The Little League Softball Team

I play in my church's softball team. I usually play catcher because I'm the only one who really wants to play there and I am a tremendous liability in just about any other position except the bench. I enjoy playing although I'm not really good anymore. The guys on the team are cool, and, though we aren't very good, we generally have a good time. It's a double header church league so we usually get to avoid the beer addled softball psychos you can get in a city league. But last week was a experience that I've never had in all my years of playing city or church league softball.

One of the teams (that may be a bunch of heretics) brought out about 50 members of the church for what looked like a church picnic and they got into the game like crazy people. They cheered their team like they were at a little league game and they were over bearing parents with stars in their eyes thinking their little boys were going to bring them millions from the big leagues. I gotta tell you, it was annoying. When one of them hit a home run, they cheered like it was ninth inning of the World Series. Most teams have a couple of their wives who come out and spend the whole time chatting, ignoring the game, and chasing their kids. But these people were nuts. I had never seen anything like it.

Maybe the part that was most annoying is that they beat the living the crap out of us in both games. Also, I took a pitched ball of my bottom lip and I spat out blood for about four innings, but did I come out? NO! I fought through it! Of course we didn't have any bench players that day so if we wanted to play the game I had to sit out there for the rest of both games.