The Good News Bears
As a young kid I had a never-ending dream to be a baseball player. My brother and I would play ball in the backyard just about every day.
Growing up in Oregon we quickly learned to hate the weatherman in the spring since a lot of our games would be rained out, yet the Meteorologist swore that it was going to be sunny. When summer came, it was so joyous to be able to play ball all day.
In Little League I was a pretty good player. I made the All Star teams, and played really well. It was some of the most memorable times in my life. Once high school came around I couldn’t wait to get onto the Varsity team. However, that never happened. Half way through my freshman year I sprained my ankle pretty bad. Shortly after, I found myself getting in trouble with the law and partaking in activities that weren’t exactly condoned by the school or the baseball team. (Use your imagination). That was pretty much the end of my baseball career.
About 8 years ago I did join a softball team in Haliimaile Hawaii. What a experience that was. I had not played since a high school kid, and the locals decided to put “Haole Boy” at shortstop. Needless to say, fielding ground balls from 250 lbs Hawaiians on a bumpy field wasn’t a easy task. But I had a blast.
Fast forward 8 years to last week… and I sat in on a softball game with my pal Chris. And it’s just my luck that we are up against the number one team in the league and they ask me to play 2nd base. Within minutes a line drive is drilled at my feet and I have to admit, my fielding skills were a bit rusty. Okay, a lot rusty. Snagging a ground ball at 70mph isn’t a easy task.
I made two quick errors and felt like crap about it. Luckily, I did get a hit and scored the teams first run two innings later. Around the fourth inning another screaming ground ball was fired at me. There was no way I was going to let this one get past me. So, I did what any good infielder would do and got my body in front of the ball and made the force play to 2nd base to get the runner out.
Unfortunately that out came at a price. The price was a softball size welt and bruise on my inner thigh (a few inches from my family jewels). You can see the bruise here…
So tonight is the 2nd night I’ll attempt to rekindle my childhood dream of playing with the guys on the diamond. Of course it’s just softball and not real baseball, but it’s still very competitive, very fun, and very taxing on the body.
If the team wins tonight, they are in the playoffs. So the only obvious question now is… “Where are the steroids?”.
