Yes, that asterisk is intentional. You’ll learn all about it later. This week our team was dealt a crushing defeat. Truly this was another matchup we should have won, but defensive lapses and unproductive at-bats did us in. After a pathetic stretch of 4 games in which I batted .286 (a pathetic average for a softball league), I was beginning to wonder if I was simply overmatched…by dudes throwing the ball underhand. After a week off for July 4th-releated festivities (during which a rather productive practice was held), I approached this game feeling like I was finally beginning to understand what it meant to be a productive softball batter. Here’s what happened, to the best of my recollection, which is really, really wrong because I have shit for a memory. Literally, shit travels from my guts to my brains and takes over thought processes for me. It can get really ugly.
In the top of the first inning, Nate shut down the side with a groundball out and two pop-up/fly balls. Thinking we were well on our way to taking an early lead, we instead went quietly. Fly out, strike-out, James single, Pat single, and then I — batting fifth for the first time this season — flew out to right center field. My teammates congratulated me for not grounding out to the pitcher again, but I still felt like I ruined what could have been a solid inning.
In the 2nd inning, Nate began to unwind a bit, missing the plate and walking a few batters. With some timely hits coming when men were on base, and our defense’s inability to convert simple plays, it is 8-0 when we come to bat for the second time. I don’t remember how many runs we scored that inning, but it was either two or four. Andrew hit a homerun on a ball smacked into the outfield gap.
The next inning, Nate’s inability to find the plate again, and our fielder’s inability to string together two consecutive outs killed us. We implode. It’s something like 14-4 or 17-4 at the end of the half-inning. On our next trip to the plate, we scored two runs. I don’t remember how, giving us six total runs for the game. It looked for a moment like this might be a mercy rule kind of game.
It’s 23-6 after the next Cube Zombies at-bats. We claw back in the bottom of the fourth. Pat and James provide big hits. I single up the middle (my 2nd hit of the game). I score a few batters later. I think it’s 23-12 at the end of the 4th.
To start the 5th inning, Andrew came on in relief of Nate. I moved from catcher to second base. Nate moved to rover in the outfield. Monte moved from second to the outfield, and Stephen went from the outfield to catcher. After retiring two quick batters on groundballs to the pitcher, he walked five consecutive Zombies, then got another ground out to end the inning. The score was 24-12.
The bottom of the 5th would be our last chance to mount an incredible rally. We start the comeback. James and Pat lead off with hits. I follow with a two-RBI single, and come around to score on a basehit by Nate. Someone gets out. We score more runs. Someone records our team’s second out, putting us one away from defeat. James smashes a double. Pat knocks him. Suddenly, it’s 24-17 and we’re starting to feel like momentum is shifting in the Expos direction. I step up to the plate with a chance to prolong the rally.
I take a first-pitch ball. Then I take a strike. The third pitch looks good, but I drop my arms and foul the ball off the plate, keeping the count at 2-2. I see the next pitching coming and I decide early I’m swinging. I hit the ball hard to the gap in right-center. Pat scores easily. i round first and head to second, seeing the fielder hasn’t reached the ball yet. Voices on the bench yell for me to keep going. I get to third and the base coach says to go home. I don’t know where the ball is, but I hear someone yell slide. I decide to go in standing, and never see a throw come close. It’s a 2-run home run, my first of the season and an amazing moment in my life as a softball rookie. I see Pat walking over from first base, and he high fives me, and out of the corner of his mouth he whispers, “Go back and touch home.”
I tell him i touched it, and he said, “No you didn’t, go back and touch the plate.” I slowly turn around and start to walk back towards home, but I see the catcher is standing over the dish with the ball in his glove, talking to the umpire. i get closer, and they both look at me. I don’t know what happened next, but since the guy was blocking the plate I awkwardly tried to slip my foot between his legs and touch home. He tags me across the chest, the umpire yells “Out!” and the game is over.
The score is 24-18*. It should be 24-19 with two outs and our hopes not-quite dashed, but that isn’t the case. Now you know why I added an asterisk to the final score.
I’m absolutely distraught. My 2-run homerun goes in the books as a double (?), and I feel like the biggest asshole in the world. Apparently you have to to touch actual home plate, and not the softball extension part. This being my fourth softball game ever, and only the 2nd or 3rd time I’ve come around to score, I had no idea that was even a rule. The other team is lining up to shake our hands, and I have to walk back to our dugout feeling like I just lost the game for us, even though it was still 24-18* and we would have had to score 6 more runs with two outs in the inning. I couldn’t let it go, even as teammates congratulated me on the homerun and said things like, “We’re past ten o’clock and the ump just wanted to go home.” Nope, sorry, I still feel like a retard. We shake hands. We think about going out to drink. Instead, Nate, Pat and I get some six packs and head home. What a depressing game.
What’s worse is, there are no games this week, and the week this one after I’m going to be away, so I have to live with this humiliation for another three weeks until I can get some fucking redemption. It might have been my break-out game, my best game of the season, and the first time my teammates looked to me as an actual contributor to the team, but even as I write this I still feel like a letdown. My final line was apparently 3/4 (2 2B’s) with 2 runs and 3 RBIs, good enough for Co-Player Of The Game honors along with James (4 Hits, a 3B, 3 runs and 2 RBI). In any other game it’d be an honor. Just not when you make the last out of a game in the middle of a rally on a boneheaded play.
I’m going to attack the next team I see. It’s going to be a shit storm of hard swings and hopefully hard contact. There will be blood. It might be as a result of my swinging too hard and hitting someone with a dropped/thrown bat, but I’m prepared to do that if it means knocking in some runs and keeping our championship dreams alive.
