It’s Weird, but Then, It’s Me

I never imagined I’d be in a position where this would be an issue. Well, that’s not entirely true. I guess I may have had a daydream or two where I was a good enough hitter, but this was never the result. I guess the real problem stems from the fact that I play in an unbelievably weak league. Oh, I guess I should point out that I’m writing (ranting) about softball here.

So this league is sort of important in the grand scheme of things, because it’s where I met my wife. The guy who runs the team (Randy) has been managing a team in both the summer and fall versions of this league for many years. He was the coach of the ward team I played on in ‘04-’06 and he recruited me to play in this league, too. His daughter is one of my wife’s best friends, and Randy started this league so they could all play together.

It’s the kind of coed league where you have to alternate male/female every other batter, and you also have to have 2 male outfielders and 2 female outfielders, 2 male infielders and 2 female infielders, and the pitcher/catcher have to be 1 male and 1 female. Which is all fine. Here’s what’s not. The park is pretty small, so a lot of guys can hit it out pretty regularly, and a few of the girls can hit it out on occasion. In our regular line-up, all 5 of the guys could hit it out almost every time up, if that were allowed. It’s not. Not even close, in fact. From the time I began playing in this league (Fall ‘05), the rule has always been that teams are allowed one home run per inning, though that does allow for one by the males of the team and one by the females, though, of course, the girls rarely hit home runs.

During the five seasons I’ve played in this league (3 fall & 2 summer) that rule was annoying, but acceptable. A lot of teams would hit a home run almost every inning (including us), and would only have to swing carefully on occasion. The only time that rule ever really screwed me up was a game last season where we were down by three going into the bottom of the last inning. Our lead-off guy (Dave) hit a home run, so we weren’t allowed any more for the game (unless we went to an extra inning). The 5 people between me and Dave in the lineup loaded the bases and made two outs, so when I came up, we were down two with two outs and three runners on base. If I could have gotten a good hit that stayed inside the park, we’d have scored at least enough runs to tie.

I choked up about three inches on the bat so that I’d have better control and slapped a hard line drive, thinking I could maybe get one to the fence so that the runner from first could score, too, and we’d win. Unfortunately, the line drive didn’t level off. In a seeming show of defiance of the laws of physics, the liner just kept rising and flew right over the fence. So what would have been a walk-off grand slam in a league without that stupid rule turned out to just be the last out of the game instead.

For this new season, however, they decided that the one HR per inning per team rule wasn’t good enough, so they changed it to the worst rule I can imagine (short of making all home runs against the rules): Now teams can never have more than one home run more than the other team. So if your team hits one in the first inning and the other team never hits one, you can’t hit any more for the rest of the game. And for some reason, we’re the only team that has more than one or two people that can hit it out. So we’ve been nailed by the rule on several occasions.

The problem for me is not that I have to hit a home run every at bat. It’s not even as though I’m actually likely to do that, even if it were allowed. What it is, though, is just that the knowledge that hitting a ball over the fence when it’s not allowed has made me tentative. I don’t swing as hard, so a lot of balls that would hit gaps and roll to the fence or even hit the fence on the fly end up as fly ball outs because slowing my swing is screwing up my swing. It’s not as though I can’t hit at all, but I’ve not been hitting well lately. At this point I’m much rather play in a park with deep enough fences that I could almost never hit it out, but be allowed to swing away. At least that way I’d be able to hit some doubles and not worry that I was accidentally going to hit an illegal home run every at bat.

On the bright side I have managed to field pretty much everything that’s hit on the ground in the front of the infield. I pitch most of the time, and even though softball pitching is nothing like baseball pitching, it’s a lot of fun. The thing about it is that it’s not as though my pitching is going to be what gets the hitters out. Fielding has to be responsible for that. And that’s how slow pitch softball is played (at least in this kind of league). You have to make the plays on defense, and you have to hit.

Well, one of of two isn’t terrible, I guess…

~ by jabeandkristin on 20 May 2008.