Blues #1

I stole the title of this post from a tune wrote in 1997, but really it’s about my first softball game with The Blues at Central Park today.

Everyone from last year’s team Heroes bailed this year, so I hit up Sean Taylor for a spot on his squad. These guys play all the time in several leagues, so I put a bit of pressure on myself to not suck, which I shouldn’t have. Overall, it wasn’t such a bad debut. Everybody was getting the cobwebs out from the offseason, and everyone was cool and having fun without any attitudes.  They were supportive and willing to talk softball advice.

I got myself a bit psyched up for my first at-bat, and it didn’t go well.  Two runners on, nobody out, I wanted to do something good.  I layed off an inside and low pitch that was called a strike.  Second pitch looked like a big fat cookie, but I overdid my swing and took the sloppiest hack ever.  Third pitch was belt high and way inside, but I got rung up on it.  It was a lame at-bat, but really I should have gotten some more cuts in with a normal strike zone.  More importantly, I shouldn’t have gotten all hyped up.

Second at-bat, also with two on, I decided to step away from the plate more.  If the ump was going to call those strikes, I wanted them where I could handle them.  Also, with the zone so big, the whole wait for your pitch strategy wasn’t working out so well.  So I decided to swing at whatever I could put a good swing on.  That came in the form of a flattish pitch down the middle which I punched on the ground into center for a single.  Unfortunately, we weren’t able to capitalize on the bases loaded.

Defensively, I played short center for five of seven innings.  My first play was a hard liner to my right side that I had to run down.  I hesitated slightly, which cost me two inches of glove that I should have nailed it with.  An embarrassing play to open up with, but they were cool about it.  Second was a roping looper that I grabbed on the run.  I was happy about a last-minute adjustment that got me to the ball.  After that where two routine flies that I was easily in position for.  Getting better at reading the ball, and my running is a lot better than last season, partly due to dropping 25 lbs!

It was a close, low-scoring game and we needed one run to tie in the 7th.  I was due up sixth in the inning and was in a good position to contribute a tying or winning RBI.  Alas, with 2 runners on, I watched the final grounder to third from the on-deck circle.  I believe 4-5 was the final score.

Altogether, it was a pretty good game against last season’s championship winner.  Best of all — no new abrasions!  Looking forward to next week’s game.