I have to say that for as many softball teams as I've played on starting back in college, I have never had what I would call the privilege that I have had to play on this team for the past year or so. Does winning the games we play make a big difference? Naturally. But it's more than that. The team is a brotherhood. I love that. I know it's only softball, and I don't care if it sounds corny, but things are a lot more fun, and you're a lot more successful, if you look at the guy to your left, or at the guy to your right, and you know him, and you trust him, and he's one of your boys. That's why the past two seasons of Hillsborough Generals softball have been so much fun.
The Gens won their 6th straight last night, 7-3 over the T-Bags, to finish up the regular season at 7-3 after a 1-3 start. Going back to spring's undefeated season, the Gens are 17-3 in their last 20. The win leaves the Generals and T-Bags tied atop the divison and forces...cue the goosebumps...a one game playoff for the division title.
Other than Game 7's, there really aren't too many things in sports cooler than the one game playoff. I mean, what else needs to be said? It's one game for the whole barrel of ale. What could be better than that?
The player of the game was Fish, whose running catch that brought him careening into the chain-link fence in left center field was one of the best you'll ever see, at any level, period. Anybody can make a diving catch. It's hard to do, but there's no level of fear involved. Fish's catch, though, and his refusal to slow up near the fence, took hard core balls. Scotty B also deserves mention for taking a shutout, in a softball game, into the final inning.
I also pulled my hamstring in that final inning running in on a shallow pop up. The hammy is receiving daily treatment, including me sleeping in tight spandex leggings to help with compression. Yes, I said tight spandex leggings. I didn't have an ace bandage, so to keep the hammy tight overnight I pulled out a pair of shiny blue spandex leggings that I wore for cold games as a football player at Jesuit ten years ago. I had never actually worn them alone until last night. I pretty much look like the late, great WWF legend Ravishing Rick Rude in them, minus an airbrushed image of my own face on the ass, like Rude used to have. That guy was the best.
