This week in softball

Another softball season is behind me tonight.

It seems as though we’ve had rain almost daily since early May – I’ll take it any summer month over the drought that some forecasters were predicting for us again this summer – and that means a lot of our softball games have been rained out. … Well, this week the parks and rec department decided it was time to make ‘em up.

So we played four games in three days. We played the first three games in a span of 22 hours over two nights.

We won game one easily Tuesday night, and I contributed by going 2-for-3 at the plate – two singles, a walk and a flyout to left, while scoring all three times I reached base – and playing third base.

Game two was quite a bit more entertaining. We couldn’t get our bats going and found ourselves down 14-2 after the early innings. They got their bats going, for sure, with a couple home runs including one shot that shattered the window of a storage building about 50 feet beyond the center field fence – on the fly. … But then we came back and eventually took a 21-17 lead. We held the opponent for one inning, but in the next inning they came out by slapping a couple hot shots my way, and I failed to handle them. Our center fielder dropped a routine fly ball, too. In a blink, our lead was gone, and the other guys closed it out with a walk-off.

By the time we showed up at the ballpark for the third game last night, most of us were sore and not exactly excited to play. We’re all in our mid 30s and older, after all. … We lost the game and it was our worst offensive effort of the season as we managed only a few hits and scored just one run. The game also snapped my streak of hitting safely in every game this season – a streak I think probably extended into early last season as well if I had kept better track.

We played that third game so fast that we finished it 20 minutes ahead of our time limit. We started taking the field to play another inning when the umpire made us aware we had played a regulation game but had time left over and invited us to keep playing if we wanted. Without skipping a beat, we shrugged and turned back toward the dugout, telling the umpire we were done. It was a hilarious scene.

We concluded the week’s games tonight with an easy win and saw a return to form with our bats. I had two hits including a nice ground ball up the middle that I stretched into a double and then a fly ball to left field that the fielder misplayed, allowing it to fall over his head. 

So that’s that. My team will keep playing with more games next week and the playoffs the week after that. But, with Kates and I taking the girls for some vacation time next week, my season is done.

I’m putting away my equipment bag and will wait to see what the possibility of another season brings next spring.