Opening Day - Loose Cannons
Let me start by saying I am deeply disappointed at my left-center fielder. I’ve been sending out email messages for the last 5 weeks for softball practice, season schedule, and lineups.
I showed up today at 12:05 p.m. Our game is at 12:30 p.m. There are 9 players ready to go. I had a funny suspicion something was up, and decided to call his ass. Sure enough, the response I get was, “the season starts today?” WTF? Do you read your goddamn emails moron? Unacceptable.
As always, I have a contingency plan. Well, today it was more like desperation. And the right guy (the Chairman) showed up for the rescue. I felt bad for disturbing his late morning, early afternoon snugglefest with his sick wife, but hey, we gots a game to play and I need 10 bodies to win (more like, have a chance to win).
To summarize the game… it was 30 year olds vs. 55 year olds. The outcome could not be pretty… and it wasn’t. We massacred them and sent them back to the Stone Ages… 18-3. Mercy rule in effect after the 5th inning. Not to ridicule our opponent of their age, but I am rather amazed that they can still play at that age. They’re a classy and determined bunch and while they proved no match, it was still an honor to play them. Personally, I hope that I am in that great a shape when I get that old.
Personal performance - 2 for 4 with a reach on error (that landed me in third base), 0 runs (I was left at 3rd base three times, twice I made it to third after my hit), 3 RBIs. My left arm was giving me trouble. I was in a lot of pain the entire game. Probably because I bowled on Tuesday, and played ball Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. At one point, I could even grip my bat.
Overall team performance - Offense - Smart hitting. We knew we had an edge with mobility. As such we were able to put the ball in play and not give away too many easy outs. That’s all I can ask for now. We took advantage of errors by our opponents, and what I emphasized/yelled throughout the game (DO NOT LAY OFF THE PEDAL!!!) , was exercised.
Overall team performance - Defense - I pulled aside some of my teammates in the beginning of the game and stressed that my Wednesday team, the Demons, and the team I filled in on Friday, the Swing Kids, all had issues with “Almost playmaking”. What I mean by that is they kept on knocking down balls, but never completing the play for outs, and running hard for a ball only to not secure it when it falls in and out of their gloves. I told them, we play for 21 outs (7 innings x 3 outs). I don’t want to play for anymore! And sure enough, we didn’t. Excellent job.
Overall team assessment - I remember talking to Savage, Randy, and Frank about how I built this team 12 years ago with Ken. The team was built on defense because they were all rejects from the other team I played on before, the Wolfpack. The manager cutted them because of their hitting woes. I felt bad that they wanted to play, so as such, I built a team with these guys. I knew at that time we weren’t going to outhit anyone. But by limiting our errors on defense, we would give ourselves a fighting chance. And that philosophy has worked for over a decade now and has garnered division championships and tournaments trophies. Our performance on Saturday illustrates that as long as we stay controlled and play solid defense, we’re going to go far. I don’t offer praise too often towards my team, but I would like to share this with them, “AWESOME JOB, CANNONS!”
