When The Lights Go Out

Technically, the lights were never on.

We bowed out of the playoff race tonight, and I'm at a loss for graceful words to mark the occasion. We were beat, badly, but I'd like to think we went out in style-- laughing, shouting, swinging. The opposition consisted of mutants who were in all likelihood in the wrong league to begin with, but that's what it was. I'm extremely proud of all of us.

Heretic Pride! Spacedockers 2008

Sunday Night Lights IV

We defeated an admirably gracious bunch on Sunday, to the tune of 26-0. Since there is no mercy rule in Co-ed B League Softball we relied on the clemency of our hearts to bring the lop-sided game, and our fantastic regular season, to an end.

Once again we find ourselves atop the heap, this time with a well-earned (maybe) hall-pass to the second round of playoffs.

Regular season record: 4-0-0

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Despite hiking the loop in reverse (it makes a difference in this case), Bald Mountain at Sugarloaf Ridge State Park is a surprisingly neat excursion. Thanks to Erin for this and the other wonderful days in Santa Rosa.

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The weirdly benign stress that has been accumulating over the past week-plus is coming to a head, and what's stranger is the way it manifests itself. With the job hunt becoming infinitely more real (and really twisted) and an onslaught of birthdays, special days, and days to get things done I've found myself organizing and cleaning and being generally productive at hours that belie my truly exhausted state. I've wanted to go to bed for the past four hours but I just can't. Save me!

Sunday Night Lights III

0 outs
1 walk
1 single
1 double
1 catch
2 assists
2 runs

Sunday's game was a walk in the park. Seriously. I didn't have to run once.

The photo below was taken by me, yesterday, on our picnic in the park. Click it to zoom and you will find that the blurry object in the center is a goose. A very angry Canadian Goose, chasing the photographer. If you don't know (I didn't), those things run fast and even take flight in an attempt to drive you away from their goslings. And if they catch you? Beaked to death.

shit was scary!

Sunday Night Lights II Redux

It went like this:

*Our team was told that we forfeited our last game, because one of our players wasn't a registered student. How could this be!? We couldn't afford to lose that game.

*The situation reverts to a tie when our player proves her eligibility. Thank God.

*The opposing team informs us that they forfeited, because one of their players was ineligible due to playing for a second team in our league.

So, our official record: 2-0-0

And our standing? Well, why don't you see for yourself. That's us at the top of our division. Oh, and that #1 ranking? It pertains to the entire league. Of 54 teams.

Sunday Night Lights II

We got shelled in the first few innings, and I had abandoned hope. All of us had, actually. To make matters worse, the ump consistently missed calls-- badly, and in their favor. Perhaps as a reparation he let us play a final sixth inning, the bottom of which I began with a leadoff single. I eventually came around to score only our third run, and there were still no outs. Half our lineup scored, and a quick recalculation showed the score to be 8-6 in their favor. Two outs and two runs later, I was up again. Victory had escaped us with a close play at home and a groundout, and I found myself at the plate in that most exhilarating of situations: tie game, two down, winning run in scoring position. What we imagine ourselves in during games of daydream baseball-- self-affirmation in a cut just above the infield's glove, the victory, the celebration! The first pitch was a fat slice of pie and I sent it, with everything in me, in a laser beam to short. Lined out. Tie-game, 8 all. We had mounted an admirable comeback, and we didn't lose, but damn if I couldn't stop replaying that at-bat afterward.

Midseason record: 1-0-1

Sunday Night Lights

Our IM softball team won our opening game in wondrous fashion, showing both commanding athleticism and easy style. Certainly a portent of things to come.

I was thinking, and bear with me: Free Darko proves, with buckets of words, that basketball is indeed a transcendent game. The tired "basketball-as-jazz" argument presented in language as free-wheeling and psychological as the game itself, it has in no small way reformed and cemented my love of the game. Baseball, though, has never needed a single word to convince anybody of its transcendence (whose disparate elements words can only tie together so well, besides). Really, it's in the way baseball is lived, its dependence on so much more than the 18 players. The way it brings fans to a common level, regardless of generation or background, and how we enjoy the moment, the day, the summer, the season-- instead of simply watching the show. Spectacle does not a ballgame make, and it's this understanding which surrounds the game with the unique, slow wonder that we share when experiencing baseball, no matter in which capacity.

Record: 1-0-0

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A gift for those who made it through that last paragraph: a few new photos at Flickr.