The pain is not great, but the symbolism is disagreeable

July 2, 2008 at 3:17 pm | Posted in lee, softball | 5 Comments
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I can’t sleep tonight.  I’ve just been laying in bed.  I thought that I would fall asleep easy because I went exercise swimming tonight, and any kind of physical exertion has been exhausting me lately.  By “lately”, I could me the last four years or maybe the last two.  I don’t know for sure, though, because I haven’t been very physically active.

Anyway, I can’t sleep tonight.  I have been wanting to write something for a few weeks now, and since I hate my own blog, I will write here, another blog that I hate.

Something has happened to me lately.  Maybe it has been a gradual thing, maybe it isn’t.  But, I can no longer do athletic things.  Back when I tried out for little league, my coach/neighbor called my mom and told me that I made his team, mainly because I ha(d)ve good hand-eye coordination.  As soon as i found out what that was, I was pretty excited about myself, even though I knew that I mainly made the team because he was my neighbor and a lot of the neighbor kids were on the team.  I don’t really like where this is going, so I will go in another direction.

I can’t catch anymore.  Fielding is my favorite part of baseball, but have become a horrible fielder.  I like to be one of the reliable people on a sports team, but I am starting to realize that I no longer am.  Take last night.  I was at first base for most of the game for the Beekeepers.  I have grown to like first base because it isn’t third base where the balls come at me faster than I have been able handle.  I used to love third base for this reason and because so many balls were hit there.  My stints at third base have yielded no plays made.  Another great thing about 1B is that it isn’t the outfield where I have yet to judge the balls correctly.  A firstbasemen gets to make a lot plays, and most of them aren’t to hard.

Probably my favorite plays to make are easy infield pop-ups.  I don’t know why, they just seem so cool to make.  During yesterday’s game, an easy pop-up was hit to the first base side.  I ran up about 15 feet and called off the pitcher.  I kept my eye on the ball, and put my glove and bare hand up to make the play.  The ball bounced in-then-out of my glove.  Luckily, the baserunner overated me, and didn’t run to the base and we got an easy out.

A few weeks ago, Brian wrote about a catch I made.  I was chasing another fly, this time while I was playing second base.  I read the ball perfectly, and again put both hands up.  The ball completely missed my glove, but landed right in my bare hand.  I was pretty proud of my instincts.  Now I am not so sure.  I also dropped a nice throw from Aaron on what would have been a third out.  Yesterday’s game got me to finally admit that I am not a good fielder anymore.

Actually, I am still not ready to admit it.  I might suck, yes, but I have to other potential excuses:

1) My glove still might not be completely broken in.  I bought it new this year, and though I have molded it into shape, I think it is still too stiff to close properly.  It also probably doesn’t help that I secretly think it is funny to refer to my glove as Mitt Romney.  Stuff like that cracks me up a lot more than I should.  I should probably stop.  (I think I found my solution here: http://www.baseballgloves.com/breakingin/index.html

2) My fielding has digressed as the season has progressed.  About the time fielding seemed to be getting harder, I got new contact lenses that are worse than my previous lenses.  This excuse doesn’t work for yesterday, but for my time in the outfield and third base, it does. 

Or, I suck.

More things:

I like Boozer and I hope he never leaves the Jazz.

I hate that whenever the Jazz draft/sign a white player, Jazz fans are pissed because they think the Jazz are so unathletic.  What about Miles, Brewer, Price, Kirilenko, Millsap, Williams, and Boozer? 

I wouldn’t care if football season never started.

Just because most of the world thinks soccer is the greatest sport doesn’t mean they are right.  I like watching soccer, but basketball, baseball, hockey, and football are more interesting to watch.