Mud Softball

I don’t usually post about my softball games, because I don’t think anyone really cares, but this is one I’ll want to remember if for some reason I get amnesia and need to look at blogs to remember my life.

We thought it was going to get rained out, but despite the rain pouring down for the first 5 innings, we kept playing. We played against a team who in their offering prayer used the words "Man, God, you’re like, so awesome." I used to be a Mormon and they use very formal terms with prayer (Thee, Thine, Thou), and the Lutheran Church is all about formality in worship, so it was a bit weird to hear someone speaking to God as if He were their fun uncle who lives in the garage. Everyone has an uncle that lives in the garage, right? So…pretty much we knew this would be an interesting team.

They didn’t play well at all the first four innings of the game. We kept hitting the ball and rounding the bases, all the while collecting pounds upon pounds of mud in our cleats. I got a base hit and a double and ended up scoring on both. At second base someone hit a line drive to my right and I got a reach across stretch catch. For those who don’t know what I’m talking about because I’m not using exact terminology here, I had to reach across my body with my glove, stretch my arm out as far as it went and almost dive for the ball and I caught it! It was a glorious catch aided by the mud. I even stopped a ball from going into the outfield by reaching down for it. I fell in the mud, grabbed the ball, and threw it to the shortstop who was covering second. It would have been an out, but it bounced off the baserunner’s ankle (he was okay), making it a "dead ball", but I didn’t know that so like a terrier, I was all over that ball.

My standard attire for softball is the heather gray shirt with "Bethlehem Lutheran Church" and a lamb on it (it’s the Lamb of God…it’s tough…he takes away the sins of the world!), black track pants, and my OSU hat. The rain made my hat bleed, and it dripped off the end of the bill and stained my shirt pink in two very obvious spots (just call me Pepto Boobsmol). My hairline and hair were also stained pink, but most of that came out in the shower.

We ended up winning something like 15 to 8. Due to the rain and mud our pitcher had a hard time so he walked in about half of those runs. It was one of the most fun games I’ve ever played. Too bad it’s the last regular season game. Next week is the tornament so we have only a few games left. I always miss softball when the season ends. 🙁