Softball, Bad Parking

Softball is a game a lot like rounders and even more like baseball. You hit a ball with a bat and run to bases. For a full explanation click here.

My work entered a softball competition run by The Huddersfield Law Society or something with ten other teams in. It wasn't a fine June day. It was cold and that fine mizzly rain which makes you quite wet. This was not a good start. The next thing that I got wrong was not finding the place we were playing at but I wasn't too late, just feeling a bit stupid.

We only had seven players on our team, which was three short of most of the other teams who has the full quota of players and in some cases team shirts and fleeces! This wasn't due to lack of effort in trying to get people to play, just lack of effort from people at work in supporting anything remotely social, or maybe it was just the weather but either way i'm sick of organising stuff that loads of people say "maybe" to rather than give me a straight answer. Anyway, back to the subject.

We played our first game against a full team but not one with kits. We won the toss and chose to bat. Our best two batters went in first and both got out first ball. We were playing ten minute games so nine and a half minutes to go. The scoring sees the batting side get one run for going all the way round and two for a "home run" or going all the way round from your own shot. I think I got three or four runs the first time but it was all go so I wasn't really counting - just being knackered as I haven't run since erm I can't remember the last time I ran. We ended up with 16 runs about two or three minutes short of our allotted time. The opposition easily beat us but now we knew what to do we felt a bit more confident.

Then we had a drink and soon it was time for another game. We also scrambled an extra player which proved useful. This time we bowled first and I was fielding quite deep which isn't good when you can't run and throw like a girl (a non-athletic girl to be politically correct). Sure enough I had soon managed to drop a catch and throw the ball high in the air but not very horizontal and I was soon put on first base where I was happy to take a throw at the second attempt but unhappy to fall on my arse while doing so and to find the batter hadn't even run! We were later told off by the (dodgy) referee for changing our field too much. They got 22 I think. I was run out early in the next game due to Tom's overeagerness but that was probably no bad thing. After numerous no balls, the (dodgy) referee (who knew the first names of all the other team) told us we were on our last batter and one run behind. Greg stepped up and hit it into the trees so we won by one. Woohoo!

With a record of one win and one loss we felt happy we had done quite well given the conditions and also quite sure we wouldn't reach the semi-finals. Then it rained more (we were drinking again) so games were called off after everyone had completed two games. I then got ribbed over most things in life. Ha ha. There was a big queue for food so Tom and I played pool. We sucked, but I won so it doesn't matter :-)

We then joined the shorter queue for between five and ten minutes and got to the front to be the first ones turned away as they had just run out. Bugger. It was soon to be presentation time but it was decided to go on total runs scored. The top three all had kits and looked like professionals (lawyers and accountants ha didn't even mean that one)! We came joint 10th which meant the two team captains had to sit on the floor and pull a wooden horse attached to a (very long) piece of string across the floor. I think videos were taken and who knows I might be the next big thing on YouTube. I lost by about a length making us last. Rubbish!

We didn't make any friends, but despite all my moanings, I guess it must have been enjoyable given the length and soonness of this post. Hopefully next year more people will turn up and we'll have a proper shot at the title. Or not come last anyway. Thanks to Greg, Adeel, Cheryl, John, Tom, Andrea, and Jagdeep for turning up.

In other news, I got lost again today but once I got directions it was fine, though in getting my new directions I had to park in Dewsbury which i'm not familiar with. For my parking spot I chose double yellow lines, two wheels on the kerb, blocking two cars in facing the wrong way down a one way street about two foot from a corner. Not my greatest driving moment ever! In the end I decided to reverse round the corner only breaking one of the above motoring laws. I don't condone this but it wasn't doing anyone any harm so didn't matter too much.

Henman is out of Wimbledon in the second round after going two sets down he once again showed his fighting spirit by coming back to two all only to bottle it in the final set and lose to the similarly ranked no. 78 in the world Mr Lopez from Spain. Maybe he'll win next year!

I mentioned it was cold and wet. Now i'm feeling quite fluey. I've been getting a cold all week and now I ache a lot including muscles I never knew I had so I will be sleeping and relaxing this weekend before finally having a day in the office on Monday. This would have been good but no doubt the above will get mentioned. Never mind, it will all be forgotten in a couple of weeks.

Hopefully i've made this post so long no-one will read it and find out how rubbish I really am ;-)