Information Blues.

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.