The Trials and Tribulations of Coaching a Softball Team

I had been mulling over a blog about the amazing frequency and regularity of failures to communicate. I've been experiencing an incredible amount of frustration lately, feeling as though people expect me to have psychic abilities that allow me to know what they're thinking, what they expect of me, what needs to be done, what's already been done, etc.

An example of this is a number of e-mails containing important information or requests for feedback that I have sent to a variety of people, all of which have gone completely unanswered. That really pisses me off. Seriously, is it that difficult to send a "thank you" or a "got it" or a "I'll be there" e-mail back to let me know, at least, that you received the information? It's not like e-mails never get lost in cyberspace or junk mail filters or anything.

So anyway, I had most of a blog worked out in my head about failure to communicate. I was even going to use a picture of Paul Newman from the movie "Cool Hand Luke."

But I also wanted to update everyone on how softball was progressing.

As it turns out, the two topics came together last night in a perfect storm.

Let's take it from the softball perspective, and you'll easily see the failure-to-communicate theme intertwined.

As you know from previous posts, I e-mailed the guy who runs a local softball park to tell him that I'd like to be a free agent, should any teams need an extra player. Over a month later, I'm still waiting on a reply of any kind from him. So as another local softball park advertised registration for their fall league, Chuck and I talked about it for awhile and ultimately decided to put together a co-ed team. We had a bunch of people who said they were interested. We were just a couple women short, which is no big deal, right?

Well, several hours later, spread over several days, after talking to no fewer than 42,756 women--many of whom committed, then backed out, then committed again, then backed out again--we finally got firm "yes"es from six women. We only field five players of each gender at a time, but this isn't my first rodeo. The chances of getting all twelve people at the ballpark at the same time are slim to none.

So we had six women and six men. We can bat twelve people, and then we'll have an extra player of each gender to rotate in and out on defense, since most of us are 40-ish and, um, not exactly in peak physical condition. Great plan, right? Heck, everyone even paid within a day or two. No deadbeats. Everything's good.

I'd like to also point out that I had no intentions of coaching this team when we were in the planning stages. I was just along for the ride. But as circumstances developed, I just sort of fell into that role. For those who have played softball, you know what an albatross this is. For those who haven't played, suffice it to say that NOBODY wants to be the coach. Ever. And for very good reason.

The first game was last night. On Monday, when I got the season schedule from the park, I e-mailed it to everyone, and asked them to let me know their status ASAP. Exactly two people got back to me. Chuck was on a family vacation that was planned weeks ago, and we all knew about it. I was also going to miss the first game because it coincided with Olivia's final session of gymnastics, at which she was getting a trophy. I wasn't about to miss that. And a third male player was going to be out of state. So we were three men down.

In the interest of time and space, I'll omit the details of what happened over the next three days leading up to the game, but in what consumed no less than 10 hours of my time, I had all kinds of people tell me they were in, then out, then in, then out, then in, and on and on and on. At one point, I only had two male players. At another point, I only had six total players. Of course, I was just guessing on most people's availability, since so few bothered to respond to my e-mail asking for everyone's status. Ultimately, though, I wound up with six men and six women, thanks to some substitute players that one of our ladies rounded up for us.

I suckered--er, convinced--a woman on the team who works in my office to captain the team for one night, since Chuck and I would both be gone. I brought the scorebook to her, and even had a batting order made up, and positions where everyone could play. Should be smooth sailing for her, I thought.

Kudos to her for not interrupting me at my daughter's gymnastics session, but as I was heading home from the gym, I got a text from her that our team had lost, 15-4. Oh well, I thought. Another text from her followed, about how the other team really killed us by hitting the ball all over the outfield. Yep, that'll happen sometimes, I thought. Another text: maybe part of the problem was that we only had 10 people show up, and the 10th person showed up late, and then didn't want to play in the field (for reasons that remain a mystery to me), so we played with one less outfielder than normal. I nearly drove into a tree as I blew my stack.

So the batting order had to be completely redone, the fielding positions were all screwed up, and we only had nine fielders when we should have had ten. The temporary team captain was very gracious about it, but it was certainly no smooth sailing.

The two people who didn't show up are boyfriend/girlfriend. Boyfriend has a bum shoulder, I had been told, and wanted to play first base to avoid having to throw. I guess at some point, he decided that he doesn't want to play at all. He just didn't bother to tell anyone, or whoever he told didn't bother to tell me. And because boyfriend didn't play, girlfriend didn't show up, either. Again, I'm not sure why, and we had no warning whatsoever of her absence, either. I hear rumor that they may not play at all this season, but of course, I'm getting all my information about this a day late and from third-hand sources, so who knows.

So I still haven't stepped onto a softball field yet, and softball is even more aggravating than it was when the first park was ignoring me. Next Wednesday, though, Chuck and I will both be back, which should help a lot on a number of levels. I hope.

I don't regret missing the game at all, though, because I got to see my little girl run up the podium with a big grin on her face, get her very first trophy she has ever owned from her instructor that she idolizes, yell out to me in the crowd, and then proudly hoist her trophy above her head, beaming from ear to ear, as she got her picture taken. She talked about her trophy the whole way home, and I had to pry it out of her hands at bedtime. This morning, her first words to me were, "Remember last night, when I got my trophy?" And our daycare provider barely had the door open before Olivia was yammering to her about her trophy. When I got home, it was "Daddy! Remember when I got a trophy and you took my picture?" It may just be a little participation trophy, but to a 3-year-old, it's very important. And I'm happy as a clam that I was there to see her get it.