I've briefly mentioned softball a few times since I resumed regular blogging back in early June, but I'd like to devote some more time to it today. Because it's incredible. I seriously cannot believe how much fun it is.
Listen, I'm a baseball guy. Baseball is my favorite. Always has been; always will be. Don't get me wrong; I love football, too. But I grew up with baseball. It's in my blood.
I played in rec leagues from the time I was 6 years old until I went to college. During the summers in elementary school and middle school, I'd go outside with my bat and ball as soon as I woke up and didn't bother heading home until I heard my mom whistle at dinner time and/or dark.
All that playing, I eventually got pretty good at it. I tried out for my high school team once as a sophomore. I didn't make it, but I was one of the last cuts. The team was also nationally ranked at the time, so I didn't feel too badly about it. I kept playing in the rec leagues, though, and that was plenty good enough for me.
That was most definitely the peak of my playing abilities. I could hit high 80s pitching. I had a pretty solid arm from left field. I wasn't the fastest guy in the world -- never have been, but I could get around the bases.
Well, here's the thing about getting older (and, also, not really working on those skills much after high school). That's all pretty much gone now haha. I went to the cages a few weeks ago, and I was just standing outside the 80-85 mph cage, and I could hardly see it, never mind hit it. I couldn't believe there was a time when I could hit it. I stuck to the 60-70 mph cages.
Softball has been a way to have all the fun of baseball in a more low-key environment. As I've mentioned before, this is an alumni network league, which means I play for N.C. State (which, by the way, makes it LITERALLY a million times more fun).
State didn't field a team last year, so we're really trying to get back on our feet this year and build some continuity going forward. In other words, we're not very good this year haha. As Evan put it last night, we're the best 1-10 team in the league.
We don't take ourselves overly seriously, and we always, always have a kick-ass time playing. And that's really the most important thing. We've played a couple of teams that took themselves too seriously, and they were major downers. Guys. This isn't the ACC. It's a beer league. Take it down a notch or two.
We've got a great group of guys and girls, and I think if we can keep the team together next season we'll be in much better shape -- not unlike the East Dillon Lions from season 4 to season 5 of Friday Night Lights. This season has been about finding a rhythm.
With such a new group of players (myself included, by the way), we spent the majority of the season just trying to figure out where everyone was best-suited to play in the field and in the batting order. Most of the teams we've played have been together for a couple years, so they had no adjustments to make, really. I really like our team though. We're really getting there.
Our problem all season as been slow starts. Typical N.C. State, am I right? We just lose our minds in the first two innings and dig ourselves a huge hole. If you look at about half of our losses, we ended up outscoring the other team for the last four or five innings in each game!
We're seriously not very far away from being a .500 team. It's a game of inches, and we're working our fannies off out there. We're getting there!
Naturally, being the huge baseball nerd I am, I've been keeping track of all my batting stats for the season. We still have three regular season games to go (a double-header tomorrow, and a game against Georgetown on Tuesday night), but here's my tally so far:
- I've played in nine of our 11 games so far (I joined the team after it played its first two games already).
- I've hit safely in seven of the nine, and I have at least two hits in five of those games. The only two games where I didn't get a hit came on the same day I hurt my arm, and it was agonizingly painful swinging a bat (and throwing a ball, for that matter).
- In five of the seven games in which I recorded a hit, I hit safely in each at-bat, i.e. I never made an out.
- I've got four doubles and two triples. The rest are singles. I'd really like to add a home run either this weekend or Tuesday night. I just missed one earlier this season (in a 4-for-4 performance in our 20-4 win over South Carolina).
- I've scored five runs, knocked in another six runs, walked once and hit one sac fly.
- My batting average is .625.
- On-base percentage of .640.
- Slugging percentage of .958.
- And my OPS is 1.598.
And yes, I realize pretty much only Mike and maybe Nick will care at all about some of those (or even know what it all means).
What does it all mean? Not very much, really. It's just so much fun playing, and I like to know how I'm doing.
With our usual coach out of town for a few days, I've been helping to run things in his absence. It's been a lot of logistics in terms of making sure we have enough players, that we have enough female players (three girls for the first 10 players, and then one girl for every two guys after that) and enough alums playing (at least 75 percent of your roster in a game must be alumni).
Setting the line-up was fun though haha. It's all fun, really. I know. I'm a dork. This isn't the first time I've heard that.
Yesterday was rough though. If you don't get a permit for a field, you actually have to go and just sit on a spot on the National Mall to make sure you have a field. If you saw on my Facebook wall or Twitter yesterday, it was 98 degrees. But don't worry, it actually felt like 113. I was just sitting there with another teammate for, like, three hours waiting for the game to start. Sweltering doesn't even begin to describe it.
Tomorrow won't be much better. High of 101 (heat index of 112), and we've got a double-header against Cornell and Richmond from 1:30 until probably 4:30 or 5. I bought a huge case of water and a ton of Gatorade to bring.
I will tolerate no casualties on my watch!
Wish us luck tomorrow, and prepare the intravenous fluids!
-BG
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment