Softball with the Crazy Christians

I saw my neighbor in Blythe over Thanksgiving 2006. He and I went to high school together, and I found out he now lives in San Diego. I ended up going to his wedding, and I've seen he and his new wife about every two months since then. They are turning out to be good Sunday night sushi dinner partners.

I don't know a lot of the history, but my friend apparently fell in with the wrong crowd a few years ago and got into some trouble. He's now straightened his life out and has found religion - he's a "God guy" as I sometimes say. Not aggressively so, however; he'll speak to you about it if you want to, but doesn't volunteer anything or press you to discuss your beliefs. He's pretty much the same guy he was, but doesn't use alcohol anymore. He met his wife through the church as I understand it. She will have a cocktail on occasion.

So, these two asked if I wanted to play in a softball league with them. I just quit the law firm softball team - a lot of strong personalities, and the game was no longer fun. You've got a bunch of marginal athletes that think they are a lot better than they are, which is bad enough, but it gets to be too much when these people are trying to give you pointers. Let's see... I hit about .650 last year and hit a hard line drive in most of my at bats. Do you really think I should be thinking about not dropping my shoulder when I swing (whatever that means)? And you, Mr. Left Center Fielder, at least one if not two balls are hit over your head for homers each game. Do you really think you ought to be trying to position me in left field? For awhile I tried my patented "ignore the problem and it will go away" approach (which, incidentally, is also the approach I use when breaking up with a girl) but things just got too annoying and I quit playing.

This new league is a church league, though this was unbeknownst to me at the time I agreed to play. I guess I believe in God (though God might disagree if he reads this blog and sees how I worded that) so I don't feel completely out of place there, but it is a little odd. Most of the players seem to know each other already. Here are the differences between Christian softball and regular softball, as I see them after one game:

1. The quality of play here is lower, with a surprising number of people playing in jeans. I guess that makes sense - a church league would likely have a smaller pool of potential players than, say, a lawyer league, biotech league, or a league of chicks I hooked up with and never called.

2. The home team has the privilege of leading the pregame prayer.

3. I think there is a high percentage of "born again" Christians in the league - there are more tattoos than in the general population (of humans, not prisoners). A friend of mine thinks I should be trying to meet chicks in this league, because, he says, most religious chicks have a dark past and can be easily led astray. He's kidding, I think.

4. There aren't a bunch of hot single chicks on my team. Not that I was expecting there to be, but there are not. Near as I can tell, the girls are either married or are dating someone else on the team, and look just like regular girls. This is, sadly, not a Christian single supermodel league.

5. The team names are, perhaps not surprisingly, religion-based. So far, I am aware of teams called The Rock, Transformed, and The Journey. We are The Rock V. I am a little disturbed by that, because everyone knows Rocky V was the worst of the Rocky movies, and I fear (and suspect) we may be the worst of The Rock teams.

One other thing I found interesting. One of our more athletcially challenged females was down to her last pitch after having swung and missed twice. She stepped out of the batter's box and said "help me here, Lord" or something to that effect. She then proceeded to line the next pitch into right field for a solid single. Does this mean that the Lord liked her, or our team, more than the other team? Perhaps not - we ended up losing the game. Perhaps it was in the Lord's plan to allow her that personal victory, while not changing the outcome of the game. Or maybe a softball game isn't all that important to the Lord. Who knows? Mysterious ways and such.

Incidentally, we lost because one of our girls didn't understand the rules and ran to home plate to score, rather than to the carpet near home plate (the league has the "no contact" at home plate rule). The guy running behind her would have easily scored the winning run, but she was called out for touching home plate, which was our third out of the inning and last out of the game.

Will I continue in this league? They do play on Saturday afternoons, which is kind of a haze, but I'll stick with it for a little while at least.