For the second time in my adult life, I have resurrected my baseball career cut short in 5th grade. The first was in 2006, when I played center field for the Nottingham Thieves of the British University League. I classified myself in more of the "moneyball" category of player - my value was not so much measured in batting average (.000), RBI total (0), or hits (0), but rather in walks and runs scored, as well as what Ron Gardenhire would classify as "battling my tail off." I also ranked highly in what I'll refer to as "defensive perseverance," i.e., when the ball skips off my glove and hits me in the chest, leaving a black and blue welt, I quickly picked said ball up and relayed it to the infield.
The Notts team was fun to play with; a random assortment of international students from baseball playing countries studying abroad and British cricketeers turned ballplayers. Although the post-practice pub stop was always a primary goal, everyone was excited about playing the game, and trying hard. Although I was not very skilled, I went to every practice, and tried very hard. My spur of the moment decision to join the far more competitive baseball team over the less competitive softball team was a great one, and it turned out to be one of the things I remember most about Notts.
Anyways, last night I played center field for the Christus Victor Lutheran Church "God Squad" in the Apple Valley rec softball league: bronze division. It was an, ah, slightly different experience.
Imagine, if you will, a group of approximately 18 people, of which I would estimate 2/3 are middle aged men and women, in various states of fitness, most of which probably haven't picked up a ball or swung a bat in 20 years. There was a lot of light jogging to get fly balls skipping to the fence in the outfield, a lot of grounders through the legs, etc. I probably shouldn't judge - I dropped a fly ball that popped in and out of my glove - I'm going to blame it on the fact that my glove isn't completely broken in yet.
One woman literally didn't realize that you play softball while wearing a glove, and wasn't aware that as the catcher, she was supposed to cover home plate if a runner was coming in to score...
Now, I don't want to give the impression that this was not fun - it was. But, I've historically been a pretty serious person - I get serious about the things I'm interested in and passionate about. In high school, it was mock trial, in college, it was trombone. In law school - geez, it was probably just surviving law school. Moral of the story - when I heard there was a church softball team, I immediately signed up, and got serious. Perhaps too serious than bronze division beer league softball calls for...
I may or may not have purchased new baseball clothes. I might have also acquired a brand new 12 and 3/4 inch Rawlings "Gold Glove Gamer" outfielders glove, model GG601G with the "trap-eze" pocket. And it's also possible I've forced my girlfriend to play catch with me and throw me fly balls in Minnehaha Park. There is the potential for a future trip to a batting cage to work on hitting.
Point being, it's hard for me to do something I'm excited about "just for fun." It's just in my nature - I always wanted to be the best trombone player, to get the best grades, or be the best beer-league softball player. Of course, that's not realistic - I'm not a very good softball player, but I want to be. So, we will see how this season goes. Hopefully we will get better, and hopefully I will get to play more (due to the size of the roster, I only got to bat twice in the course of two games last night).
In any event, it will be a lively summer of Friday night softball... When you start out the season with back to back mercy rule losses, there's nowhere to go but up.
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