Men's Slow Pitch Softball- A Love Story

The weekend warrior. Reclaiming one's youth. Great in his own mind. A has been. A never was.

Anyone have a good remedy for a pulled hamstring? How 'bout two bad hammies?

My father was my hero when I was a kid. Mom would take my brother and me to watch the Shelton team. Officially we were sponsored by Pizza Hut, but most of the team was made up with my family members. Dad was a slick second baseman. Uncle Ronnie pitched. Uncle Dick played short stop. Finally Uncle Kenny manned left field. When my older brother turned sixteen he joined up to make 1/2 of the team Sheltons. I was only two years behind and day-dreamed about being the sixth, but Dad retired before I could play.

But growing up, I watched my Dad turn double plays with the fluidity that would make the toughest managers in MLB history crack a smile. He could turn on a pitch and actually hit the third base bag with the ball five times out of ten. His game was exacting. My uncles were great in their own rights. Kenny was a very capable left fielder. Ronnie threw pitches with such high angles that hitters constantly popped up. Uncle Dick was a vacuum cleaner at short and was a beautiful opposite-field hitter.

Oh yeah, they never lost.

Now that is to take liberties. Sure they lost a game or two but it seems like for ten years they went undefeated in league. It wasn't until the Shelton brothers started reaching their forties that they became vulnerable. Dad's range shortened with his bad knees so he was relegated to catcher. Kenny had a tougher time getting a strong throw in from the outfield. Dick's shoulder bothered him so much that he had to sidearm flip the ball to first, then moved to second for shorter throws. Ronnie was gun shy from getting hit on shots up the middle and couldn't move out of the way so easily. And then one year they took second in league. It was quite the depressing moment to see my childhood heros... lose. How could they lose? They were invulnerable in my eyes. Well, now I know why.

I am a mere thirty-five years old, still young in my own eyes, but then my eyes don't aren't accustomed to physical activity. The last five years I have given up on playing serious tournaments and relegated myself to church league. I have gone from a speedy outfielder making remarkable plays to a short stop for only one reason: I don't like to run out to the outfield every inning.

I'm getting old.

When I look at myself, I don't see an aging man. I still see that eighteen year-old who had very few physical limitations. I am the man who doesn't need to run and stretch before a game, doesn't need to warm up the arm. Of course this is all false. And last night it finally came to a head.

In what would be my final games of the season, my last swings at the plate this summer, I invited my wife and kids to watch. I had a romantic idea that my wife would marvel at my softball prowess, my kids would call me their hero.

So I took the field with my normal excitement, and in playing against a team that was vastly superior to our rag-taggers (myself included) we were able to keep the game close the whole way. Nursing a hamstring pull, I was not going to be able to turn a single into a double, or a double into a triple like I could in my youth, but I would put on a show all the same. And I got my chances.

I dove for and snared line drives, turned double plays (one of which I tweaked my other hamstring,) and made an assist on a cut-off from the outfield when an arrogant kid tried to go for an inside-the-park home run. The center fielder on my team even called me Derek Jeter on one play. I hit safely two times out of three and came a few feet short of a home run on one swing. I scored the winning run in extra innings on a sacrifice fly, despite being hobbled by my two ageing legs. I gave it everything I had. It was a great way to finish a year.

Caked from head-to-toe with dirt, I went into the stands to see my kids. They too were busy playing in the dirt. I asked my wife what she thought of my performance and she said, "You we're kind of slow out there. You had to dive for a lot of balls. You should have let the center fielder play short stop. He's really fast."

When she noticed my baloon deflating, she quickly added, "But I thought you played very well, honey!"

So it's morning now. I have two ace bandages wrapped around my legs, a cold pack in each. I have taken 600 mg of Ibuprofen to ease the pain in my back and I definitely don't yawn and stretch, or else every muscle in my body will cramp up at once. And I am thinking that I am not eighteen anymore. I can still play the game in a semi-competative church league, but at what cost? I remember my dad coming home from softball very sore, sore for days and I couldn't understand it. I understand it now. Dad held on until he turned forty. I don't think I will last that long. Maybe it's time to hang up the spikes.

On the other hand, I bet I will feel different next summer!