So despite a zombie level of 12 on the 10 point scale, and weather conditions that had not improved since yesterday... ie: sprinkles interspersed with showers... and even after my coffee and tomato breakfast sandwich with bacon on it I was still not prepared to play ball, let alone enjoy myself. Muscles protested repeated use, ibuprofen better known as I-be-brokens and Gatorade were not kicking in nearly fast enough for my liking. Despite layers that would have made an Eskimo jealous...
Despite all of that, getting out on the ball field, the wind on my face, the crack of the bat, the thrill of the chase... tracking the ball, diving, and coming up with that same ball quickly turned my day around.
Playing a team I used to play on, I forgot we were using the smaller ball for girls (meaning they can hit it significantly further than the rest of the season when we all play with the big balls) ran in thinking the ball was going to stall, realized it sure wasn't and made a jump worthy of sponsorship by Air Jordan shoes and somehow snagged the ball! This was followed shortly by a short pop fly, still pumped from my previous catch... running stride for stride with the guy playing right center, realizing he wasn't going to catch it in the air and busting out the reckless abandon and going for it. In that moment there was no other fielder, for that split second there was only the ball and my glove. The seconds that slowed down came crashing back into reality in a fraction of the time, mashed into a dive roll only to come up with the ball facing the outfield fence. I know that my team members on the bench heard how excited I was, I'm fairly confident that everyone else on the diamonds that afternoon heard it too... even if they had no idea what all the shouting was about.
Same team, one of the fastest guys on the team, a guy I would proudly play field with any day decided to play me short. A taunt of sorts. Now usually that gets into my head, and the only thing I want to do is crush the ball... and for no conceivable reason today was not one of those days where that happened. I crushed the ball! I'm told it wasn't far off the warning track. *smug grin* Stick that in your pipe and smoke it! That's right, you just got burned by a girl... in fact you got uuber burned, like a BBQ I can still smell yah!
Another team we played I ended up in the position of not running into a great situation at 2nd base. It did not look good at all! I slid, got hung up on the short stops feet somehow and was *maybe* a toe width away from second. Miraculously he dropped the ball, and I had mere seconds to stretch every muscle in my body around him and wherever I was hung up on to get to that bag... I'm still not sure how I did it, but man did it feel good!
Although the weather only marginally cooperated, and everything was wet, the beer was certainly cold. At the end of the day sometimes all you can say is "It was a good day to play ball"
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