Saturday, November 06, 2004
Put Me In Coach, I'm Ready to Play Today
Before the exhilaration of ripping open presents on Christmas morning, before the anticipation of slicing into the Manrique turkey at Thanksgiving, and even before revving up the vocal cords for our annual Sing-a-Long Sound of Music tradition, there's some unfinished business left on the softball diamonds. It's not ballplaying weather, but the spirit is warm.
After missing two weekends of ball (not to complain about having had to drink all that wine in Paris or for languishing in mussel heaven), it feels so good to be out there once more. It's not just playing the game... it's jabbering about everything while playing warm-up catch, talking shit about each other,'s recent unforced errors, challenging for first place and fighting for reputation dibs. Slapping leather, dirt on the palm, knocking cleats. Just as bats sometimes get heavy at the tail end of the season, so do our hearts. It won't be long before we hang up the spikes for 2004... or in my case, yet another pair will soon depart to Adidas heaven. It's unbelievable the rate I'm going through my cleats at one pair a year.
Friday night, the best of Chicago softball came out for our first ever Softball Challenge. Two teams drafted by Mike and Sonny, childhood buddies, former roommates, softball teammates and erstwhile rivals. With pride on the line, our team beat Sonny's 33 to 14. No contest. I was voted MVP after smacking two home runs and six RBIs. The comfort zone was locked in and I kept up my continuous streak of at least one home run a week for the past six weeks.
Before we could really recover from last night out at Riverview with a couple of Jaeger bombs and Goose Island 312s, we headed into our Saturday league championships at Clarendon Park. Went neck to neck in the finals against the guys from the Grafton, tie game for a few innings, both teams playing tight defense. 1-2-3, 1-2-3. Sonny scores the winning run, and just like that I win my first softball championship for the year, in an undefeated season.
Finally, a team that didn't choke on a cheezburger like a billy goat, although I'd still love for our regular, standard team to win one (but that wouldn't be funny anymore, would it?). We take another stab at tomorrow's semis -- one more league left to go before softball's over for the year. Now that's a catastrophe. I'm not sure how I'm going to make it through the winter. Hello indoor soccer and volleyball!
"Got a beat up glove, a homemade bat and brand new pair of shoes
You know I think it's time to give this game a ride
Just to hit the ball and touch 'em all
A moment in the sun
Pop, it's gone and you can tell that one goodbye!"
Thank you John Fogerty for writing the best song about playing ball.
After missing two weekends of ball (not to complain about having had to drink all that wine in Paris or for languishing in mussel heaven), it feels so good to be out there once more. It's not just playing the game... it's jabbering about everything while playing warm-up catch, talking shit about each other,'s recent unforced errors, challenging for first place and fighting for reputation dibs. Slapping leather, dirt on the palm, knocking cleats. Just as bats sometimes get heavy at the tail end of the season, so do our hearts. It won't be long before we hang up the spikes for 2004... or in my case, yet another pair will soon depart to Adidas heaven. It's unbelievable the rate I'm going through my cleats at one pair a year.
Friday night, the best of Chicago softball came out for our first ever Softball Challenge. Two teams drafted by Mike and Sonny, childhood buddies, former roommates, softball teammates and erstwhile rivals. With pride on the line, our team beat Sonny's 33 to 14. No contest. I was voted MVP after smacking two home runs and six RBIs. The comfort zone was locked in and I kept up my continuous streak of at least one home run a week for the past six weeks.
Before we could really recover from last night out at Riverview with a couple of Jaeger bombs and Goose Island 312s, we headed into our Saturday league championships at Clarendon Park. Went neck to neck in the finals against the guys from the Grafton, tie game for a few innings, both teams playing tight defense. 1-2-3, 1-2-3. Sonny scores the winning run, and just like that I win my first softball championship for the year, in an undefeated season.
Finally, a team that didn't choke on a cheezburger like a billy goat, although I'd still love for our regular, standard team to win one (but that wouldn't be funny anymore, would it?). We take another stab at tomorrow's semis -- one more league left to go before softball's over for the year. Now that's a catastrophe. I'm not sure how I'm going to make it through the winter. Hello indoor soccer and volleyball!
"Got a beat up glove, a homemade bat and brand new pair of shoes
You know I think it's time to give this game a ride
Just to hit the ball and touch 'em all
A moment in the sun
Pop, it's gone and you can tell that one goodbye!"
Thank you John Fogerty for writing the best song about playing ball.
// posted by Desiree @ 6:07 PM 
