My Ones wound up winning, 13-10, on a last second field goal by Dave the Tattooed. Or...no, because we had a 6-run inning powered by Dave, Jeremy, Benny and Seth. More or less our entire output was powered by them, actually -- although Abby and I both had RBIs in that big inning, if I remember right -- and helped greatly by a late-arriving Steve Patnode, who powered through an aching groin (and how!) and memories of his traumatic, Bloomberg-related dream from the previous evening. With the exception of one brutal inning in the outfield -- in which I followed a just-miss of running catch of a Scott Snelling blast that would've been a career highlight for me with an instant career lowlight about which I'll moan more later -- I was on the mound. And I was as sharp as a mound of butterscotch pudding, in keeping with what was one of the worst single-game performances of my career. Yes, it was slow-pitch softball. But even by slow-pitch softball, I gave up a metric poopload of triples -- at least one apiece to Dan May, Kelsey and Scott, and possibly to Jordan, and possibly more than one and possibly to other people -- and just generally felt kind of out of it out there. Yes, I got the win, and that's what matters. It's the only thing that matters to me, that has ever mattered. But in strict quality terms, I was right there with the numbers Hideo Nomo put up over his last three seasons. Click here and look. Look at it! I was once like you! Now I am Hideo-us.
Of course, there are other things I care about than winning and playing poorly. And I suppose theoretically it is in the realm of possibility that you could care about those things as well. One thing that I've cared about all season long was whether Kate Garroway, my girlfriend and an x-treem n00b to the world of actually playing softball, was enjoying herself. She always claims to -- and that's the kind of nice lady she is; she also claims to enjoy our nightly push-up contests (I'm like 75-2!) and to be psyched for our two-week ice fishing trip to Beloi, WI this winter -- but it's fair to say that she'd struggled some at the plate during the earlygoing and, uh, middle-going of this too-short season. But a bit of pre-game coaching from Benny -- who was also looking natty in a homemade Buttermilk Softball t-shirt and whom I respect enough not to let the latent Jersey Possessive Guido Guy out when he marched up to Kate before the game and announced, "I've been thinking about your swing" -- seemed to straighten Kate right out. She launched four line drives in four at-bats. Three were caught, but the one that wasn't drove in a run, and Kate later came around to score. I know that Kelsey does this like twice an inning, but I thought The Bird deserved a special in-blog mention.
And there's something else I should probably mention: I fell down really hard chasing a fly ball. I assume that it was funny for those who saw it -- and in the abstract, me breaking in really hard on a ball hit well over my head and then wiping out in an attempt to correct that error, is pretty funny -- but I want to get serious for a moment here. Some people were concerned that, during that play, I had been shot by a sniper located somewhere in the park. I understand that I went down pretty quickly and pretty hard, but I want to let you know, I'm okay. There's no such thing as snipers. There was a movie about them starring Tom Berenger, I know, but he's just make-believe, too. I'm fine. Just don't ever ask me about the play again.
And then we got beers and burritos and Nik Johnson -- not this one; the one who's still popular in New York -- showed up and Ramin made a brief cameo, and then we were done. Or not really. I mean, we did really get beers and such, and Bug brought this delicious salsa and it was all really good. I meant that we're not really done. We have the field for this week, and a hardy band of patriots -- Chee, Kelsey, Jeremy and Abby, Dave, maybe Ben -- are showing up to play ball. And there's still the possibility of overtime: everyone's pretty hyped to do it, the weather should be nice for another month...anyway, something we'll talk about later. I'm already at like 3500 words, and may arms hurt. A good long weekend and godspeed to you all.
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