More Like... Co-Wreck!

Back at good ol' Where Else High, I played in the Co-Rec league, on the fine team of Taurus. And even in the undergrad days, I managed to get on a few rec leagues. To date, I've played on: (high school) the basketball team, floor hockey team, soccer team, slowpitch team, handball team, and the steal-the-sticks team. And in undergrad, I played in three different volleyball leagues and on a soccer team. I have played, then, with approximately 75 different team mates, in hundreds of games, over the course of past ten years.

I have never, ever won a game.

There's been some close calls. Games that went into overtime, extra innings, final shootouts. Games that were close, but not quite. And huge, monolithic blowouts. Ever lose a volleyball game 25 to nothing? Ever lose a soccer game 25 to nothing?

But you keep trying. And you keep playing. Because sooner or later, that glorious title of 'game not lost' will be yours.

And all of this is preface to today's Event, the inaugural baseball game of the English U of Blank graduate students. I'm glad to be on the team. Let me put that out there, front and center. They need the numbers, and if there's one thing I can do, it's arrive and take up space. But out of all the sports that are not my bag, baseball is not my... you know, there's nothing that really comes to mind when you try to think of "something bigger than a bag that you put things in." But if there was, baseball would not be that thing for me. I'm an average hitter, an average catcher, and Lord knows I hustle, but I cannot throw more than ten feet. Which is a problem in an outfielder.

But I'm in good company. There's no real all-star on the team (ok, maybe one, but as long as he bats directly after me, I'm not going to complain), and our errors are more or less a team effect, so it's fun. It was a beautiful day for a game too--sunny, but not so much that it was quite scorching. I'm probably going to be burnt tomorrow, and I have a throbbing skinned knee from a slide at first, but both of those are my own fault (especially considering the rule that you can run past first is designed especially so that people don't slide and skin their knees.) We really started to click in the end too--the score for the last inning was 4-0, so really, we won 1/5 of the game.

Of course, that leaves the other 4/5, which we did not win. Not even slightly. In fact, the final score was 17-8. The game, while not a blowout, did not really leave the outcome in doubt at any particular point. (Maybe at the first pitch. But I had my doubts.)

Our second game is tomorrow. Stay tuned, and see if the Consequence curse holds up for yet another term of sporty action.

Later Days.