The Men of Summer Return...

Ah once again we have reached that glorious time of the year when the Men of Summer return. Yes it is the season of stiff backs, sore legs, scraped up legs, aching shoulders, and realizing that muscles should actually be used over those long winter months for something other then lifting the TV remote and 12 oz curls. It is the time of the year where on Mondays, guys gather around the water cooler to admire each others newly acquired limp, raspberry, or pulled muscle. Summer softball leagues began play this last weekend.

Of course for many of us, the only clue the season had started was getting a phone call or email the morning of the game, asking if we would be willing to play. Of course most of us immediately get visions (or illusions depending on how you look at it) of grandeur and jump at the opportunity to go out and achieve athletic glory similar to what we thought we experienced in high school/college. The next step in the whole process is to frantically start looking around for our equipment which we ever so carefully stored in multiple locations around the garage/basement. In my case, I had gotten married, and moved into a new house over the off season, so I had to go dig thru boxes of stuff stored in the basement looking for my glove and cleats. Thankfully the wife had already pointed out where my jersey from last year was hanging, so I didn’t have to go looking to far to find the well worn garment (which has mysteriously shrunk from the size it was last year, must be all that hanging up in the closet.)

So I get to the field, only to find as usual my team is late arriving, so I wander around the fields looking for someone I recognize, or at least someone wearing the same jersey as me. Finally I see the usual suspects trudging up from the parking lot, all of us looking older and fatter than last season (maybe that’s why the damn jersey shrunk!) We all get out our gear and start stretching, listening to the usual pops and creaks from the older guys, and hoping that maybe I don’t sound like that to the high school seniors and college kids that are playing with us. Sadly, we only have 2 of those young guys with us this year (although school is not out for the summer so there is still hope) so it looks like our team will be one of the slower ones in the league. The team I play for is an older parrish, and doesn’t have a real big group of young guys just out of high school/college in the men’s club to play yet. So its pretty sad when I am one of the faster guys on the team, as I am by no means a speed demon!

We finally get stretched out and our arms loosened up, and start inspecting our opponent for today’s double header. We realize that this was the team that placed 2^nd in the league last year, only losing to the team that had 4 ex college baseball players and a few Open league (semi pro softball guys) players. Great, no really, absolutely wonderful. What a way to start the season! This only means we should get drilled by oh… 50 runs or so.

The first game started off looking good, we sat their top 3 hitters down 1-2-3 and I managed to not boot the first fielding opportunity I had. We went up to bat, and managed to actually hit the ball to places where they weren’t and got a few base runners around to score. Little did we realize that this pretty much would be the highlight of the afternoon, as our opponents must have gotten the rust flaked off chasing our bloopers and shut us down from that point on. Our next few innings were basically a series of comedic errors, mostly consisting of us booting the ball around the infield (yes I think there were one or two E4’s in there for those of you keeping score) and chasing balls that they somehow hit over our heads despite our fielders playing 2 steps off the fence! Thankfully our games were both over quickly due to the wonderful 10 run rule and we were able to retire to the parking lot quickly to enjoy our hard won (lost?) beers.