When I got to college, I started pitching. I played on multiple softball teams in intramural softball the I lived in the dormitory my first couple of years in Knoxville. Later, when I moved into the fraternity house, I pitched for Kappa Sigma "B league" teams, as my path to pitching for the fraternity was blocked by "Preppy Drew" Daniels, my softball pitching mentor and older fraternity brother.
Spring semester of my junior year in college, an independent softball team I had assembled - the Lumber Company (great name, I've always thought) - played my fraternity for the intramural softball championship. I was conflicted, as an officer in my fraternity, to be playing against my fraternity brothers and I caught shit from many of them all week long leading up to the championship. We lost a close but memorable game (I can still remember several key plays in the game) and afterwards, one of my fraternity brothers and close friends to this day - Chuck Brown - put his arm around me and told me he was proud of me and that he knew how tough it must have been for me to pitch against my fraternity softball team. His words meant a lot to me and I'll never forget that moment.
For two summers on campus, I pitched for the Businessmen, a combination of Kappa Sigma-Phi Delta Theta-Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity members. We dominated the summer intramural softball league competition and won consecutive championships. More importantly, I made friends with some guys in other fraternities I never otherwise would have known well.
My first year of law school (1990-91), the undergraduates in my fraternity asked me to pitch for Kappa Sigma in the intramural softball league. After we confirmed that fraternity members in graduate school were indeed eligible to pitch for their fraternity, I quickly signed on. On more that one occasion during hotly contested games against rival fraternities that season, I was the target of spirited heckling from the opposing sideline (a lot of "old man" references, probably due to the glasses I wore at the time in the pre-contacts phase of my life). To my delight, we won the intramural championship and I played a key role in delivering the trophy to my fraternity. I made friends with several younger teammates and enjoyed celebrating with them.
I've often joked, half seriously, that I was offered a summer clerkship at Manier, Herod, Hollabaugh & Smith in Nashville after my second year of law school in large part because I was a softball pitcher. One of the firm members who interviewed me in Knoxville was leaving the firm and he was the longtime pitcher on the softball team. I played for Manier Herod's softball team that summer while I was clerking. We made a solid run in the Nashville Bar Association end of season softball tournament and I was on my way. Funny how life works sometimes.
After law school, I played softball for a team run by a friend of mine from high school in spring and fall leagues in Williamson County for a few years. Later, I was asked by an attorney friend of mine to pitch for Jonathan's, (a sports bar/restaurant) an established team in the Metro Nashville City Softball League. Jonathan's later became Sam's (same sports bar/restaurant, different name). We played in a doubleheader league on Thursday nights at West Park. That was arguable the apex of my softball career, as most of my teammates had played college baseball. It was a highly competitive softball team in a highly competitive league. The highlight, every year, was the City Tournament, played at Shelby Park or Cane Ridge Park.
I have many, many memories of my City Softball League days, pre-marriage and pre-children. It was tough, competitive, hard-nosed softball games followed be beers with my teammates at Jonathan's/Sam's in Hillsboro Village. During the 2-week long run of the City Tournament every year, we would play a game, then sit in the parking lot at Shelby Park or Cain Ridge, drink beers while discussing our tournament draw and scouting reports on other teams. Damn, it was fun. Finally, after making a run to the finals one year and finishing in second place, we retired and disbanded the team. We were older, married and most of us had young children. Getting out on Thursday nights wasn't as easy as it had been in the past.
As a sad footnote, Shelby Park and West Park are gone now, as is the Metro Nashville City Softball League. Shelby Park's four softball fields have been converted to green space. Nice, but there's something missing. When I start a run at Shelby Park, I almost can hear the echoes of the sounds from the thousands of softball games played there over the years.
And then there's the law league, where I've played every spring/summer for 25 consecutive years. So many memories from softball games played over the last quarter century at East Park. I have sweated and bled on the field with my teammate and close friends. I have a scar from stitches in the inside of my mouth from an injury I received trying to break up a double play. A few years ago, I broke a bone in my left hand covering home and trying to tag a runner out. My knees are scarred from years of sliding and diving for pop flies (although, in truth, I haven't slid in a game in a long, long time).
I've been a part of gut wrenching losses to the Independents (our fierce rival in the early to mid-90's), Stewart, Estes & Donnell (a 3-2 loss in the mid-90's in the final game of the tournament) and Boult, Cummins/Bradly Arant (our rival over the past decade with whom we have traded tournament championships. Our loss (18-16) in the tournament finals last year to Hardin Law, after making an epic run out of the loser's bracket and winning four games on Sunday in 100 + degree heat was just that - epic. I've never been as proud of my law league team in a loss. Never.
I've been a part of victories and tournament championships, all of which meant more to my teammates and me than they probably should have. The title we won in 1998 meant the world to me, because I had just recovered from three broken fingers on my left hand and hadn't known if I would be able to pitch or play softball again. The title we won after a year in which one of my teammates and closest friends lost his daughter and an other lost baby was special. That last title we won, year before last, meant a lot because we had begun to doubt if we could get another one and it was the last game I'll likely ever play with Benton, my longest running teammate. He retired after that game.
I've won tournament most valuable player awards and I've been named to the all-tournament team many times. I've been the goat, too, and blown plays I should have made or popped out to end games. I've shown my ass on the softball field at East Park - not recently, thankfully - by losing my temper or arguing with members of other teams. Once, I chased a player into his dugout to finish an argument after he ran his mouth when I tagged him out at home. That was funny, actually, and he and I laughed about it afterward.
It's silly and insignificant, in the scheme of things, of course, but I have loved to pitch and play softball. What I've loved most, in recent years, is for my boys to come out and watch me and my team in the law league. That's been a treat and their presence and seeing how much they enjoy watching me play has been the biggest reason why I keep playing.
Which brings me to the other night and our game against, Butler, Snow. The night I pitched a perfect game.
As the game was about to start, we only had eight players. I looked at J.P. and said, "get your glove, you're catching me." He looked up at me from his usual spot not the bench and said, "seriously?"
It's kind of a thing for me, but I haven't taken any warmup pitches in at least 15 years. It's a point of pride for some reason. I made an exception that night, though, as J.P. squatted behind the plate with more than a little trepidation. He warmed me up or, in reality, I warmed him up, arching pitches higher and higher to him as our longtime umpire and my friend, Gary, looked on with approval. After every pitch, J.P. stood up and rifled the softball back to me. As it popped into my glove each time, I nodded satisfyingly, trying to mask the fact that at that very moment, my heart was bursting with pride.
The significance of the moment was not lost on me as the first batter stepped up to the plate. After all of the softball games on other fields but especially at East Park over the past 25 + years and after all the games there J.P. has watched me play over the past 9 years, here he was, catching me in a game as all of my friends watched.
For me, it doesn't get much better than that, not by a long shot.
J.P. played great. He was a little nervous about hitting but he handled his business against my buddy Billy O, one of the few players int league older than me. Billy O has been pitching longer than I have, believe it or not, and is hyper competitive. He's got grown kids, though, and it meant the world to me that the three times when J.P. batted, Billy O tried hard to give him something to hit. J.P. overcame his nerves, stepped into the batter's box, and batted in front of a field full of grownups. That took cojones, as I told him later.
In the end, we got smoked, losing 16-4. And I couldn't have cared less, because it was the night I pitched a perfect game.
J.P., after making his Nashville Bar Association softball league debut for Riley, Warnock & Jacobsen.
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