Against the top-seeded team, we rode that momentum to an early lead.  But then our defense imploded with a series of costly errors that led to a 10-run inning … and sadly a couple of them were mine.  No excuses, I just sucked.

Offensively, we battled back to make it a 1-run game but couldn’t get the hits to fall in our final at-bat.  To the victors went the championship T-shirts, hoodies, and pride.  For us, “wait until next year.”

Still this team has come a long way since I first joined a couple years ago.  We didn’t win very often, and this was the first time we even made the playoffs.  So to have a strong season, and take second place is still pretty good considering where we’ve been.  But victory was so close it hurts!

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Regarding the Alameda County Fair, it doesn’t compare with the Puyallup.  Thankfully we had free tickets.  The pig-racing was entertaining, and the food was good, but it was a million degrees so we didn’t stay long.

Bryn’s boss was kind enough to take a small group wakeboarding on Friday.  The red circle on the map shows where we went.  Notice the lack of any discernible bodies of water within miles of our location.

The wakeboarding was awesome.  We went up and down these narrow channels so there were plenty of uninterrupted straightaways and no other boats. I only get to go like once a year anymore so it was cool to get out and take some jumps.

The only thing was the water…disgusting.  Brown and semi-salty.  Mysterious floaters, dead fish and birds.  Even though it was 100 degrees you didn’t really want to stay in any longer than your turn.

Definitely looking forward to the open lake back at home in a few weeks, where the water is see-through.

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My first chance I was walked on four straight pitches.  I’m not saying it was an “intentional” walk, but these balls weren’t even close.  I mean who wants to walk in softball?  If it’s close, I’m swinging.

My second chance I hit a rocket down the first base line that has 3-bases written all over it.  But, in the name of sportsmanship, I took my time and coasted into second with a stand-up double because of what happened in between these two at-bats.

On a shallow fly ball to center, the outfielder took the shortstop’s knee to the face and was down for the count.  It didn’t look that bad, but he was pretty shaken up and eventually they called the paramedics, who wheeled him of the field and took him away in an ambulance.  I was surprised the other team wanted to keep playing after that, especially since this had stopped the game for at least 20 minutes, they were down by 11, and the time was almost up.

And apparently the pitcher was the outfielder’s dad.  But he stayed in the game to finish his work. (The pitcher looked like a well-endowed Santa, which could be the subject of another story…)

So I figured stopping at second was the least I could do not to rub salt in his wounds.  No cycle but 4 for 4 with a HR, 2 2B, a walk, 6 RBI, 3 runs, and most importantly ZERO trips to the hospital counts as a good game in my book.  And Bryn got in on the action too with a couple Ichiro-esque infield singles.  Well-played.

For whatever reason, we seem to do better when we play short-handed. We only had 8 fielders.  I figure it’s because we’re more relaxed knowing we’re expected to lose.

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Check out this girl’s intensity as she’s about to score one of her three runs:

Love it.

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Did you know?

The Major League record for the longest homer-less streak belongs to Bill Holbert, who singled his way to that distinction between 1876 and 1888.   A defensive specialist, Holbert hit just .208 over his 2,335 career at bats, while toiling for teams such as the Milwaukee Grays, the Syracuse Stars, the Troy Trojans, and the Brooklyn Bridegrooms.

Bill Holbert info and photo from Wikipedia.

UPDATE 7/8/09:

I’ve since hit 3 more homeruns in rec softball.  Must be the ‘roids.  : )

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