Softball Wire

(sitting on my front porch, listening to James McMurtry's "Hurricane Party," enjoying a 69 degree night in mid-July)

As best I can remember, I started pitching a softball in 1986, maybe 1987.  Almost 30 years ago in intramurals at UT (Knoxville).  I learned from "Preppy" Drew Daniel, an older fraternity brother of mine from Americus, Georgia.  The beautiful thing about intramural softball in college was that if you could land the ball on a green rug placed behind home plate, the pitch was a strike.  It didn't matter how high you pitched the ball, if it landed on the rug, it was strike.

Well, we all have undiscovered talents.  Mine is the ability to pitch a softball 20 or 30 feet in the air and land it right behind home plate.  That's it.  I can pitch a softball like few other people I've come across.  I just can.  It's a ridiculous, useless skill in almost every way, but it's mine nonetheless.  And I've been utilizing it on softball fields in Knoxville (UT), Franklin (Fieldstone Farms), Brentwood (Granny White Park) and Nashville (West Park, East Park, Cain Ridge, Paragon Mills (once) and Shelby Park (gone but not forgotten) for almost three decades. 

Which brings us to tonight.

I had a "law league" (Nashville Bar Association) softball game against B-D at East Park.  It was just a normal, regular season game against a law firm with several attorneys who are friends of mine and who I respect a great deal.  At least it started out that way.

It was nothing and it was everything.

Jude, J.P. and Joe came to the game, as they normally do.  Jude brought cupcakes (it's my "birthday month" she and J.P. had made, which was sweet.  Having my family at my softball games is great, for so many reasons.  J.P. sits in the dugout during the games and it's awesome to watch him interact with my teammates.  After the games, J.P. and Joe take turns hitting and running the bases.  This year, J.P. slides into all of the bases and deliberately tries to skin his knees and elbows, which is a hoot. 

And, for me, one of the coolest things is knowing the boys are watching me do something I'm really good at it - pitching a softball.  I like that they can see their old man doing something remotely athletic with at least a fairly high skill level.  Okay, I don't like that.  I love it.

Tonight's game was a slugfest.  We were playing with only nine players and one woman, as a result of which we had to take an out every time the 10th spot in our order came around.  Still, we hit well and had a large lead until the last few innings, when B-D rallied and tied the score at 27.  We scored 3 runs in the top of the 7th inning before I grounded out to shortstop for the last out.  If we could hold them in the bottom of the 7th inning, we would win.

B-D loaded the bases with two outs, down by three runs and the winning run at the plate.  The batter (whom I hadn't met until tonight) was arguably their best hitter and had hit two home runs off me already.  My first pitch was a called strike.  Then, I deliberately pitched him outside on the second pitch.  He popped the ball up and as it spun backwards, almost foul, near the 3rd base line, I lunged toward it.  I dove for the ball and caught it, just off the ground, for the last out of the game.  As I rolled over in the dirt, I looked up, right into our dugout on the 3rd base side and made eye contact with J.P.  He grinned at me, pride in his eyes. 

J.P.'s old man can still play softball. And he was there to see it.