A Softball Win

As I noted yesterday, we had a softball game yesterday evening. We were hoping that things would go our way when we noted the other team had only 9 players. That's not a huge advantage, but we'll take what we can get.

Early on, it really didn't matter. I'm not sure what Kevin, our pitcher was doing, but whatever it was, I hope he bottles it and brings it out for every game. He kept the opponents off balance with infield popups and easy fly balls.

And that's probably the biggest difference between the church softball team and this one--the outfield can catch the ball. Sure, the other team broke on top in the fourth on a ball that was missed by an outfielder, but it was one of those terrible "in-between" balls where you don't know if you need to charge up or lay back, and by time you decide it's past you. That was the only miscue of the night and that outfielder made numerous other catches. It makes a ton of difference to have some confidence the fielders are going to make the plays.

Unfortunately, our bats were pretty quiet the first time through. Seemed like every time someone wound up at first, the next guy grounded to short to force the runner or turn a double play.

After the other team got up 2-0, the next inning the team started to figure out the pitcher and scored three to take our first lead of the season. We tacked on another in the fifth to make it a 4-2 game. That's when Coach Bobby started making changes--reasonable enough. Then he said I was going in to right field.

I'm sure I looked at him like he was nuts. You know all that I just said about the outfield? That is basically the opposite of how I play it. If I get close to a pop fly, we call it a victory. Toss in the fact that the sun was in my eyes and it was a close game, and I was fairly sure this was not going to turn out well.

Thankfully, though, Bobby realized that nothing was being hit out to right. In both innings I was out there, nothing even went to the right side of the infield, I don't believe.

In the top of the seventh, I came up second after Russell drew a walk. The first pitch was outside, giving me a 2-1 count (we start at 1-1 to speed things up). The next pitch was just about perfect. A little inside, enough that I could turn on the pitch and get the barrel of the bat on the ball. A solid shot to left, one that a person with a lot of speed and no runner in front of them might have turned into a double. I settled for a wide turn around first.

Russell and I moved up on a groundout, then the fourth hitter of the inning hit a liner that got down in the outfield. As I'm running (if you can call it that) to third, the third base coach gets windmill arm and sends me home. "Are you nuts?" I'm thinking as I'm trying to get oxygen actually into my body.

Not stopping to argue, I make the turn and get about halfway down the line when I see the throw come in. "This is not good," I think. And I'm hearing, "Slide!" from the dugout. Sliding, though, was really not an option. I've slid once in my life, seven years ago when I was legging out a triple and it was a very ugly thing. I'm pretty sure that it'd have been more of a fall than a slide if I'd have tried it.

Thankfully, though, two things worked in my favor. One, the catcher was set up behind the plate, not in front of it. The second was that he bobbled the throw. I was able to hit the plate in stride around him and score our sixth run.

We tacked on five more (and almost batted around--which wouldn't be good because I was still trying to catch my breath!) and held on to win 11-2. Just a fun game all the way around.