Seems a pattern is emerging.
As a 15-year-old, I ruled Shurlington Little League one glorious summer day when, in a playoff game against our arch-rivals, The Marlins, I clubbed three home runs off three different pitchers. We won, but before the final score was tallied, my glory was marred when I ran back to tag first on a routine grounder and collided with the runner. Though I got up and finished the game, my post-game trip to the ER revealed I'd torn the ligaments on my ankle.
Last night, I had flashbacks to sandlot glory. After grounding weakly up the middle for a single in the first inning, I came up with a runner on in my next at-bat and skyed a high fly ball that got just enough push from the wind blowing out to carry over the right-center field fence. Next at-bat, I got up under another one but hit it a little more solidly into a tree beyond the left-center field fence. Two home runs.
The way the rules run in co-ed recreational softball (it's a bit like calculus... or waiting tables at Waffle House, which I have another story for another time), one team can only be ahead of the other by one home run, which meant we couldn't hit another unless they did first or it'd be counted as an out.
Instead of going yard, one of their ladies sent a low liner screaming into the outfield where I was. Okay, maybe it wasn't screaming, but when it took an unexpected hop and hit me in the gonads, I swear I heard screaming.
Actually, I didn't feel anything at first. It was like stories I've heard about getting shot. I didn't notice the pain until after I'd picked the ball up and thrown it back to the infield. Floco asked, "You alright?"
That's when I felt like throwing up. That all too familiar knotting pain that crawls up the spine and winds around the guts.
Very next pitch, some big hoss hammers one my way. Thank god I didn't have to move much because I was barely able to straighten up at that point. Had he put it six feet on either side of me, I might have just stood there and watched it roll.
My next at-bat, the effects were lingering but in passing. I knew I couldn't go yard again so I tried chopping down on the ball and managed a little double.
By this point, we'd come from behind, thanks to some timely hitting by Floco "hot like the sun, wet like the rain and fast like the Flash" Torres, and Doug Rohme who conjured a totally shocking standing triple out of his hamstrung arsenal.
Defensively, we'd tightened up, with Leslie and Stacey anchoring the corner outfield spots, Steph and Steve turning in solid stopping power up the middle, Tabitha "Stretch" Walker hauling in everything with ten feet of her at first, and Hannah "the Helmet" Marney taking over catching duties while Jessica Stinson takes a vacation. Oh yeah... over on third, even Andrew Blascovich was impressive, making four straight outs by himself. Tricky ones too, involving guile, agility and tagging runners who'd wandered too far from the bag.
On one particularly awesome series of screw-ups, Floco overran a ball and I threw it into Steve who whipped it in to Blascovich just off the bag. He turned hard and slapped the runner (girl) in the face with it in his glove. It was a Face-Tag for the third out.
In the final inning, up by a run, we had some defensive lapses but recovered in time to stop the bleeding and keep them from getting too far ahead. The score was 12-11 heading into our last at-bat.
And we very quickly notched two outs. But then Face-Tag hit a squibber in no man's land for an infield single. Then Stephanie, who eats line-drives for breakfast, delivered a laser right down the first base line. Picasso couldn't have painted it better.
I was up with two ducks on the pond and two outs. If I accidentally hit another homer, the game was over. They were playing me deep but towards right because I'd been going opposite field. So I decided to pull one and ripped one over the left fielder's head. Two runs scored. A triple. Game over. MIA goes to 10-3.
And this morning, my balls still hurt.
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