And Starting In the Outfield: Mr. Magoo!

Tonight's softball game ought to be real interesting. One of our male players is out of town for work, and he's normally one of our outfielders. I don't have a guy to replace him in the outfield tonight.

Except for me. Mr. Magoo.

I used to play a lot of outfield in my younger days until my depth perception started to fail me. Now that I'm older, I can see the ball in the air, but it just looks like a stationary white dot to me. I don't have any clue as to what trajectory it's taking. I hate the feeling of thinking that I'm right under the ball, only to discover at the last second that's it's headed about ten feet over my head. Then I hear all my teammates say "OHHHHHH!!" in frustration, and I have to make the Run of Shame all the way to the fence to get the ball. Inevitably, by the time I turn to throw the ball in, the batter has already rounded third and is a half-dozen steps away from home plate. It always seems to happen with runners on base, too, so what should have been a routine out turns into two or three runs for the other team. And when the inning is finally over, and I sulk into the dugout, I'm not sure which is worse: my teammates telling me that it's "okay" (when I know it's not), or dead silence from everyone.

Years ago, I moved to the infield. At the time, I was nervous about taking a ball in the teeth or the man-jewels because I wasn't used to dealing with the speed of the ball in the infield, so I wore a mouthpiece and an athletic cup, much to the amusement of my teammates at the time. As it turns out, though, when I have very little time to react to a line drive, I can field it just fine. And grounders are easy for me to track, as opposed to fly balls. The mouthpiece quickly went to the wayside, although I still wear a cup. I've been an infielder ever since.

Tonight, however, I don't have a choice. We use three males on the infield. Chuck is our pitcher, so there's one male. I have pitched in the past, but I'm not very good at it at all. If the other team isn't gracious enough to swing at pretty much everything, it quickly turns into a walk-fest. Chuck is good at pitching. So is our left fielder, who is our #2 pitcher. And our #3 pitcher is the guy who's out of town tonight. So I'm fourth string, at best. And in what I expect to be a close game tonight, why would I start a fourth-stringer when our starter is available? Not gonna do it.

Second base is really my position of choice, with or without a wounded elbow. But the guy who is playing second base tonight apparently has a torn rotator cuff, so he wants to keep his throwing to a minimum. Why he's still playing with a torn rotator cuff is beyond me (what kind of drooling moron continues playing rec league softball, even after injuring himself?!), but he paid his money, so I have to put him somewhere.

That leaves shortstop. My last tour at shortstop was disastrous. I lost the game for the team two weeks ago. Last week, I put our youngest, quickest guy there (and it helps that shortstop is his favorite position to play), and he made all kinds of plays that I never would have made there. And even if I didn't have him at shortstop tonight, just the thought of making a dozen or more throws to first base from shortstop makes my elbow hurt.

The rest of the infield positions are occupied by women. So that leaves the outfield.

Softball uses four outfielders, instead of three as in baseball. Left field is usually the busiest outfield spot, since most batters are right-handed, and most right-handed batters pull the ball into left field. So I'm going to play right-centerfield. With any luck, not much will come my way, saving me from too many Runs of Shame and/or too many throws to the infield. Our left-centerfielder is a woman who works in my office, so I told her yesterday afternoon that I'm going to need her help on any fly balls coming my way. If she can yell "BACK!" or "UP!" or "LEFT!" or "RIGHT!", that would help a lot. She said she'll be happy to tell me where to go, and what to do with the ball. She said it with a little grin on her face, which I thought was odd. I think there may have been some sort of hidden meaning there.

I will have the advantage of a 6:15pm game time. The sun will still be up. This is significant because as the sunlight fades, my vision gets worse. I find the park lights to be incredibly distracting, and losing a fly ball in the lights just compounds the problem. Lots of sunlight and no park lights will work to my benefit, so at least I'll have that going for me.

I'm not telling Chuck about it before the game because he'll spend all afternoon trying to talk me into taking his pitcher spot, just to be nice, when he and I both know that's not the right move. I'm just going to wait until we take the field to start the game and enjoy that look on his face when he says, "What the.........?!" as Mr. Magoo jogs toward right-centerfield.