LOST

We lost the softball tournament game in the second round last night pretty handily. Something like 19-9 to a team that we can beat, but just not last night. For my cousin Mike who started the softball team about 5 years ago with an impromtu, dragging to Stoner park, of me, Martin, and Bill in our street clothes to figure out the game. We were raw, I think Martin never played an inning in his life, and the rest of us were pretty rusty from maybe Little League days. My cousin Mike’s been playing softball here and there and saw an opportunity to make something-a team.

We’ve been playing, and maybe you’ve read about us here and there. We have three second place trophies picking up dust.This season was the first time we won first place. Our early exit yesterday wasn’t terrible. We at least won a round, and did compete among the city’s best C leaguers, most of who were probably first place in their divisions. So we competed among the best, and beat a team. Yesterday’s effort wasn’t the prettiest, we weren’t hitting the best, and made a few botched plays that made the game out of reach. It was as if we were playing not to win after the first few innings. We had a glimmer of hope when we scored maybe 5 runs in an inning, but that was about it.

We huddled up after the game, and well, it was basically, “good season and good luck next season.” Mike threw his beat up batting gloves into the dirt-retiring them and maybe “leaving them on the field,” and was the first one to leave. He’s taking winter off, and maybe he’ll come back later on. It was actually a sad moment since I know I’ll miss playing with cousin Mike, and I know he’ll actually miss playing some. He did accomplish one thing, which was to help get a bunch of rag tag players to win a first place trophy and T-shirts! (first place teams get T shirts!) If you saw us in the beginning, you wouldn’t have thought it was possible.

It’s on us next season to play at the higher C+ level at a new park. Winter is sort of an off season, so it’s time for us to work out a few more kinks and see if we can improve just that little bit.