Information Blues.

Okay I missed retelling softball #3 versus the really cool hippies with the Down’s Syndrome catcher. Well we lost, 9-10.

Softball #4 was crushing. We were the visitors and we came out strong in the first inning. Hit hit hit hit. Our manager has noticed my luck, as I’ve been ascending the order: I started out dead last, unlucky #10, but my bat has been slowly rising. Monday night I was the 6 hitter. That’s right, I was almost in the heart of the order. The heart’s basement.

So in the first inning the top of the order was already on base and the heart of the order was beating. I came up with the bases loaded and took the second pitch the other way, smacked through the gap between the second baseman and first. I don’t know what it is, and it’s perplexing, but my stroke has become the other way. My natural disposition has been to hit the ball to right field, which for most right handers is a lot harder than left. My strategy has been pretty simple: wait. Wait for the ball to come. And then I think I might be just slapping it, poking it to right. It’s not very manly but it gets the job done. Sometimes.

So I smacked my ankle biting liner to right and rounded first. The throw came in to third and got bobbled, so I advanced to second as the ball followed me there. I slid in hard, like a snow angel in the dust, laying on my back, bulldozing the bag. I ripped the knee out of my gray jeans and began bleeding. “Scottr!” chanted the dugout. “Scottr!” We scored seven in the first inning.

But then The Seamen started coming back. They responded with four runs in their half of the first. Then we shut them down with a series of incredibly lucky line drive catches. Like, 3 line drives, mercilessly hit, crushing line drives, hit right back at the pitcher and somehow into his glove. Violent drives turned into outs. My next shoetop liner didn’t make it through, but we scored some insurance, 8-4. Then all hell broke loose.

The Seamen started bleesting in the fourth. This guy with a blacked out hat and an extremely wide, swaggery stance hit one so deep to right center it ended up in the eucalyptus trees above the bathroom. It was a cannon blast. They were hitting thundering drives all over the place. The fluorescent yellow softball was getting slaughtered as every hit sounded like an iceberg cracking. Or sometimes their hits sounded like huge pieces of styrofoam that were being turned into mush. The plate umpire couldn’t resist, he started complimenting their skills, “Nice tomahawk!”, “That ball was crushed!” And it was.

The hitting just wouldn’t stop. Our team grew tense, and a few bloops turned into hits. And then a cascade of more blasts came. And more bloops. And blasts!

Our poor pitcher, he takes things way too hard, he actually thinks about calculating ERA in slow pitch softball. He was suffering. He took the cascade of blasts squarely upon his shoulders. He started walking guys. He fielded a comebacker and while trying to remain calm chucked the ball over the shortstop’s head into center field. The runs came down like rain as he turned red, screaming, “FUCKKK!”

Come on dude it’s just City League; the mercy rule got applied in the fifth, 24-8.

If the first Berkeley City softball game I played in went surprisingly well, the second was strikingly poor. But I suppose I was due for a correction.

First, the other team was short a man. They took the field and started warming up as the umpires kicked dirt. We sat in the dugout counting our opponents before realizing they only had nine. The umps asked where their last man was, and they pointed to the street, “Ahh, he’s comin’ man!” But they were lying.

So they had to forfeit; the umps wrote in the book: The 3 Outers win it, 7-0. Then they walked away and left us to scrimmage.

Our opponents were a group of urban twenty somethings. They had real baseball gear, Nike stirrup socks, quivers of bats in bags, Yankees hats. They thought highly of themselves.

My first at bat I hit the first pitch and lined it to the shortstop’s feet. It felt like I smoked it until the drive turned flaccid and wilted; I don’t think I got the barrel of the bat on it, and it was more of a tennis swing than softball. As I was running to first I felt the cramp in my left quad that had started out as big as a cherry grow into a ragged plum. I pulled up lame, out at first.

Earlier we’d been throwing on the side and somebody said something and as I looked left the ball sailed over my head, out into the street. I ran off the grass in my cleats onto the sidewalk and when I hit the concrete I executed a plastic spike slide; I was skating out of control on my left leg and as I tried to stop felt my quadricep twinge. I didn’t think it was a big deal, and went back to throwing, but as the game wore on my muscle felt more and more ragged until I was trotting, straight legged around the bases.

Cramped and meaningless, battling the boys, I grounded weakly to short, twice, grimacing.

Well I did it. I played my first game of Berkeley City League Softball. I caught and batted 9th for The Three Outers down at the small field, San Pablo Park.

There was me with my stiff new glove and black jeans, flashy new Puma cleats purchased off ebay for $9. There was Rich in his Guatemalan fabric shorts and marijuana shirt, Gary in a shady looking hat and tyedye. Corduroy, Mets jerseys, forty something libertarian hippies and me, a clumsy 33.

I was nervous. My stomach was boiling; I hadn’t played any form of baseball since the 3rd grade. My last real baseball memory came from a game I was out in left. A ball was hit my way and dropped in for a single. I fielded it and threw to third for some reason, instead of second, and hit the third baseman in the head; he had no idea a throw was coming.

I remember playing teeball when my family moved to Tasmania, which was a bummer because in San Marcos we’d already progressed to coaches pitching. So I stopped playing and forgot about baseball.

But then out of nowhere came late 20’s baseball fever, 2001 when the A’s faced the Yankees in the playoffs. My passion was ignited and I haven’t stopped watching since. But playing? Isn’t baseball an entertainment, to be roused by from a comfortable position on the couch, then analzyed later on internet forums? Playing?

Me and my 3rd grade baseball skills would have to hit the ground running. The first inning we batted around and I came up with the bases loaded. I swung at the first pitch and drove it to center. It fell in! We scored ten runs in a wild first. I batted again and hit it the same place, only a little bloopier. It fell in! We were bleesting!

I was so excited I nearly fell down in the basepaths running second to third. I tried to run too fast and started stumbling forward; I pulled up at third waving my arms wildly, trying not to face plant. I tried to run too fast and started peeling out like a muscle car without traction. Then I decided I needed to calm down, stop trying to run faster than was really possible. My last time up I trotted in to first after singling and nearly got thrown out; you’ve got to run through the bag Scott! Run through the bag!

Our competition were a group from the pool hall/bar Thalassa in Berkeley. They were younger than us, bartenders with neck tattoos and matching tshirts displaying their team name: The Seamen. They had obviously played some ball in their time, but they were pressing really hard and trying to hit the ball to the moon, which lead to towering outfield fly after fly. I watched a guy with a square jaw and a beautiful swing club one over the TOP of the left field foul pole, but the umpire called it foul. Then he scorched a grounder right at our second baseman, who contemplated fielding it then conveniently dodged, which made the umpire chuckle.

But we prevailed! The Three Outers trumped The Seamen, 17-5 as I went 3 for 4 with three cheap singles and forgot to field a pop fly just in front of the plate. I guess that “catching” a Berkeley City Softball game is a little too much like passively absorbing a game from the couch. But I threw him out! Sucker didn’t run to first.

At 6am I heard the rumble; Meister’s Bane was vibrating on my bedside table.

Run oh Molly run, run oh Molly run
Tenbrooks gonna beat you to the bright shinin’ sun.
To the bright shinin’ sun
Oh Lord to the bright shinin’ sun.

molly.lmi.net was DOWN. Well molly she’s a tired old racehorse, a Pentium Pro running 57 web sites. But who knows how many of those 57 even point here anymore.

If molly decided to take a rest at 3am, I’d roll out of bed and put on a jacket, leave my hair pointing sideways, unalter the sand in my eyes. I’d drive into work and hit the reset switch then drive home and take off my coat and toss around in bed for an hour or two before finally returning to sleep at 6 to wake at 9.

But when molly lies down at 6, it’s a different kind of situation. It makes more sense to take a shower and start the day early. Even though yesterday was a brunch to lunch to dinner party where I started off with a pink peep floating in my mimosa.

I drove to work around 7 and the world looked different. First off, I was extra tired and pretty grumpy. But the light was different, the people were different. The commuters were more aggressive. The day was crisp, I was out of my normal rut without my normal stimuli and I couldn’t tell if this made me mad or made me happy.

I got in and hit molly’s reset switch. She stood back up and neighed wearily. When I logged into my workstation, I saw I’d been hit with an instant message by the dornado:

http://runjoelrun.blogspot.com/2008/03/cool-port-videos.html

I knew I probably shouldn’t open it—-it was obviously a trap—-but I did. Walking into eachother’s traps is part of our culture. I pressed play on the youtube video and there I was some time after 7am with shoddy techno passing through my speakers and some serious roadie geeks on my monitor. Guys in fully coordinated team kit spandex with multiple blinkie lights attached to their jerseys were spinning 100rpm at the Port of Oakland after dark.

Well I was cranky and followed my first impulse. I posted the comment, “Dude this sucks.” I felt this was the perfect rejoinder and found myself relishing it. But then I started reading the dude’s blog, and while I felt justified for a while, I eventually felt bad about it. I recycled my comment. Positivity! Dilute dilute dilute! It’s too easy to be sarcastic. It takes balls to be friendly.

I stayed home sick today. I slept until 1pm, and then luckily there was a spring training A’s game on, and more lucky my login from last year worked to stream the game.

So Buan was playcasting and the A’s were off to a nice start versus the Cubs, but every time he’d get an email to radio@oaklandathletics.com you could hear his computer play one of the stock Windows sounds, a two note descending piano riff. He got more and more emails, and then finally people out there in the world started commenting. One guy emailed him instructions to turn off the beep, but he said he couldn’t, that he’d looked. I contemplated setting up a loop to email him an email a second and then wait for the cascade of dorky Windows piano, but I didn’t. I’m too nice.

But I did write him. I wrote:

Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:01:17 -0700 (PDT)
From: Scott Ralston
To: radio@oaklandathletics.com
Subject: windows is everywhere

Hi Robert:

I’m an A’s fan in Oakland, at the NW corner of the Lake near Children’s Fairyland. I’m home sick today and enjoying listening to the game in my convalescent state.

Anyway, I always find embedded Windows noises entertaining. ATM’s make windoze beeps, BART ticket machines get them and occasionally the blue screen of death. Automatic checkin kiosks at the airport have the same sound palette. I suppose it’s a fact of life.

The only annoying part is maybe the lack of imagination. What about changing your default sound scheme to baseball noises? How about when an email arrives, you get a crack of the bat rather than a stupid piano riff?

Scott

And eventually he mentioned my email on air. Except he totally butchered it, he said something like:

And here’s an email from Scott in Oakland. Now I think we have good fans, but that maybe they have a little too much time on their hands. Scott’s suggesting that we lack imagination, that we should change our sounds to baseball noises. Now that’s an idea.

./dingtodeath.sh

It’s nearly spring.