Play Ball! (Again)

I've decided to come out of retirement. Softball retirement, that is.

I started playing softball almost immediately out of high school, about 20 years ago. It started when the team from the grocery store in Texas where I worked needed a warm body to occupy a space on the field because a regular player couldn't make it. Since I was young and had played some organized baseball as a kid, I was recruited with the explicit understanding that I was only expected to get out of everyone else's way and not lose the game for the team. As it turned out, I was better than anyone (including me) expected, and I immediately fell in love with the game. I never lost that charge I always felt running onto the field, smelling the grass and dirt, and hearing the clink of the aluminum bats. I've played during the day, at night, in sweltering heat, freezing cold, pouring rain, hail storms, and through countless swarms of bugs. And I never lost the desire to play.

I played on that grocery store team for years, adding stints on intramural teams in college, and for a new company team when I switched employers. After my team's games, I'd hang around the park, hoping some other team needed a fill-in, so I could play some more. When I moved to Indiana, one of the first orders of business was to get on the probation department's softball team. A few years later, I played three or four seasons for a team sponsored by Advantage Counseling, a local substance abuse counseling agency.

Twenty years and fifty pounds ago, I had the speed to roam the outfield, but as I got older, got fatter, blew out knees and hips and shoulders and elbows, and lost virtually all of my depth perception--especially at night--playing the outfield became a disaster. I could see the ball in the air, but I couldn't tell how it was moving. I would think that I was right under it, and at the last second, I'd realize that I had misjudged it by about 30 feet. To this day, I can't judge a fly ball.

So I moved to the infield. I really like third base or second base. I don't have much of a preference either way. A problem quickly arose, though, with me playing third base, especially in co-ed leagues, where we often put a woman on first base. You see, I have a fairly strong arm. What I lack, though, is consistent accuracy. I have absolutely no trouble getting the ball from third to first, even from my knees. The problem is that the ball doesn't always exactly make it to the same zip code in which the first baseman is standing. Think Rick "Wild Thing" Vaughn from the movie "Major League."

After awhile on the Advantage Counseling team, we couldn't get a woman to agree to play first base. The Mrs. was the last woman thrown in there to stand in the line of fire (it was something like, "He's YOUR husband. YOU stand out there and try to field his crappy throws!"), and she swears the ball made a hissing sound as it came at her head, feet, knees, 15 feet wide of her, 9 feet over her head, or wherever it might land. And when I did get it into her glove, she thought she had broken her hand.

My friend who sponsored, coached, and played for the team had to do something to get a woman to agree to play first base, so he moved me to second base, where it's a much shorter throw to first that doesn't need nearly the velocity. After a few weeks of cringing every time I started a throwing motion, the same woman finally stayed at first base.

I occasionally took a season or two off--especially as I aged--to let a variety of injuries heal, but for the most part, I spent over 15 years on a softball field. In 2005, though, I decided to hang up the cleats. The Mrs. was pregnant with Olivia, which ended her season with the Advantage Counseling team, and I wanted to focus my time on being a dad. So as the fall 2005 season ended, so did my playing days.

A little over three years later, we're starting to get the hang of this parenting thing, and Olivia and June aren't quite as labor-intensive anymore. I've missed softball terribly during my retirement, and I need to get active again. So with the Mrs.'s blessing, I contacted the local softball park today and signed up as a free agent. I'm hoping to either get placed on a team that needs an extra player, or periodically fill in for teams that lose players to summer vacations. The summer season starts on Sunday, so if all goes well, I'll be running on to the field, smelling that grass and dirt, and hearing the clink of aluminum bats again in just a couple days. I can't wait!