RRBS Softball Game Log
Game #3

July 10, 2007

Players: Kaitlyn Christopher, Kambria Current, Matt DiStasi, Mike Jennings, Andy Lang, Jon Stropes, Jamie Tate, Matt Thompson, Ally Wells, Sarah ???

It had been over two weeks since we’d last played a game, and during that time there had been a lot of partying, traveling and other nonsense thanks to the Fourth of July being on a Wednesday.  As a team, we really hadn’t seen much of each other since game two, but we were all excited to get back out onto the field and finally get a win.

During that two week span, I tried numerous times to get a hold of Kimmy who still hadn’t let any of us know why she never made it last time.  To make matters worse, she also hadn’t been seen around the station at all, so my fears of her being dead somewhere in a ditch wearing her “The Intern” jersey were becoming more realistic.  And if that wasn’t bad enough, we really needed Kimmy at this next game because the day before, Jessica informed me that she wouldn’t be able to make it due to some golf outing.  Now we were down a girl, and things weren’t looking good.

Game day arrived, and we still hadn’t done any practicing as a team. Sure, a few of us had gone to batting cages, and from what I’d heard Kaitlyn and Mike had gotten together to hit balls at one another, but still no real team practices.  I had told myself for two weeks that I would work on my pitching, and a number of teammates (meaning Andy, Staz and Stropes) had told me they would practice with me, but nothing had ever come of it. I finally dogged Stropes into going to a field near my house before the game on Tuesday and letting me warm up with him.  We got a tape measurer and marked off the 53ft distance that was supposedly the correct length.  Of course my first five or six pitches went right into the dirt shy of the plate, so I was starting up right where I left off.  I also let Stropes throw some balls around so that if my arm went into the crapper again, he could be the reliever. 

Oh, I forgot to mention, earlier that day before I left the station, I happened to run into Kimmy.  She informed me that she had forgotten about a vacation she had to go on, and that’s why she wasn’t able to make the previous game.  “Oh, I see,” I said.  Then I asked her if she’d be making tonight’s game, because we were going to need her.  “No problem,” she said.  According to her, she was looking forward to playing.

Fast forward to an hour before game time as I pull into the parking lot of the field near Andy’s house where Ally, Mike and Kaitlyn are practicing.  Mike was throwing Kaitlyn some pitches and her swing looked to be much improved.  Her and Ally both looked to have some renewed enthusiasm as they informed me that they had watched the MBL Home Run Derby the night before, and found inspiration to do better.  This was pleasing news.  Kaitlyn also told me that after watching how Mike’s other teams did things, she would no longer be crouching behind the plate in her catchers pose.  She would instead be taking a more comfortable stance by the backstop, behind the umpire.  Not that this was a big deal, or has any impact on the rest of the story, just thought it was interesting.

Mike asked if I’d like to take over pitching to Kaitlyn while he warmed up with Ally.  This wasn’t a bad idea, as I still needed to warm up too.  So I marked off the 53 feet, which was well behind the mound provided on the field.  While doing this, Mike and I debated if the distance I marked was too far away.  I told him I had asked the people at Midwest Sports Plex and that this is what they had told me.  He said it looked too far away.  I said Kambria had given me some unsettling news about why it was so far away.  Apparently a number of pitchers last season had taken a few line drives to the head… one of them dying.  I asked if I could transfer to the outfield.  I was told no, to man up, and just cover my face with my glove if a ball was hit my way.  Easy for them to say when I’m the one with balls flying at my face.

So I moved up on the mound provided and started throwing much better pitches.  Maybe he was right about the distance, it sure seemed more comfortable.  Kaitlyn was also doing a good job hitting the ball, which made her more excited.  I was just happy to see that she’d replaced her pink gear with a nice set of purple pants.  But speaking of gear, I guess I should mention that I had switched back to “Fancy Dan” because I couldn’t find my “Showtime” shirt anywhere.  This shirt thing was starting to piss me of.  So here I was, Mr. Stone-washed logo, and low and behold, I was the only one on the field wearing my team approved jersey.  Kaitlyn and Ally were both wearing white shirts because they said their team shirts were dirty, and Mike was in his usual cut off tee.  Then Stropes pulls up in his newly purchased Boston Red Sox shirt.  Sure it was cool, and it was the right color, and it did have “Redwood” nicely printed on the back, but this left me as the only homo in a team uniform.  That is until Andy and Staz showed up, now there were three of us.

Practice went on like this for a while, until Andy broke out the Brigade, and a few of us had to take a beer break.  Mike nominated me to throw him some balls during this time to see if he could put a few shots over the fence.  It took him a few attempts, but he finally managed to hit a few dingers out of the park.  I was hoping he might catch fire like that during the game, lord knows we needed it.

Soon the seven of us got in our vehicles and took off for the field.  Andy and I were blasting “Don’t Stop Believing” by Journey, which had become our un-official team theme song.  It would have been our official theme song, but the representatives from Journey haven’t gotten back to us yet.  When we got to the park, we were met by Jamie and Kambria, but still no Kimmy.  I had tried calling her earlier in the day, but got no answer.  I tried again with five minutes left to go till game time, and she finally picked up.  I asked if she was coming and she said yes, but it was going to be awhile.  She had been working at the golf outing with Jessie, and was just now getting off.  The problem was, she was about 20 minutes away.  I told her to get here when she could, and she said fine.  Fantastic… now we were one girl short.

The friendly ump from week 1, who also happens to be good friends with Mike, walked over and told us that we could ask girls from around the park to see if they wanted to join our team for the evening.  We said hell yes, so he put out a page around the park asking for a girl to play with us.  That’s when we met Sarah, who was dressed like someone who knew everything there is to know about softball.  She’d just finished her own team’s softball game, and said she’d be more than happy to join us.  Perfect… Sarah could now be our second baseman.  (For those of you keeping notes, this makes three games with three different second basemen.  I’m starting to sense a curse here.)

We were once again the home team so we got to take the field first.  Everyone was in their normal positions and other than a little bit of rust, we seemed to be doing okay after a long break.  In the dugout, I made up the batting lineup, and decided to switch it up a bit.  With Jessie gone, I moved Kaitlyn to second in the order (a move she was not thrilled about) and moved Staz further up too.  I moved Stropes down a few spots so as to have a power hitter near the back, and placed Sarah and I at the tail end.  Jamie was just glad I wasn’t following her any more, now maybe she could get to second base.

The order seemed to work as we again jumped out to a slight lead.  Andy was up first and walked, which meant Kaitlyn got to take her base for the first time.  This caused quite a stir in a dugout.  Mike, Kambria and Jamie all did their thing and Staz got a hit too, which again got a rise out of the team.  Soon we were back on the field though, and that’s when the wheels came off.

Over the past two games, our fielding hadn’t been the best, but at least we weren’t making dumb plays.  That streak came to a crashing end, real quick.  I for one was pitching okay, but my fielding was horrible.  The second guy up to bat hit one between Jamie and me near third, and I ran over to get it.  But instead of picking it up and throwing it to first, I hear Andy telling me to throw it one way, and Stropes telling me to throw it somewhere else.  So what do I do?  I hold onto it like I’m inspecting it for flaws.  Nicely done, Fancy Dan!  Way to not make any sort of play!

The rest of the group didn’t fare that much better.  Ally began the game with an interesting play.  When the ball was hit toward her in Left field, she picked it up and knew she had to throw it somewhere.  Andy was out with her in Left center, and he told her to throw it to him.  Well, she did… only it went over his head.  Kambria almost hit the ground laughing over in right field, and Mike made a beeline out there to talk to Ally about always throwing the ball toward the play, not away from it.  I was just glad I had made it another play without getting hit in the face and dying.

Stropes was also having a little trouble with his glove this game, and by that I mean he couldn’t keep the ball in it.  Not that every throw we made to him was a good one, but he’s normally pretty consistent in catching it.  But not today.  With all this going on, I could tell Sarah was wondering what the hell she had done by signing up with us. 

When we finally got back to the dugout, our lead had vanished, but we weren’t out of it yet.  Kaitlyn was going to lead us off, and she had the look of determination in her eyes.  Well, she got two hits during that at-bat.  Not only did she get her first hit, and make it on base, she also inadvertently threw her bat behind her during all the excitement, and nearly crippled the umpire.  The bat had flown with deathly speed and nailed him in the collarbone.  While we all celebrated with Kaitlyn at first base, the other team walked up to the plate where the ump was down on one knee holding his shoulder. 

Authorities from all over the park came over to see if their employee was all right.  He wasn’t.  They brought out ice packs, they brought out doctors, and at one point they even brought out the cart.  The game was stopped for nearly 20 minutes as they worked on the one umpire in the league that liked us.  I knew then that I wasn’t going to get any more good calls the rest of the game.

When he finally was able to move around again, and now sporting a lovely shoulder ice pack, the ump re-started the game.  As I walked out to the mound, I told the ump, “Just remember, I’m not the one who hit you.”  This prompted a nice flipping of the bird from Kaitlyn toward me.  I apologized, but she continued to give me the evil eye from behind the plate the rest of the game.  The lone bright spot during this run was Jamie, who made a number of fantastic plays at third.  Catching balls, fielding balls, throwing balls… I just decided if a ball went her way, no matter how close it was to me, I was staying the hell away from it and letting her have it.  Mike and Andy had also changed positions again to see if that might change out luck.  It did a little, and we managed to claw out way back into the game.

We did have another scare the next time we were up to bat.  Kambria got a nice hit that went over their second baseman’s head and went into the outfield.  She was running toward first base, when their center fielding rocketed the ball toward first base.  It was a wild throw and it was going straight for Kambria’s head, with her totally unaware of it.  Thank god the other team’s first baseman saw this too and made a leaping grab to keep her from being smashed in the ear with a jet powered softball.  This would not have been good for a number of reasons.  The first being it probably would have knocked her out.  The second being that we promised her parents she wouldn’t get hurt by playing with us.  She goes to college on a softball scholarship, and an injury acquired while playing slow-pitch, coed softball would be frowned upon by the university.  Tragedy averted.   

Even with as poorly as we were playing, we weren’t out of the game yet.  We’d also built up quite a fan following in the bleachers.  People from around the park where showing up to laugh at the team who’d almost killed an ump, and seemed to have never played this sport before.  Even Sarah’s other teammates came out to heckle her.  I think all that “support” from behind the fence actually motivated us to get our asses into gear because we started to mount a small comeback.  Then came the dreaded fourth inning. 

As usual, the other team had a monster inning where they hit everything and went through their entire batting order, followed by us going three and out.  This made way for me to turn into Jell-o arm again.  But I was determined to right the ship and finish this thing off.  I took the mound and threw a strike, followed by three really bad balls.  I mean, really bad.  I told myself that my next pitch was going to make or break the rest of the game for me.  I felt it throughout my body that this one was huge, I knew it was going to be a strike.  The strike I needed.  I threw it, and it might have been my best pitch all night.  Perfect, I was back, we could do this!  Wait; nope… ump called it a ball.  What the hell???

At that point I gave up.  I told Stropes to take over, and I went to fist base.  I don’t know if that was the right thing to do, but that’s what I did.  I sulked at first base while Stropes walked four or five batters in a row.  Like I said earlier, it wasn’t his best game.  After that killer inning, we lost, again, but we didn’t feel too bad because we got some great stories out of it, and we could always blame it on the holiday vacation.  I preferred to blame it on Stropes, but nobody else agreed with me… except for Jon who I’d not seen that angry since they kicked us out of the Chinese buffet before he’d had all he could eat.

As we walked out, I could tell that Kaitlyn was still upset about hitting the umpire, so I texted her “Don’t Stop Believing.”  She sent back a smiley face.  I guess I needed to remember that too, because although losing sucks, and I should know, I’ve done a lot of it, these games were still the most fun I have all week.  Don’t stop believing and keep smiling, who knew you could learn so much about life by playing a game?