This weak marked another excellent softball game and my second to last game of the season. Although our team has 4 games left I will be traveling for the next 3 weeks and will return just in time for the last game of the season.
This week we squared off against the team we played in the first game of the season, and the only one we had managed to beat so far. It seems like there are a few teams in our league that need to be in a higher league, or maybe we need to be in a lower one, but of the other 5 teams we have played, only two have been closely matched.
The good thing is that even those incredibly talented teams have been really fun to play. Like ours, the other teams in the league seem to be made up of genuinely fun people, and that makes even our most crushing defeats still fun games to play.
This week, although as I mentioned before, we were going to be playing against a team we had already managed to beat, we were not feeling too confident. Several of our best players were going to be out of town, and others like myself were only planning to play so we wouldn’t have to forfeit.
I was especially demoralized due to my lack of a hit all season. Striking out 12 times in a row can really do a number on your self-esteem. Especially for someone like me that is used to being at least half-way decent at sports. As we started the game it was windy, and that was causing a lot of bad pitches. I thought maybe I’d get lucky and get walked, but no. After two perfect strikes in a row that I didn’t even try to swing at, I was out and I thought that anything is better than not even swinging.
So the next time I tried my best, and even managed to barely make contact with the ball. It was the tiniest of clangs, but enough for me and my team to know that I had at least touched it, and that was more than I had managed all season.
So now with 14 strikeouts in a row, combined with some botched plays in the field, I was feeling pretty sorry for myself indeed. Fortunately, everyone else on my team was on fire. We were playing better than we had all season, and had managed to pull into the lead after 3 innings of back and forth.
Finally we hit the 6th inning, and that’s when a miracle happened. Everyone was hitting, the other team was overthrowing, and the runs started to rack up. And it was my turn at bat again. I wasn’t feeling too confident in my chances, but the fact that I had grazed the ball on my last at bat helped me to keep from being totally disheartened.
By this point, I was pretty sure that if I actually managed to hit the ball I would have a heart attack, that or just be so stunned I’d forget to run, but no. Sure enough, I managed a decent hit, a grounder towards the short stop, and just managed to beat the throw to 1st. It probably would have been too close to call, but lucky for me, the first base player dropped the ball and it rolled into the dugout, so I took off again and made it to second.
At this point I realized this whole base running thing was harder than I remembered, which is what happens when you don’t get to run all season. Then, the next batter hit a nice one to the outfield that went between Left and Left Center, and I got the signal to run home. Again, it was a close race, and I would have narrowly made it home but this time it was the catcher that missed the ball, and I was home free.
This was my first time crossing home plate all season, and it felt really good. That combined with our second team victory made for a great night. Might just be signing up for summer ball afterall. 😉
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Running Backwards 