Having Fun Playing Softball Again--Like Night and Day

We played softball last night against two teams from North Olmsted Friends Church; it was like the difference between night and day. This is the first game we played in our new team shirts so we at least looked like a team. It was a gorgeous day as opposed to our previous game days of being cold and rainy. We got a picture of Gerard and me as well as the team afterward, but I wasn’t looking at the camera! I thought I was. My head is turned in the picture though, don’t know what I was looking at.

We looked liked Charlie Brown's team or the Bad News Bears, (take your pick) the first game of our double-header, losing 20-0! (Something like that.) It was HORRIBLE! Some of our problems were:

• Had a woman at short who doesn't play short and who couldn't get anything.


• We kept making outs and when we did get on base, didn't have a third base coach and Ed was thrown out trying to stretch a double into a triple.


• We were throwing to the wrong bases.


• I played first and got a grounder, thinking our pitcher would come over to cover the bag, but he didn't. By the time I realized it, I couldn't get there fast enough.


• Some of us got some good hits, but not enough together to score a run.


• The other team had great hitting--most of them could really give that ball a ride and the few who couldn't were scrappy and fast enough to be able to run out infield hits. Plus, they had black shirts which were intimidating and mean looking.

The three highlights:

1. We nailed one of the guys at the plate with our woman catcher, Elly! She did great, even when he tried bulldozing her over and should have gotten thrown out of the game according to the umpire who mentioned it to me the second game. This is a "fun" church league--not a competitive, die-hard league, after all, they had 20 runs!


2. The second highlight for us was when Gerard threw out the runner to me at first on a grounder to him. It made us feel good that we contributed in a positive way since our hitting is so pitiful.


3. The other team had a little cute dog in the stands near first base that I could see which always made me smile.

The second game we actually won 2-0! We looked like a completely different team, setting the other side down in order several innings. Things I feel made a difference were:

• We rearranged some positions, bringing in one of our young guys to play short.


• We clumped all our good hitters at the beginning of the lineup.


• By this time we had our base coaches figured out too.


• The team we played the second game wasn't very good either.

I almost got a hit, a blooper up the middle, but no, their girl second basemen ran over quick and made a leaping catch to snag it. She really made a great play on the ball but then doubled off the runner at second too--frustrating for me! Can I get any worse? Yes! I also got called out on strikes on a pitch I thought was low and outside (we only get two strikes in this league to keep it moving). That made me feel really stupid. I'm still looking for my first hit! Cory, the young guy we moved to short, nailed a runner at home where Elly again stood her ground, giving us our first shut out as well as our first win!

We look forward to our next game on June 20 at 3 p.m. against Columbia Road Baptist Church.