Tuesday, May 22, 2007

The thrilling conclusion to the 2007 spring softball season

It's over.

We played a doubleheader last night. The first game was just ugly. We were slotted against a team that really does belong in a more competitive league. They were doing everything right and we just couldn't stop them. They made all the plays in the field and were hitting the gaps like Paris Hilton hits the bottle. We lost that one 23-3.

The second game was interesting. Since we were the visiting team, we got to bat first. The top half of the first inning lasted 20 minutes, we batted around the order TWICE, and scored 14 runs. It wasn't that we were hitting the ball really well, but that their fielding sucked. It seemed like just about every ball was dropped or a throw sailed. Just to give you an idea, the same person (who was by they way playing hopped up on vicodin because of an injured foot) was responsible for both the second and third out that inning.

No way they're gonna catch up, right?

Think again.

The bottom half came, and our fielding got a little sloppy. They put up five.

When we came to bat again, they did MUCH better on defense, only allowing two runs, bringing our total up to sixteen.

And then there was the bottom half of that inning. The umpire tightened up the strike zone a bit and our pitcher was struggling with locating it.

All I'll say about the strike zones is that this is rec league softball, not MLB. If it's close, call it a strike.

Our games are timed at 50 minutes. A new inning can't start once time has expired unless the score's tied. In that situation, teams get to start a runner at second to begin the inning.

When time expired on our game, the score was 16-14 with two outs and runners on first and second.

The guy hits one into shallow left. The runner from second got in easily and the tying run headed for the plate, knowing that it would take a near perfect throw to get them out.

We got a perfect throw and the third out to win the game 16-15.

Even if that play had ended up being total disaster at the plate, there's no way that the winning run would have come in. He pulled up coming into third with a bad hammy. Hate to see that happen.

Wow that was nuts.

No comments: