Back in the day, shortly after Kevin and I got married, we played on a semi-competitive softball team in the Ann Arbor recreation league. For those of you who know me, this was a disaster from the start. Although I played softball from third grade through my junior year of high school (my senior year, I got a clue and golfed instead), I pretty much suck. I was a decent player in the field but couldn't hit a lick. I think the only reason I played all those years was because I thought my Dad's awesome baseball talent would kick in at some point. Guess it skipped me and went to my sisters! My favorite story from those days is that the ONLY time my batting gloves got dirty was when I got brownies or melon juice on them. See, when I played softball in high school, our coaches and random parents would load our benches up with food (don't you play a sport to get INTO shape?). For those of us who never left the bench area (other than to occasionally warm up an outfielder who was important enough to make the line-up), there was nothing to do BUT eat and the staples of our dugout at good ole' Waterford Our Lady of the Lakes (lame) were brownies and melon balls.
ANYWAY, back to the team Kevin and I were on. Before we "officially" joined the team, our "manager," who was a new friend of ours, wanted to know how many years of organized softball/baseball experience we had. What? We should have known from that question that this was going to be interesting. This team, which still plays today, was one of the oldest in city history and they always did well. Although this team wasn't in the ultra-competitive, this-is-my-last-stop-before-I'm-playing-with-Barry-Bonds league, they still took it pretty seriously. Our manager was great at making sure everyone got to play, even if you sucked so that's why Kevin and I saw the field every now and then. One time, Kevin hit this screamer down the third base line and we all thought for sure it would be at least a double. However, the chick playing third would have none of it. She made an awesome play deep at third, fired over to first with her cannon of an arm and threw Kevin out by more than a few steps. He got the last laugh, though, because, on that throw, she threw her arm out. Ha, ha! Another time, I actually got on base (I walked, IN SLOW-PITCH SOFTBALL) and, since I sucked so badly, I batted last in the line-up. Of course, that meant I had to be on base when our lead-off hitter (and probably the best player on our team) smoked the ball deep to right center. The ball dropped in for a hit and he practically ran up my back on the base path. He probably would have scored if I wasn't holding things up - damn!
Despite OUR lack of talent, the team did well. We had an all-day tournament at the end of the season to determine the league champion. We made it to the championship game and we were all excited but we quickly went down 10-0 as our pitcher was having a very bad day. So, our "manager" took over the pitching duties and held them scoreless the rest of the way. We then battled back to make it 10-9 before losing on a game-ending play at the plate. Bummer! At least we got a free t-shirt, though!
The next year, we weren't invited back to play. Guess they needed some higher-caliber talent! We didn't miss the softball much, but we did miss the people. There were some characters, like our first baseman, who ALWAYS had a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. One particularly cold and windy spring night, he was standing in the outfield with a cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other and said, "That wind is seriously going to impair my ability to reach the fences." We died 10 times!
Glory days well they'll pass you by
Glory days in the wink of a young girl's eye
Glory days, glory days
