RRBS Softball 2 - Game Log
Game #4

July 22, 2008

Players: Rob Baughman, Stephanie Donlan, Beth Harsany, Andy Lang, Julie Munds, Ray Pace, Jon Stropes, Jamie Tate, Matt Thompson, Brie Willey

The best news I had gotten all week was on the morning of the game when Jamie texted me and told me that she had two girls who could fill in for us this week. This was awesome because the night before I got horrible news from Rob telling me that one of the girls we were counting on having play had gone MIA. But now that Jamie had come through, it was smooth sailing until game time.

Normally a phrase like that would be followed with some horror story of what had happened to me the rest of the day, but in fact, nothing did. It was in deed a smooth sailing day. It was the first time in three weeks that I had had to work a full day before a game, which was actually kind of nice as it gave me less time to sit and think about playing. And as a pitcher, I’ve found, the less you think about it, the better the end results.

That night, we were going to have three new players. Julie, a substitute for us last year, was going to be taking the place of Kambria, and the two girls Jamie had found were going to take the spots of vacationing Laurie and Kelly. That meant I should have gone to Wal-mart to pick up three new blue shirts. I was so sick of buying those damn shirts though I said the hell with it, I don’t really give a shit what they wear at t his point. Needless to say, I skipped the shirt buying routine.

We were going to have a late game that night, another 9:30 start, which meant I did have a little bit of time to do nothing. I spent my ‘nothing’ time going for a run and lifting weights. There’s nothing like wearing yourself out before a game. After that, I enjoyed a nice cold Rolling Rock, and waited until it was time to leave for Andy’s.

At this point I have to apologize for the opening to this game lock for lack of action… but in all honesty, nothing happened that day, at all. No drama, no incidents, no problems, no adventures, not even any phone calls. The one thing I can report is that my heart really wasn’t into the game. It wasn’t like the previous week where I wasn’t looking forward to playing, but at the same time, I was just sort of blah about the whole thing.

That feeling carried over when I got to Andy’s wear Beth, Stropes and Andy were gathered watching something on TV. I think Andy’s roommate Brian was also there watching something on TV. For some reason I remember it being something disturbing starring Jerry O’Connell and Gary Busey’s kid (in a thong), but that might have been a different night. Brian tends to watch really odd programs. Anyway, we weren’t there long before leaving for the practice fields. Again, nothing exciting happened.

When we got to the fields, I was excited to see that the field I had always wanted to practice on, but was also taken by some father daughter duo was actually free and clear. That was good for two reasons, the first being that we could practice on it, the second being that there was no one there for Stropes to offend with an off color anal rape comment. The one negative to this field was that the pitcher’s mound, though flat, looked like it was about 10 feet from the plate. So after taking my usual trip down to the disgusting port-o-lets, I marked off 53 feet and made a make shift rubber in the dirt.

When I cam back, Jamie and Ray had pulled up and were complimenting me/ making fun of me for the game log I had posted earlier that day. As it turns out, I can’t spell, and rarely ever make any kind of grammatical adjustments to the log before posting for the first time. Oh well, editor’s choice I guess.

We had decided during the week to move Ray to first and Stropes to the outfield which both were excited about it. Again, no drama here. Andy had decided to practice hitting pop flies to Stropes in the outfield while Ray and I warmed up by throwing from third to first.

This little practice scenario continued for quite some time, which Jamie and Rob joining in before too long. Soon, we had a small sandlot type of game going on where Rob and Stropes were in the outfield, I was on second, Ray on first, Jamie on third and Beth at home where Andy would hit it and we’d pretend to make a play at a base. It was like being a little kind and using a “ghost man” all over again. I’ll tell you what though, that ghost man is one tough son-of-a-gun to get out.

Soon it was my turn to start pitching to people and things seemed to be going okay… after a long period of it not going okay. I don’t know what it is, but I just can’t seem to do well right off the bat (no pun intended). It takes me a good 30-100 pitchers before I feel comfortable. Maybe I should have been doing that instead of lifting weights. Good ol’ hindsight.

The one bit of disturbing news I got during practice was that the balls I had bought the week before weren’t standing up to being hit with a bat as well as advertised. I guess Adidas had decided to produce a ball that was not meant for anything more strenuous than sitting on a shelf. These things were mashing up and looking more disfigured than the kid from the movie Mask. Which meant I was flinging pitches at people, one warped ball at a time.

After what seemed like an eternity of Stropes at the plate, everybody else got a shot to take some swings. For the most part, the batting seemed to be going pretty well, but what I was really excited about was that our fielding looked excellent. Jamie and Ray were on fire at the corners of the infield, Andy was getting some good stops, and Stropes and Ray were catching all kinds of stuff. All of a sudden, the apathy I had felt about today’s game had gone away, and was replaced by some genuine excitement.

That feeling continued as we got to the playing field, and found out we were going to be playing way back on field six, which is like the red-headed step child of fields. It might as well have a tractor parked in the outfield with as well as they maintain it compared to the others.

It was here we met two of our new players for the evening, Stephanie and Brie. They introduced themselves to me right off the bat (no pun intended) but I couldn’t keep their names straight for the life of me. All night long, I’d second guess myself before I spoke to either one of them, and it never failed that I would choose incorrectly. It was only after Rob pointed out that Brie is the name of a cheese, and our Brie was wearing a cheese colored shirt was I able to make the distinction. You’ve got to hand it to Rob, always thinking! As it turns out, the girls had just finished playing Volleyball in another league, and we excited to be turning their focus to Softball. We were just happy to have people to stick into the line up.

The other team wasn’t quite so lucky. We walked up to see about three people practicing (one of which had to be no older than 13) on the field. They informed us that the rest of their team hadn’t arrived yet. Under my breath I replied, “No shit.”

While Rob was trying to convince Stropes to go over and card the kid, Andy and the captain of the other team (who was wearing a Polo shirt) went up to the plate to get the instructions and flip for sides. We lost, which was good, because that meant we got to try out being the visitor again. While this was going on, I began filling out our drastically different line up, placing our new girls in the middle, and the newly arriving Julie at the end.

Julie walked up like she was approaching the electric chair. This is atypical from how she normally skips around, so I knew she had to be tired. After informing me that she’d had a long day at the lab she said she was pretty much just there to be a warm body. At this point, we’d take it.

Julie had arrived just in time to grab Stropes’ gynormous extra glove and head to second base where we were hoping she wouldn’t have to do much in her near catatonic state. Ray moved over to his new position at first and Stropes went to left field. Rob moved to right-center, Brie was in left center and Steph was in right. Everyone else headed to their usual spots and I began warming up. Beth also made it a point to once again ask the Ump if hitting the plate with the ball was a ball or a strike. In a much nicer way than last week, he said it was going to be a ball every time. He also made some stupid joke, but at least he was trying. That already made him better than just about every ump we’d ever had.

To my surprise, my arm had come back nicely. With each one of my practice pitches, I got closer to the plate, eventually throwing a strike. After the past two weeks, I took that as a victory. Then came the first batter who looked like a slugger. That look was very deceptive because he sure as hell wasn’t. What he was able to do though was knock one to Andy who made the play over to Ray at first for the out. The next girl batter got on first, but that was followed by a pop out to Brie (a very good sign) and a strike out on my part. Holy crap, we just took down the top of their line up without giving up a run… we might have a shot at this.

My happy outlook continued as we were able to produce a run with our first at bat. There were only three things wrong with that inning. One, we left too many people on base. Two, weren’t hitting any power shots so their outfield was almost all the way up to their infield. Three, with as good as we were playing, we only got one run. I only mention these things because I couldn’t come up with a better way to foreshadow the upcoming events.

When we next took the field, it was business as usual. Beth had already begun working on the Ump and the opposing batter, and I was set to begin pitching again. I have to admit, my pitches weren’t the best they’d ever been, but at least I was throwing enough strikes to keep the other team honest. That inning, they once again got a few people on base, but we were able to hold them off without giving up a run.

Our next time up at bat, we once again got some people on base, got a run out of the deal, and were put out 1-2-3. Much like the rest of the day up to this point, the game had been pretty much without highlights, good or bad. The game to this point had been very uninteresting, as nothing really out of the ordinary had happened on than we were winning.

On nice thing was that we'd actually attracted a bit of a crowd for the game consisting of Stacy, Nathan, Josh and Amanda. That along with our typical fans, the port-o-lets which Jon failed to mention even once that game.

The mood in the dugout was very positive after two weeks of brutal beat downs. Even Julie had perked up and was now skipping and dancing around like her old self. It had helped that she’d made contact with the ball her first time out, and almost made it on base. She did advance Rob around to third though, which made us all happy. The other two girls were fitting in quite nicely tough, and had brought some positive energy to the dugout. Ray was also a much happier camper over at first base, and it showed throughout the rest of the game. Ray was tearing up first base on defense; the problem was that first was tearing him up on offense.

His first time up to bat, Ray hit a line drive toward third, and was trying to out sprint the ball to first base. He was able to accomplish this feat, but unfortunately he pulled a muscle in the process, an injury that nagged at him the entire game. This wouldn’t have been that bad if our lame ass first base coach had been paying more attention when trying to give Ray instructions. You see, our FB coach had told Ray to stay after a pop out to left field which was the smart move, but then decided to tell him to tag up and run to second. Ray started to do that, but then realized how stupid of a move that was and headed back with the ball making a bee line for his head. Ray was able to slide underneath the 10-year-old first baseman, and get on the back before the kid fell on top of him. The first base coach apologized and said it wouldn’t happen again.

I guess he meant that it wouldn’t happen again until the next play because once again there was a pop fly to the outfield, and Ray had to tag up and head to second. This time he was going to be able to make it, but the FB coach wanted him to get more and said to go to third. This was again a stupid move, but the play was saved thanks to an over throw by the other team which lead to Ray being able to get to third safely. It also helped us get our third and final run of the night. After those two horrible calls, I was asked to stop working as FB coach, and go back to the dugout, which I happily did.

Other than that, the game went on as usual with the score becoming 3-2 going into the sixth inning. Well, unless you count the fact that I nailed a girl with a pitch the inning before that, but there’s no need to go into that. Two lessons were learned by that bean ball though. One is you don’t get a free base for taking a pitch to the shoulder in slow pitch softball. The other is, don’t crowd the plate with “Showboat” is on the mound. And in my defense, she was crowding the plate. She was pretty much standing on it when I hit her… and then continued to do so the very next pitch.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, the sixth inning. We’d been playing solid, if not spectacular to this point and knew that we only had to do it a few more times to win. One of the things we’d gotten a lot better at this game was making the opposing pitcher throw more balls rather than taking a swing at the first pitch. Andy had turned this into an art form… so much so that we sometimes wondered if he was ever going to swing the bat.

This seemed to have a dramatic effect on the opposing pitcher who walked more people on our team than any other team had in my memory. We had gotten him rattled, and as a pitcher myself, can be a good thing for your team. His balls were flying all over place, most of which were outside the plate, or short. It was like I was pitching for their team.

But this seemed to come with a consequence. Our batting as a whole seemed to suffer. We couldn’t seem to get any power out of our shots, and with the other team playing so close to the infield, meant that almost everything was going to be caught. It also didn’t help that their Polo shirted guy had turned into a freaking’ all-star Short Stop after Stropes made a comment about his game attire. This guy was everywhere. I think he ran between first and second base to make a catch.

After scoring three runs early, we weren’t able to score a damn thing, and the sixth inning was no different. On the other side, though, they had begun to build momentum. With Polo leading the way, and the kid now taking a seat in the dugout after his run in with Ray, the other team had started to make a charge. We really needed a strong sixth inning to put an end to this.

It started out fine. They popped a shot out to Rob who caught the ball for an easy out. Then came another one of their girls who had gotten good at making a swinging “bunt” at the ball, meaning it barely gotten past home.

Early a girl had hit one of those and I hadn’t been able to get to it in time to throw her out, so this time I let Beth get it only to get the same result. That meant the tying run was now on base. Their “big slugger” was now up and on the first pitch swung and knocked a fly ball foul right toward Jamie. I excitedly watched as she walked over to make the catch, but then was horrified when she let it drop at the last minute. I think everyone was doing the same thing I was because we all couldn’t get the words “catch it” out of our mouths fast enough. As it hit the dirt, you could see on Jamie’s face that she dreaded what she had just done. Putting her glove over her face after she threw the ball, she slowly walked back to third.

You see, she had thought that the batter already had two strikes, which meant she could let the ball drop and he’d still be out. She didn’t want to muff the ball, and drop, thinking that if she did that, it would be considered fair. What she didn’t know was that he only had one strike (the one you begin with) and it doesn’t matter if you drop it or not, it would still be foul. We all tried to console her, but at the same time had to regroup and do it all again.

I threw another pitch and the guy smacked one out toward Stropes who fumbled the ball, giving the batter an easy single. This was followed by a couple of other missed opportunities including another “bunt” that I couldn’t get to in time, and a dropped grounder toward second. To make a long story short, they got three runs before we ended the inning, which meant we were now two down with one more at bat to go.

The mood in the dugout was fine, but we all felt bad for Jamie. One at a time we told her that it was okay, but we knew she would have preferred it if we’d just left her alone. While we did that, Andy hit a pop out, which meant Jamie could now take her aggression out on this guy’s pitch. Well, she did, and it was a pop out. Two batters down, behind by two runs, one out left to go. Stropes, who had asked us to move him into the third spot was now up, and in a surprising move, he let a pitch go by. If we could get a walk here, maybe we could rattle this pitcher’s cage and get him to walk us to the lead. His next pitch looked off as well, but Jon swung at it anyway and popped it to Polo shirt to end the game.

Deflated and defeated, we walked over and congratulated the other team. This one stung a bit, but for the most part, everyone on our side was just happy it was close. We all felt bad for Jamie, even though it wasn’t that one single play that cost us the game. It was a lot like the whole Steve Bartman thing in Chicago. Even though the Cubs had multiple opportunities to win after Steve Bartman muffed that foul ball, and they blew every one of them, somehow he’s still looked at as the villain. None of us felt that way toward Jamie, but you could tell on her face that she felt that way.

In much better moods than we’d been in about a month when leaving the field, we decided it was a good night to go to BW3’s and drink this loss away. We were even able to talk Jamie and one-legged Ray into joining us.

Before leaving, me, Andy and Stropes gathered in the parking lot to discuss the game. I mentioned that I felt bad for Jamie because although I’m used to feeling like I cost us the game, I hate when other people feel that way. Stropes pointed out that that was nice of me to say, and the Jamie was sitting in Ray’s car right behind me, listening to every word. That might have been my best play all night.