Well, my flight leaves in about an hour, and here I am sitting in the Tucson airport with sore legs, but happy.

The Red-Eyed Nites mounted a comeback in the morning hours, cutting the lead of the African Gray Birds, which had been around 40 runs at one point, to 20 runs. In the final inning, which was the 65th, I think, we put up four more, but the final score was 127-111 Grays.

Ultimately the difference between the two teams was pitching. Their pitching turned out to be slightly better (and slightly younger) over the course of the game. Both teams had to rely on some non-pitchers to take the mound to fill up innings, and theirs turned out to be sharper overall.

But really, no one was too concerned about the final score. Yes, our competitive spirit was stoked at times, but generally speaking no one was upset by the “loss.” For most of us, just playing in the game made us winners in the first place.

Rob Novotny, in his farewell speech after the game, pointed out that perhaps that is a lesson we should all take with us. “Look at how well you played,” he said. He and the coaches and observers were pleased with what a high level of play was exhibited during the game. Yes, there were a lot of errors when people were tired, but… “You were loose and focused and happy to be here,” Rob told us, so you allowed yourselves to excel. I didn’t feel like I was excelling when I was too tired to swing the bat, but I do know what he means. “You played for the love of the game and the result was a terrific game.”

The final tally on fundraising exceeded $64,000, as well.

I’m about to get in the plane now, so I’ll try to write more later.

Okay, I’m settled in the plane now. I slept about nine and half hours last night at the house of some friends. I woke up feeling relatively chipper. My legs are still quite sore–I soaked in a hot bathtub this morning and actually feel sorer, which I think means that there is a lot of lactic acid in my muscles and the hot water released it. If I walk slowly, though, it doesn’t feel too bad. I also did laundry this morning, which was nice, because my uniform pants and shirt really reeked. Even with showers during the game and changes of clean undershirts and underwear, after 24 hours, well, yuck. Everything is nice and clean and dry now. Nothing better than coming home and just being able to put everything away!

Let’s see–what else should I say about the event? The newspaper here did a story on it, but the story is full of inaccuracies. That is really annoying because if some baseball historian of the future tries to look it up it will say things like Nicole Helms (my friend Nicky) threw the first pitch of the game. Actually, she pitched the bottom of the inning. It was Stacey Brownwell, Dontrelle’s friend, who pitched first. (Stace, so sorry we couldn’t get you off the hook! The Gray Birds took the lead in the third inning and never relinquished it.) Ah well.

I feel like I have more to say but right now it is all jumbled up in my head. My brain is still tired, too, I guess. I feel like I have a lot of stories still to tell about this but it will take some time for them to percolate and emerge. Did I mention that Ann Petrovic, another of the All-Americans, got up to bat in the bottom of the final inning? See, there’s so much more. I’m sure many other players have great stories to tell, too. If any of them are on the web, I’ll be sure to make links to them from here.

When the game was finished, the two teams lined up and shook hands like always, though it took quite a bit longer to get through the line than it does in our usual league games. Then people began taking final photos, getting each other’s autographs on shirts, hats, and programs, stuff like that. After several minutes of that, the closing ceremonies began. Rob and Ted Alemahyu each gave short speeches, and each player was presented with a game ball stamped with a special stamp of Africa with the number “24″ as their name and hometown was called out. That was pretty much it. I was surprised no one cried. I got choked up a couple of times, but I held it back. I guess there’s no crying in baseball after all.

Special thanks to all the great people who made donations to USDFA so that I could participate in the event. They include:

J.P. Alexander

Ted Beatie

Pam and Bob Beisenherz

Lorane and Leo Black

Kimberly Bradshaw

Joel Bradshaw

Tom and Jean Brady

Jerry and Debbie Coburn

Wayne Coleman

Kelly J. Cooper

Dan Desroches

Polly Burr Drinkwater

Vivienne Esrig

Paul Ferrari and Pat Lash

Mike Ford

Marc Gordon

Rick Heller

Chris Holaday

Mark Kanter and Lynne Glickman

Richard Kasak

Seamus Kearney

Shariann Lewitt and John Irvine

Dan McCourt

Patricia McKay (nee Kloss) and Mike and Drew

Tom Nahigian

Patricia Nicholson and Wil Van Dinter

Bill Nowlin

Eric Paul

Robin’s Remembrances

“JB” Segal

Ed Seksay

Bonnie Sinnock and Aaron Jaffe

Jill Smith

David Southwick

Richard Smith

Mike Stein

Steve Steinberg

Heather and Julian Tan

Peggy and Serge Tan (aka “Mom and Dad”)

Jim and Melissa Tessmer

Maida Tilchen

Thanks also go to corwin, who has supported me through this and many other crusades in my life.

Thanks also go to Dave Valdez of the Dave Valdez Baseball Academy, for helping me get in shape for the event, and to all the coaches at Live The Dream for top notch instruction in our pro camp.

Thanks must also be extended to one man, Rob Novotny, for having the vision and the drive to make this whole event happen. Without him, none of us would have gotten the opportunity to make a difference in the world. Rob, you’re my hero. (Now get some sleep!)

Since I last wrote I’ve had the best catch of my life. I don’t mean a caught ball in the outfield, I mean best game of catch. Chiba, one of the Japanese players, and I went down to the batting tunnel after we woke up from a brief one hour nap.

I’ll get back to that story later. I’m going to take over announcing for a bit now… I’m in the press box where there are plugs and desks for laptops typing this. Rob is fading and needs relief so I am going to take over announcing duties from him.

Okay, I’m back. I just spent the past hour being the play by play announcer for the Apple webcast. They are webcasting live video to the Apple site. They have three cameras set up here, and it looks really good. I spoke with corwin earlier and he said he was able to watch my first at bat.

Speaking of at bats, here’s what happened in my third and final shift. I woke up from my nap very bleary and stiff, about forty five minutes before I was due to take the field again. I drank a large quantity of lemon lime soda, spiked liberally with powdered sports drink mix. I must have really needed the electrolytes again because it tasted really good. (I walked up to Weeks, who was back in the dugout for us, chugging my green fizzing concoction and he asked me what it was. “Breakfast of champions,” I replied…) It was excruciating to put my contact lenses in. My left eye would not stop watering and for a while I thought I must have had something stuck in it. I took the lens out, washed it with solution, and put it back in. No, it’s just that my eyeballs are swollen and tired. But I cannot play without the contacts. After about fifteen minutes the pain subsided.

Then I slathered my legs with the sample of this muscle rub product we received free from a local supplier. It’s pepperminty, and also has some kind of natural something… I can’t remember now what the hell it’s called. Some kind of fatty acids. Anyway, it got the circulation going and dulled the pain in the pulled quad for about an hour.

Then Chiba and I had our catch. She and I met yesterday during the pro camp drills, doing stretches and exercises that strengthen the arm that take a partner. She counted in English and I counted in Japanese. (Actually I could only count to five and she taught me the rest.) We are on the same squad and I told her we needed a special handshake for when we score or get a hit. We made one that is similar to the one Matsui and Soriano use, with two on-top fist bangs and then a bow with hands clasped in prayer. And we got to use it a few times! Mostly because Chiba is a great player, she hits well, plays first base, and even pitches. She is also somewhat older than the other Japanese players. Most of them are 20-21 years old, but Chiba-san is in her late thirties, like me.

Anyway, the catch. We went down in the batting tunnel and just threw the ball back and forth. I was so tired that I couldn’t really concentrate on it–instead mechanics took over and it was just automatic. It was almost like someone else was doing the throwing and catching and it seemed effortless. I dropped a few, but it didn’t seem to matter. The ball flew back and forth between us almost of its own accord. My arm feels great–the one part of me that doesn’t hurt.

Then we got out to take the field. I could barely get my legs going to get out to left field. Then Frey came out and said the words I was so gratefull to hear: “I’m going to put Jan in left. You’re the extra hitter this time.” (The EH is the same as the DH, basically.) Thankyouthankyouthankyou! My sore legs and I went to sit on the bench. Suh-weet!

Unfortunately, my at bats were not that memorable. The first one I fouled the first ball off the plate, but the umpire did not call it foul and so I got a late start running and was out. Kevan Burns was coaching first at that point and as I peeled off he asked “Was it foul?” “Hit the plate.” “You want me to argue?” “Naw, I got plenty more at bats tonight.” It was one of the Japanese girls pitching (I think it was Kitta?) and she was probably the best pitcher we saw all day. She could change speeds, and also throw very fast, and drop in a little curve from time to time. I struck out twice after that, once because I was just too tired to swing the bat. She gave me two great pitches to hit in a row, right in my zone middle out, and I could not get the bat there. The next at bat I took a lighter bat up there, 24 ounces, and that time she got me looking. I can’t remember now what order the fouls and balls thrown over my head were, but it was 2-2 and two balls had sailed over my head (I had ducked down on both). Another one came high and I realized I was just too tired and slow to be standing in there. So I ducked again, but it was the curve that dropped in for a strike. Later Kitta and I were chatting and she told me that it was her first time pitching in over a year. Her English is limited but I think she was saying that in Japanese women’s baseball, they don’t pitch regularly so they only pitch when they go out of the country? (Does a coach pitch? Not sure.)

Then I went off shift, and Jeneane Lesko, from the All American Girls Professional Baseball League took the mound for the Red Eyes. She’s a lefty. I wonder how many years it has been since she pitched in a game? It’s now 5:50 am and she is still out there. She is going to do the whole shift, it would appear. Me, I’m now going to take my contacts out and try to get a little sleep!

I just noticed the sky is starting to lighten. The sky just changed from a flat black velvet surface to a horizon again, the ridges of mountains beyond centerfield visible in the bare glow. Maybe I’ll stay awake just a little longer to see the sun rise.

I have just had my first major league shower.

And damn it felt good. It is patently clear that this is the locker room of the team with the tallest player in the majors, because the showerheads are set so high it’s hard to reach them when you’re 5’4″ like me.

We just had a phone call from Dontrelle Willis, who pitched two-something scoreless innings tonight in Yankee Stadium. (The Marlins won 3-2–the turning point being when Pudge picked Nick Johnson off third. Ouch.) Dontrelle, just last year, was in the minors in Kane County, Illinois, and the host family he stayed with have a daughter named Stacey who plays baseball. She is one of the pitchers on my squad in this game, and she’s great–so outgoing and friendly to everyone. Kind of like Dontrelle, I guess! He has stayed close with the family and there was a piece in USA Today about them last week when Dontrelle was pitching in Chicago in the NLCS. Anyway, through Stace we got Dontrelle on the phone and put him over the PA system and onto the game broadcast. Dontrelle’s message to all of us playing: “Enjoy it!”

I finally got a hit, and scored a run. When my second shift started, I was the leadoff batter. I had spent the previous few hours feeling queasy again, drinking Powerade, trying to eat something, and watching the first 7 or so innings of Game One of the World Series. I kept telling myself: you will not be queasy when the time comes. You will feel fine. At 7:45 or so I went down to the batting tunnel and threw for about five minutes with a woman named Kathy. (Cathy? Kathe? I’ll have to look it up in the progam.) At this point I am so tired I am definitely not remembering names well and how to spell them is another story entirely.

So I led off nice and fresh, and faced Kelly, whose last name I have now forgotten but who we have all been calling “The Stud.” (Wait, I remembered. It’s Manzie. Again, not 100% sure on the spelling.) She’s the one player from Australia and she is GOOD. She’s a lefty, she can play all the positions, and she can pitch. I decided I was not going to let her get ahead in the count. The first pitch she threw me was middle away and I smacked it right up the first base line, a hard shot that hit the bag and kangarooed into the outfield. As I stood there panting on first, the umpire came over and said “You ought to be on third by now!” I replied, “That would require me to run faster than I do!”

John Denny, Jr. gave a special clinic on how to take a lead yesterday, and how to do a “delayed steal” after all our regular work was done, so give him part of the credit for my run. Step, step, shuffle, shuffle, then secondary lead… I did it several times, on each pitch, and then saw a pitch that looked like it was heading for the dirt. It was funny, it was like it was all happening in slow motion. As the pitch left Kelly’s hand I could see it was going to be low, so I turned my shuffle into a break for second. I think the ball might have actually hit the dirt and rolled away. By then I was busting it for second so I have no idea if I was credited with a delayed steal or if it was a passed ball/wild pitch. Who cares? I was on second.

Jeneane was yelling to me to get off the bag, and telling me whether I was okay, based on where the shortstop was. I got a good lead, took off for third on a grounder that ended up getting through or something; I don’t know–I was just watching Jeneane who was waving me in. I scored standing up. I believe this was in the 24th inning, but I can’t be sure.

I had a couple of long sprints in the outfield, playing left again, and pulled my right quad. It hurts. I got more and more hobbled as the innings went on. My whole squad got quite tired. Our squad captain, Lisa Frey of Little Fall, NJ, who is a great player, let a couple of balls get by her as we were all getting lead-footed. I told her the story about Joe DiMaggio, the one where he said he knew it was time to hang ‘em up when he would think “go get that ball” and his body would say “who me?” Our last inning in the field I think we gave up seven runs. Why are the Red-Eyed Nites more tired than the African Gray Birds? Perhaps our name doomed us?

The score now stands 70-43 Gray Birds. But we have 12 hours still to make up the runs…

Time for me to find some food and perhaps sleep for an hour or two. The live bands are wrapping up at midnight and then DJ TC Wildman will play and spin tunes until 8am.

I have no idea how I am going to make it through the 2-4 am shift, which should be my last shift. I can barely walk right now, much less run. More later.

Ow. Ow. Ow. Well, if I thought I might be less tired and less sore today… I was wrong. If I felt yesterday like I had been hit by a car, today I feel like I was run over by a monster truck. Repeatedly. My feet are very sore, worse than they get for a trade show. My head hurts, and my stomach is a bit queasy. My roomie from Colorado thinks that might be a touch of altitude sickness. I don’t have many individual muscles sore so much as I feel just like my entire body is gassed. It’s very odd, because I don’t think I’ve ever felt this way before. I feel sort of like I spent the day moving thousands of fifty pound rocks–except that I didn’t.

Oh well, time to try some more hot water and ibuprofen. Or maybe I should switch to Tylenol.

I’m going to hobble downstairs and grab some breakfast. Then it will be time to pack up and head to the field.

***

3:30 pm

Well, I was the last player to the field today, so I ended up with an extra large size jersey, which was all that was left. As usual, the larger the jersey the higher the number, so I took number 55. (Matsui’s number.) Given the way I played in left, though, I probably should have taken Manny Ramirez’ number. It was a track meet out there. The only ball that was close to me was just beyond my reach and rolled to the wall. Then there was a high pop fly, deep but foul… except that it bounced right on the chalk and rolled into the corner, where it stopped dead instead of bouncing back to me… inside the park home run! I wonder who ran further, the batter or me? And then there was a line single that took one bounce and went right past me, to the track. All in the same inning. Pant, pant, pant.

I’m telling this out of order though. Let me back up to the beginning of the game. My squad played in the very first shift. In the first inning, I got up to bat (I’m batting seventh in the order) with two out, two runs in and men (women?) on second and third. I had a long at bat–facing Nicky Helms, the lefty pitcher from my team in Pawtucket! First time I’ve ever seen her from the batter’s box. She throws hard, but she threw two wild pitches at my feet, and they both brought runs in. So then the bases were empty. I had a nice rip–oh it felt good–but the first baseman (basewoman?) snared it! Argh! It did get me a nice high five from Weeks, though. An inning later he comes over to me and says “a foot or two either way and that’s a hit, nice rip.” It sounds a little silly, but the handshakes and backslaps from teammates, even when I make out, really make me feel good.

We’ve got two coaches, one All American Girl, Jeneane Lesko (nee DesCombes), and one Live the Dream coach–ours is currently Weeks (Chris Weekly) who I think I mentioned before. (Or maybe I just mentioned him as part of the group of “hot” guys…) If I am remembering Weeks’ story right, he’s currently a minor league free agent hoping to hook on with a team, and working with Kevan at Live the Dream this offseason.

Anyway, the inning where I ran all over the place really gassed me. My next two at bats I felt like I could hardly get the bat going, and I struck out both times. Once was with the bases loaded and no outs, and I could have taken a pitch in the shoulder. But I thought as she fired it in, hmm, if I get hit in the shoulder now, it’s going to hurt this entire 24 hour game… so I hit the dirt to make it a full count, then swung and missed the next one. Argh.

Then I played two innings at second base and the one chance I had to make a play was this. We had two outs and runners on the corners. The shortstop tells me: if it comes to me I’m going to give it to you at second for the force. She motions me about four or five steps toward second. The next ball hit is a grounder between first and second. I ran all out to my glove side and dove and rolled, just missed it. If I had stayed in position, I probably make that play–whoops. Ah well. When I came into the dugout Jeneane asked “were you leaning toward second?” “Yeah.” “With two outs, play more in the middle next time. You can’t anticipate a play at second.” “Okey doke, coach.” Learn something new every day. Now I grass stains on my pants though, which I think is kind of cool.

My shift is now over for the moment, and I’m in the clubhouse typing this. The third squad is about to take over. I’m about to tell this even more out of order though. Let’s back up to this morning.

When I took the shuttle this morning to the field, I was on the last bus over. I had lost my glasses inside the room somewhere. I am wearing my contacts, of course, but I wanted to give my eyes a rest at some points, so I thought, I’ll bring the glasses. I also brought dry undershirts, clean clothes, shampoo, the computer, etc… practically everything. After I packed, I could not find the glasses. I unpacked everything, still nothing. Eventually, just when I had given up, I saw them on top of the TV cabinet. I must have stuck them up there without thinking about it.

In the shuttle over, I rode with Fleming. At some point I mentioned how much I was hurting, and he asked Lonnie Alley, who was driving, to stop at the Circle K and he bought me two Powerades. Even though I was pissing clear and often at that point, he said I probably needed to replace electrolytes and not just water. He must have been right because the green Powerade tasted great! Thanks, Doc!

I’m now drinking my second one, as I’m starting to feel a bit queasy again. I grabbed a sandwich about an hour ago and took some ibuprofen. I still feel as weak as water, but my body doesn’t ache quite so much. On the other hand my knees and my elbow tendon hurt from playing…

All right, back up, let me tell you about the very beginning of the game. The sky is a completely clear blue, and it is very very hot today. The two teams are the African Gray Birds (in gray shirts) and the Red-Eyed Nites. I’m on the red team. We’re the home team, in white pants and black hats. The Grays are in gray pants with a black hat with gray bill. We lined up with us along the third base line and them along the first base line. Rob made a short speech, some players sang the national anthem along with the organist and a young player named April Poe who played the sax. I and most of my teammates sang, too. (April is here with her mom Debbie Russell–they drove all the way here in a red convertible from Alabama. Hot damn!)

Then Ted threw out the first pitch (he bounced it) and we took the field. And the overwhelming feeling I had as we took the field was: we belong here. This field is ours. For the next twenty four hours, this is our turf.

Is that what guys feel like when they make the majors? Or even the minors? I just felt like, wow, I’ve made it.

I’d feel even better now, of course, if I’d gotten that hit or caught one of those balls, but I’m not really that worried about it. I have a bunch more at bats coming to me at 8pm, and again at 2am.

Oh yeah, last I looked, the score was 14-8 Grays. But that was two hours ago. Ah, someone just told me it’s 26-16 Grays.

Oh my god I’m sore. My legs, my back, my butt, my feet. I woke up this morning feeling like I’d been in a car wreck. (Actually, I didn’t feel anywhere near this bad after my motorcycle accident!) Given how much ibuprofen i am taking to keep the arm swelling down, it’s scary to think how achy I would be if I weren’t.

And we didn’t even work out that hard yesterday! I think the combination of the altitude (3000 feet?), dehydration, and the lack of sleep have combined to give me lactic acid buildup in every muscle fiber I have.

The result of the soreness was that today I was pretty much a mess in clinic. I couldn’t get down on ground balls, couldn’t swing, and could barely throw. Throwing actually was not too bad in the catch portion of things. Jen Rado, who also plays for the Slaterettes, was my partner, just like yesterday, and we were both pretty accurate. But when we were taking grounders at second, I could not get the ball to the catcher on the fly.

And what is up with my swing? Yesterday I hit so well. Today I couldn’t even get the ball off the tee straight, and in the cage I was hitting these Baltimore chops, and even swinging and missing. I hope the soreness is less tomorrow or it’s going to be brutal at the plate. Hopefully I get a nice hot soak tonight and work out some of this.

***

So I never finished writing about yesterday’s clinic. John Denny, Cy Young Award Winner, came and addresses the group, and his son is one of our instructors, too. He talked about pitching, and also took questions. In answer to being asked who the most interesting player he played with was, Denny told the following story about Mike Schmidt. I’m paraphrasing here:

“Back when I played in Philadelphia there was this one guy, you know how there is always this one leather-lunged guy in the stands? We were always trying to pick him out, he must have been forty rows up behind third base but no matter where he sat you could always hear him. He would rag on anybody but he especially liked to get on Schmitty. Well one day, I’m on the mound, and I’m getting ready to pitch (Denny takes his stance) and suddenly the umpire calls Time! Time! The catcher hasn’t moved, the batter hasn’t moved, and I’m wondering what’s up? I look over to the first base side and nothing’s going on. I look over to the third base side, and there’s Schmitty, walking toward me. (Imitates a slow shuffle.) He eventually reaches the mound, picks up the rosin bag, dabs some on his arms and on his hands, puts it down. Looks at me. I ask him, what’s up? He kind of shakes his head, looks at his shoes, and then he says, ‘That guys been riding me all day. I just wanted to get away from it for a while.’”

***

Several former players from the AAGPBL (All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, the women’s league from the World War II era that the movie A League of Their Own was based on) are here to help coach. They even participated in some drills with us and shagged flies during BP.

Overheard during a barehand drill from one of these fine ladies: “Wow, this is hard with bifocals!”

***

For those of you who are not familiar with girl talk, it mixes uniquely with locker room talk in women’s baseball. Especially when you mix female baseball players with good-looking minor league players as coaches. While we were waiting for the shuttle bus back to the hotel yesterday several women were sitting on the curb comparing notes. All the coaches were well-liked and each taught us a ton. But as we were chatting we realized that we had each remembered the names of all the “hot” guys, but not all of the other guys. Are we really that shallow? Yup, can’t help it. The cuter a guy is, the easier it is to remember his name–just a fact of life. We then got considerably off the topic of hitting tips…

Overheard today during throwing drills. One woman was paired up with one of the aforementioned hot guys. At one point she threw the ball over his head and he went to chase it. The woman in line next to her: “You just did that to get a look at his ass, didn’t you.” (This was followed by more wild throws.)

***

Today we had a tour of the facilities at Tucson Electric Park, including the press box, underground batting cages, and the Diamondbacks clubhouse–which is now our clubhouse. Unfortunately the couches and the ping pong table have been packed into storage for the off-season, but it’s still pretty cushy. The card table with the dominoes set is still there.

***

Tonight we meet the founder of US Doctors for Africa, Ted Alemahyu, and we may also find out our teams and squad shifts for the game. Last night Rob unveiled the nice uniform shirts they made for us, and tonight they will be passing them out. Are we excited about this? Yes.

***

After the meeting: well, the batting order is not yet done. As Rob put it, “It’s taking me a while. I’m putting together the most complicated batting order ever compiled. And I challenge anyone to refute that statement.” We did have a speech from Ted Alemahyu and the medical director of US Doctors for Africa, a Dr. Fleming. Or as he put it, “Leave off the doctor just call me Fleming it’s shorter.” We’re sleepy now and going to turn in. I soaked my legs in hot water and hopefully I’ll feel less sore soon… more tomorrow.

Can’t sleep. I’m so tired, my muscles are burning, but some part of me is so keyed up I can’t get back to sleep even though I’m exhausted.

Yesterday (today?) was probably one of the best baseball days of my life. It would have been anyway, even if the Yankees had not pulled off an unbelievable, improbable 11th inning win on a walk off homer from Aaron Boone. That was just the cherry on the sundae as far as I’m concerned.

Pro camp was amazing and great. Kevan Burns and his wife? partner? Clarissa Marquez run this baseball instruction business called Live The Dream. For us they pulled in a dozen ballplayers and coaches, from guys who have been in the minor leagues for a couple of years to some current college coaches who have already been through their pro time. Some even had a cup of coffee in the majors. They’re all incredibly nice and, damn, but there is so much to know about this game, even five minutes spent with any of them would already expand anyone’s knowledge of the sport. We got to spend all day with them.

I think I’m feeling the altitude as well as the heat and dryness, because yesterday I felt out of breath pretty much no matter what we did. I’m out of shape, but not THAT out of shape.

We did all kinds of things that are like what major leaguers go through in spring training. Agility drills to give us quick feet. “Ladder” drills. Jumping over little hurdles in the grass, side-stepping around cones, etc. Then we worked on various stuff. I worked with the infielders on short hops, “getting around the ball” (I never knew what that meant before), getting grounders to the glove side/backhand, etc. This was all with them just rolling the balls to us and us working on the footwork and mechanics. Very fun and already I know three times as much about infield play as I did two days ago.

And batting practice. Oh, the most fun of all. They wanted us to take two bunts, then do two hit-and-runs hit through the second base hole, then two grounders to right to move the runner, then five to the opposite field. For right handed hitters, that meant going to right pretty much all the time. I missed my first bunt, but otherwise damn but I hit good. If you’ve been reading this journal previously you probably know I have an inside out swing (which I learned from watching Derek Jeter on TV, no I’m not kidding about that). So hitting to right is no problem. I hit some good shots into the gap, too. I feel good with the bat in my hands.

We also took swings off a tee and were supposed to do soft toss, but after 25 swings off the tee, my wrist/elbow tendon flared up, so I sat out the rest. By then it was 4:45 anyway.

My brother Julian was at Yankee Stadium by then, in the seats that I had bought weeks ago from a rest area in Florida via cell phone to Ticketmaster when they had gone on sale. I later realized of course that I would be in AZ for the 24 hour game and mailed the tickets to him. I called him for the batting order but he hadn’t gotten to his seats yet. Then my parents called from Florida to say hi and ask if I was watching the game–I told them I was at a beautiful field in Arizona, with a perfect blue sky overhead and mountains all around, but no, no TV nearby.

So Dad gave me the play by play of the first inning. As the commercial break came for the top of the second, I hung up the phone as we were nearing the hotel. When I walked into the lobby, I suddenly found the score was 2-0. In those short minutes I was out of touch, Trot Nixon went deep with a man on. Argh! I felt, of course, that this was somehow my fault. I sat down in the lobby and did not leave it until the game was over. No shower, no dinner out. I was glued to that television and refused to move except to refill my water glass or grab a snack from the microwave (breakfast is served daily in that lobby). When I finally decided to get up and leave the room was right before the bottom of the 11th, when I thought, dang, time to change the luck here. I thought if the Yankees didn’t win it in the 11th, they were going to lose it based on Wakefield and the Boston bullpen, versus all the Yankees had left in their bullpen (Weaver, Contreras and White). So I finally got up and went to pee. The astonishing thing about this was that despite drinking gallons (not exaggerating) of water all day, I had not had to pee since about 11:30 in the morning. And I didn’t really HAVE to go then, either, but I felt I could. So I did. I came back and wham, Aaron Boone hits that home run.

I still don’t quite believe that they won it. I really thought after the Red Sox took game 6, that they were going to take game 7 too. A sign hung at the stadium said “Mystique Don’t Fail Me Now.” Mystique was there, and so was Jason Giambi’s batting eye. Two solo home runs, plus that shot yesterday makes three homers in two days. Unbelievable.

Okay, I’ve been typing for twenty minutes. We have to be in the lobby at 7:15 am to catch the shuttle to camp today. I feel mighty beat. Every muscle is sore, no doubt a combination of dehydration, altitude, and all the work we did. And not sleeping. It’s just exciting to be here. Is this what Aaron Boone felt like this week?

Just got back from breakfast with my roomie, Theresa MacGregor. We’re here at the Amerisuites by the Tucson airport, along with a couple dozen other women baseball players. If you’re just tuning in, we’re here as part of a fundraiser/awareness-raiser called “24 Hours for Africa.” It’s like the AIDS Ride or the Breast Cancer marathon–each participant has to raise a certain amount of money in order to participate. In this case our “marathon” is a 24 hour baseball game played by women players from all around the USA, plus we have some players from Japan and Australia.

The whole thing was the brainchild of Rob Novotny, the vice president of American Women’s Baseball. Rob has been touring the country for the past six months, recruiting players, drumming up sponsorship, arranging details, so that the event will happen. He’s been living off his credit cards all this time, but he believes in the cause, which is to save lives in Africa. US Doctors for Africa is on a mission to provide adequate drugs therapy and training for medical personnal so that mothers with HIV can go through childbirth without passing the virus on to their infant.

Steven Seagal is our honorary spokesperson. The whole thing is being broadcast live from the Apple Computer web site (http://ali.apple.com/24hours/). The game records are going to be archived in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. It’s a pretty big deal.

But the action doesn’t start for a couple of days. First we have two days of pro baseball camp, hosted by Live The Dream. I arrived last night just in time to see the Cubs go down in flames on hotel TV. Ah, heavy sigh. Wait til next year.

The Amerisuites is pretty nice. Each room is small, but clean, two double beds plus a couch, fridge, microwave, coffee maker. They’ve stocked each room for us with water, juice, veggies, lunch meat, and some other stuff. We have all the frozen chimichangas and chicken nuggets we want.

Theresa is from Colorado and is two years older than me. She played on the US national team that went to the Women’s World Series in Australia this year. We conked out last night at 11pm Arizona time (which would be 2 am for me, but it just didn’t feel very late…) and woke up this morning around 7:30. I slept okay but a little fitfully–I kept having dreams about being here and also about the Yankees. (Typical dream logic: I’m wandering the halls of the hotel trying to find the chimichangas and Alfonso Soriano is with me, and we’re sure that if we can find the chimichangas he’ll get out of his slump.) I’m excited and hyper about being here, obviously. I feel sleepy now, which means that although I slept all night, I didn’t really sleep well. I also somehow slept on top of my sore arm. Not good. Tonight I think I will sleep on the couch to keep me from rolling over on it.

The arm, for those of you who don’t know me intimately, has been sore for about two or three weeks. The injury goes back to about six years ago, I pulled a tendon in my throwing arm/elbow that developed into tennis elbow. I went to physical therapy for it and it was fine for a few years. I wasn’t trying to play baseball then so the only issue was with typing and computer use. I rehabbed, though and was fine.

Then almost two years ago I tore the tendon pulling my suitcase through an airport. It got stuck in a doorway or something and I yanked on it to get it loose. The next day my arm swelled up, but I thought at the time it was just a recurrence of the tennis elbow. About eight months after that I finally went to see a doctor about it, and they told me I had a mass of scar tissue and needed PT and ultrasound therapy. So I went to about two months of PT and ultrasound last winter, got a Theraband to do exercises, and they let me loose to do the exercises on my own.

Since I had to do these arm exercises every day anyway, I decided it was time to get some other parts of my in shape, especially my chronically bad knees and back. Why? I wanted to play baseball somewhere this summer. At the time I didn’t even know where. So I added 50 leg lifts a day with 5 pound ankle weights to the routine, along with 200 sit ups.

The rehab worked. I played this past season with the Pawtucket Slaterettes and didn’t injure my arm, knees, or back the whole summer. Then our season ended and I slacked off a little. Still, the arm has been pretty much no trouble all summer as long as I keep stretching it.

But then the American League Division Series happened and I went to Yankee Stadium for Game Two. corwin and I screamed ourselves silly, and clapped and sang and all that. And the next day my arm was killing me.

I think it was from all the clapping. I had forgotten that clapping was one of the things that aggravates the tendon–and it had been so trouble-free that I forgot that it probably is still never going to be the same.

So I’ve been taking ibuprofen four times a day ever since then, to keep the swelling and discomfort down, but it doesn’t eliminate it entirely. I ought to not be typing, but I can’t help it.

Military jets keep flying over our hotel. The windows rattle and it sounds just like an Air Force tv commercial, but louder. I wonder how that works, what with the commercial airport being right here, too?

Not much else to report at this time. We had fun playing with the waffle makers this morning, though the carb-heavy breakfast may be part of what is making me feel so tired now. I’ve been eating low carb for about ten days now and I feel great. I’m not hungry all the time and I’ve lost three pounds. So having a waffle for breakfast was a huge shock to my system. I had a hard boiled egg and some yogurt, too, but Theresa and I both stocked up some peanut butter packets for later.

We’ve got a meeting at 11:30 and then pro-camp starts at one o’clock. It runs until 5, which is when the game in New York starts. (Arizona doesn’t do daylight savings time, so we’re currently three hours, not two, behind East Coast time…) “The game.” I mean the seventh game of the American League Championship Series, which is necesssary because the Red Sox surged yesterday. I was flying all day and the pilots kept updating us on the score. I even watched the (bad) turning point of the game from an airport bar. Argh. (See previous entry.) Theresa and I are planning to gather people in the hotel lobby to watch the game. More later.

October 15, 2003
5:20 pm (not sure what time zone)

I am flying on a plane as I write this, on my way to Tucson for the “24 Hours for Africa” women’s baseball marathon. I shouldn’t even be typing this because my elbow hurts, typing aggravates it, and I should be saving my arm for the game. But dammit I’m bored and the pilot just announced that the Yankees have lost Game 6 of the ALCS to Boston by a score of 9-6.

You knew that when these two teams got together there would need to be at least one slug-fest, and I guess that was it. I watched the crucial, awful inning from the Texas Stadium Sports bar in the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport while changing planes. Soriano and Jeter on second and third and one out and neither Giambi nor Bernie could cash them in. Then Nomar and Manny both whacked Contreras hard, on two pitches, Matsui threw a ball into the jetstream (is there some kind of wild wind at the stadium today? even the umpire’s shirt was flapping in it and Jeter kept squinting like a hairdryer was blowing in his face…), Heredia got squeezed by the home plate umpire and the score went from 6-4 Yankees to 7-6 Red Sox while I sat there.

For those of you who are monitoring my emotional state, after that last entry where I was channeling the urge to do severe damage to any fragile thing, I am okay with this. Yes, of course I want the Yankees to win. But you know, how could it come out any other way but for this series to go to a game seven? Fox TV must be loving this, both the Cubs series and this series pushed to seven games.

The way things unraveled for the Cubs last night was unbelievable. I was packing for my trip at the time, up in my bedroom on the third floor of the house. The bag I was trying to pack was too small for everything I need to bring (two pairs of baseball pants, glove, cleats, sunscreen, etc…). The Marlins had tied the game at three when I decided I needed a bigger bag. I went down to the basement to get one. When I got back upstairs, the Marlins had scored five more times (five!) to make it 8-3. So yeah, it can turn quickly on you.

The game I am going to Arizona to play won’t turn so quickly, I am betting. It’s going to be a 24 hour long game, and could be as many as 100 innings. So giving up eight runs in an inning won’t be insurmountable. Anyone want to take bets on the final score? Playing through the wee hours of the morning I would not be surprised if we don’t see some weak fielding and pitching which could run the score up considerably. I think it’s going to be 75-60. But I could be completely wrong about that.

So the Yankees and Red Sox play tomorrow for winner take all. It will be a rematch of Pedro-Clemens. High drama indeed. Is it fate? All I can say is what I said the other night as corwin and I were leaving the sports bar where we watched the Yankees take a 3-2 lead. “If the Red Sox can go to New York and beat us twice, they deserve to go to the World Series.”

I told some friends of mine that if the Red Sox did make the World Series, that I’d root for them, but right now I’m not sure if I can. I think I may have too many hard feelings regarding the Pedro-gone-mad incident. Not to mention at this point I am not sure I want to be associated with the people who overturned cars in Kenmore Square after the ALDS win. Trust me, I don’t believe all Yankees fans are saints, and I know many many knowledgeable and non-destructive Red Sox fans. But the feeling persists. I have a Red Sox visor I got as a giveaway at a game at Fenway earlier this season. But right now I don’t see myself wearing it.

Especially since for years the Cubs have been my underdog team. I believe all Yankees fans should adopt an underdog team to root for, to get the full experience of highs and lows of being a baseball fan, to keep us humble. How ironic would it be if the Cubs advance but the Yankees do not?

The Cubs game should be underway right now. It’s probably the second inning. After the tremendous let down last night, you have to hope Dusty Baker had some managerial magic to pump them up with. Maybe having Kerry Wood on the mound is enough to do that. Damn Fish.

So, say the Cubs win. If the Red Sox win, as I said, they deserve a place in the World Series. And for the Cubs to face the Red Sox? A dream match-up. Even as I write this, i can’t quite believe it can really happen. I’ve been joking about a Cubs-Sox series for so long, years and years, that for it to suddenly not be a joke and be real… it is like if Frodo and Gandalf walked out of the movie screen and into the theater at the end of the Lord of the Rings. It’s like a solar eclipse and Halley’s Comet and the planetary alignment all at once. It would be worth the Yankees losing if I could see a Cubs-Sox World Series in my lifetime.

I would love to see Yankees-Cubs also, of course. We had a little “preview” of it in interleague play this year, of course, Clemens trying to win #300 facing Wood, endless media mentions of the Babe’s “called shot.”

But the Marlins might mess it all up with a win tonight. Yankees-Marlins I would also not mind one bit, though it lacks the drama of Yankees-Cubs or Sox-Cubs. And then there could be Sox-Marlins, which would be ho-hum in my estimation. Oh it would be exciting, because the question would be, can the Sox either finally break the Curse or will the suffering continue as they are beat by an expansion team? Both dramatic outcomes, of course. The World Series is always high stakes.

So we’ll wait and see what happens tonight and tomorrow. I keep telling myself I am at peace with whatever happens in the Yankees-Sox series (especially if the Cubs pull it off). But then again, I told myself that in 2001, before Game 7 of the World Series. And I told myself after the loss, that night, that I was okay with it. Then the next day the crying started and I cried for a week. Yeah, okay, that dark time will bever be separable from September 11th, and the loss probably has less to do with the depression that set in than the pent up grief I had over the whole tragedy. The quick exit in 2002 didn’t even make me bat an eyelash. A flash of disappointment but then “wait til next year” came on.

So, I’m okay. No more urge to smash things. it helps that I have something else to focus on right now. I have my own at bats to worry about this weekend, my own fielding. I don’t even know what position I’ll play, so when I’m sitting in the plane and in airports and waiting for shuttles I do my positive visualization exercises. Sometimes I am at second base. Sometimes I am in right field. Sometimes I am at the plate. In every visualization I see the ball clearly. It is bright white, coming at me like it is a magnet and I am metal. I feel the ball inside my glove, in my hand, I hear the ping of the bat (we use aluminum).

I hear the ping of the bat and I watch a line drive sail between first and second and drop into right field. The runner on second scores as I chug into first.

Plating the 66th run of the game.

More from Arizona when I get a chance. I better stop typing now and save my arm.

Okay folks, get ready for a really personal one this time.

This entry isn’t about how the Yankees have executed three strike-em-out-throw-em-out double plays, or how they had four men reach base by base on balls and scored none, whereas they gave up only one walk and that was the winning run. This isn’t about ninth inning heroics being too little too late. This isn’t about Soriano swinging at everything off the plate, or about Jason Giambi and Aaron Boone both taking Wakefield deep–but foul.

Or maybe it is. I’ve just come home from the Coolidge Corner Clubhouse, a nice upscale sports bar in Brookline, Mass., where I witnessed the Yankees lose 3-2 to the Red Sox.

I have the urge to break things right now. I have the urge to take some large instrument of destruction like an axe (or a baseball bat?) and smash something into tiny pieces and then lie in a heap sobbing. There are three reasons for this feeling.

1) The aforementioned frustrating Yankees loss.

2) I didn’t take batting practice today, as I have just about every day for the past week.

3) I went to therapy with my boyfriend this morning and I’ve got a lot of frustration to let out there, too.

The Yankees losing normally wouldn’t cause such a mood swing in me. But it is October, and everything seems to mean more at this time of year, not just because of baseball but because of the echoes of September 11th. I’ve written before that for me baseball is my natural Prozac. Even a loss often injects some kind of lift into me. But not this one, not tonight.

The reason I have been taking batting practice all week is that I am getting ready to play in the Women’s Baseball Marathon, a.k.a. 24 Hours For Africa, a twenty four hour long baseball game being arranged by American Women’s Baseball as a charity event for US Doctors for Africa. It’s this weekend at the Chicago White Sox spring training complex in Tucson, Arizona. I’m going there along with 60+ women from around the USA, including some of the top players in the country. My season ended over a month ago, so to keep from being a total embarrassment on the field I signed up at the Dave Valdez Baseball Academy. Dave was drafted at age 16 in the Dominican Republic but as far as I can tell, never made it all the way up the ladder of the major leagues. Doesn’t matter–he’s great. He has set up a baseball school inside the batting cages at Good Time Emporium. On any given afternoon from 3pm to 7pm you’ll find 15-20 students, ranging in age from six to forty two doing soft toss drills, working on pick off moves, footwork, etc…

Dave is fond of saying that hitting a baseball is better than having a boyfriend or girlfriend. (No, I don’t know what his girlfriend thinks of that.) I think that’s the cleaned up version of the saying, actually, since there are usually kid around when he says it. He says it with a wink. Last week we did soft toss one day, Dave pitched us live BP indoors, one nice day we even went outdoors. After watching one of my balls sail deep to left and into a soccer field (holy crap–it might have been one of only ten times in my life that I’ve pulled the ball!), I might have to agree with him. When you absolutely connect, it feels for an instant like everything is right with the world, like you’re centered in the universe.

That’s a feeling I have not had very often in recent years–since September 11th, really. But beyond the larger disturbances of the geo-political spectrum, things have not been right in my home.

I won’t air out too much dirty laundry here, but let’s just say my boyfriend and I have been having Relationship Problems. We’ve been together for almost twelve years. Our anniversary is coming up next month, in fact. Another anniversary we have next week is it will be one whole year since we have been going to couples therapy.

I want to break something. I want to hack away on something that will smash or splinter. But I’m afraid if I actually do, I’ll hurt myself. So I’ll save it for Arizona.

This morning in therapy I told him how frustrated I am. We work on all kinds of little issues of communication and how to get along, but I don’t know what to do about the big, fundamental differences in how we each see this relationship. Let’s put it this way–the way things are now, I’m never going to marry him. I’m never going to have that big ceremony and say vows and all that. I won’t get into the gory details why–that would take at least twenty pages to explain, and that would be the short version. We love each other but we have some incompatible needs and expectations.

I kept thinking I could just change my needs and expectations. I have always been able to adapt myself before–to make myself happy, in a way. But there are limits and I keep butting up against a concrete wall of certain things that it appears I fundamentally cannot do without, but can’t seem to get in our current situation.

Put simply, this sucks.

What does all this have to do with baseball? Oh, I want to resist making a giant metaphor out of tonight’s game, but I’m not going to. Mussina pitched well. Very well. And the Yankees executed well in the field. They did all the little things right — Matsui decoying Millar to keep him at third, Posada perfectly playing the rundown on a botched double steal attempt, Mussina getting a double play grounder off the bat of pinch-hitting Jason Varitek after walking Bill Mueller to load them up intentionally. I feel that corwin and I do a lot of the little things right, too. We get along great. We don’t fight or argue. And where we have conflicts, we are working them out. It takes practice, just like turning the double play, to have effective communication. We are fine-tuning the way we co-exist all the time.

But you know what? Varitek beat out that double play ball. Just safe. And the winning run scored. No matter how well Moose, Jeter, Soriano, and Johnson worked together there, there was someone else who had influence in how that play turned out: the batter. And he made the beautifully orchestrated ballet of the infield fail. At some point things are no longer abstraction, no longer ideas–they are real. Points get put on the board. The game ends.

Of course in a relationship no one is counting the outs. We’ve each hung in there with each other through a lot–you don’t get through twelve years by accident. But at what point does frustration hasten the end? How much misery is too much? Pedro knows something about frustration, wouldn’t you say? I am not the type to take my frustrations out on other people. But I did let it out today, in front of the best umpire, our therapist. That made corwin cry but I never got him to tell me everything he was feeling. At one point I said things weren’t working and he replied “That makes me feel so many things, none of them good.”

I want to bust something up. I want to take a two by four and go at a television set. Does Mike Mussina feel that way, sometimes? He can pitch his heart out but he can’t swing the bats for the nine guys in the lineup. You do your part and you hope for everyone else to do theirs. I feel like I’ve done all I can. I’ve made my best pitch. But I’m going to be on the losing end of the score if corwin lets this one go to the backstop.

All right. I really stretched that metaphor until it broke. Baseball is not life, no matter how important it may seem in October. I’ve just got to keep trying and see what happens. Meanwhile I better take out my frustrations on the ball. I have at-bats waiting for me in Arizona.

(Re-posts of my 2003 player diary will be continuing daily! Tune in tomorrow for more!)

July 26 2003

I had to miss Wednesday’s game because of the writing class I’m teaching, but I heard we won. That made the team’s record 6-2 (with two rainouts and one game cancelled for lack of umpires) before today’s game. The only two losses were both to the same team: Carter & Carter. We played them today.

We beat them by so much that they abdicated after four innings.

The game started at 10am instead of 9am, so that a game that was stopped in the middle for rain last week could be finished first. So we started an hour late as it was.

Our team pattern seems to be to take pitches until we find out if the pitcher on the mound has much control. Usually they don’t, especially in the early innings. So we build up a lead by getting a lot of people on with walks and hit-by-pitch and a few hits here and there. Our own pitchers are often a little wild to start the game, too, but somehow we usually hold them.

Well, today we batted around in the first inning, and then we batted around again in the second inning. At this point I can’t even remember what I did and when. Some walks, I also got hit in the sneaker… it’s hard to keep track of who did what when the game gets that out of hand. At one point it was 14 – 4, I think, or maybe it was only 14-2. The lead at the end of four was fifteen runs (18-3? something like that) and two hours had gone by. Doc, the C&C coach, saw how tired his pitchers were getting (I lost track of how many of them there had been…) and threw in the towel.

Did I mention baseball is more fun when we win?

July 28

We had a game against Darlington Liquors that had the most exciting finish of any game we’ve played thus far. We’ve had a lot of blowouts, as I’ve mentioned. Not tonight.

Brenda was really on her game, throwing strikes, even mixing in som breaking balls that had nice wrinkles in them. At one point the umpire, Tom, joked that he was going to have to check her pockets for illegal substances or implements. We got her a lead with a run in the first, but not our usual first inning explosion. Then got another four runs in a pretty good inning–I walked on four pitches, went to third on a double off Nicky’s bat, but there were two outs and Sherri grounded out to end the inning.

Unfortunately our infield had one of those freak innings in the fourth, where a lot of grounders bounded off gloves and other weirdness. They ended up getting four runs off Brenda that inning, who didn’t deserve such a fate when she had two strikes on every batter and their soft hits were just not being handled by the infield. I was in right field at the time and helpless to do anything about it. That put the score at 5-5 going into the fifth inning.

In the top of the fifth we did not score. So going into the bottom of the inning, with it starting to get dark, we had a feeling we needed to hold them or it was possible they might call the game off after 5 and declare a winner. With two outs they had one on and the batter at the plate sent a ball deep into left center. Sherri, who normally catches but didn’t this time, was out there and had to chase it down. She had to run all the way to the fence, grab the ball. She fired a huge throw to Beth at short, her cutoff, who threw the ball right to Jen at the plate, who tagged the runner out to end the inning. What a great play! Tie game!

As predicted, the ump then called the game for darkness. We will have to play one more inning against them at some later date.

July 29

Diane, understandably, wanted to work on our defense tonight in practice. But she gave a really good speech first. I can’t recreate it here, I just can’t do her justice. But the gist of it was, look, don’t get down on yourselves, you’re a great team, and the bad inning was a learning experience. Among other things, she said, she learned some of the limitations and abilities of the team. She probably won’t play Stacey at third again, but she probably WILL play Beth at short and Andrea at second again. She also said it was her fault for leaving Brenda in there too long, that she should have just brought Nicky in to pitch and not listened when Brenda insisted her arm was fine. Brenda really had pitched well, but sometimes you need to turn the tide.

In practice, Brenda played third. When I got up to bat she was starting to get bored, because no one was really pulling the ball. She lit up a cigarette and was yelling to me to hit one to her. “Come on, knock the butt out of my mouth!” I don’t think she thought I really would, but then I hit one right toward her and she had to put the butt in her mouth to free her hand to field the ball. Then I hit another one toward her. Interesting–I’ve never been able to pull the ball before. Maybe I just needed the right incentive.

Overall I’ve shortened my batting stance and when I remember to let the bat head droop a little back toward the umpire/catcher, which was Diane’s suggestion, I am able to fire the barrel a little more aggressively. I then hit a couple of liners and hard hoppers to short stop that sounded really good off the bat, but still probably would have been outs in the game. (Andrea handled them pretty nicely.) I also had one hard shot up the middle that went off Lori, who was pitching at the time, who then shouted “Hey, I’m on your team, remember?” I guess I was hitting the ball pretty hard, but I’m still generally not getting it out of the infield. The hits I’ve had in games were just the ones that went through. Something to work on…

Tomorrow’s game I have to miss for that class again, and there are no games this weekend because of the Montreal tournament, which I’m not going to. Our next game is Wednesday of next week–our nemesis Carter & Carter again. After the spanking we gave them last time, though, we feel pretty confident we can beat them.

Then we’ve got the New England Classic tournament, one more regular season game, and the league all-star game. Unless we’re going to make up the three cancelled games, that will be it for the season. Hard to believe it’s August already, but it is!

August 6

Tough game tonight. We won it 9-2–beating Carter & Carter once again, in a darkness-shortened four-inning game. The tough part was that Brenda, who took the mound for the top of the fifth, got hit in the face with a ball and broke her nose. Hardly anyone saw it happen–it was during warmups. Somehow Nicky threw her a ball she wasn’t ready to receive and it got her right on the nose. Brenda went down immediately, her hands on her face. I was there for that game at Fenway Park when Bryce Florie got hit in the face with a line drive–this wasn’t quite so dire, but we were all pretty shook up nonetheless. It took about twenty minutes to get Brenda off the field–it was a while before she could stand up and get the blood flow stanched. Thank goodness Diane is an M.D. and keeps the medical kit at the ready. Once we got Brenda off the field, Diane made some phone calls to surgeon friends of hers to get them down to meet us at the hospital. Well, not all of us. Even though it was pretty dark, the umps for the game, two really young guys, decided we should keep playing. So Anne took Brenda off to the hospital and the rest of us stayed to play.

There was perhaps a bit of controversy about that–it sounded to us like the umps wanted to call it, and by the rule it is their decision, but Doc, the C&C coach, pressured them to keep the game on. I was reminded that Doc was the one who was an hour late to photo day, too. The league decided to just take one group photo of all the major division players there, and did, instead of doing each team, since there were so many absentees and since Doc’s team didn’t even have their uniform shirts because he had them with him. As the photographer was packing up, Doc finally showed, and then forced the photographer to take a photo of his team, also. Is he one of those men who believes the rules can always be bent for him specially? I don’t know him that well, obviously, so I can’t judge. You figure anyone who puts in the time and energy to volunteer coach is a good person at heart. But jeezus, we already sent one player to the hospital who didn’t see the ball coming back to her, did he want it to be one of his players next? The umps saw sense when they realized they couldn’t even see the ball coming in from the pitcher. Thank goodness.

Anyway, we remain in first place as far as we know. It would appear we’ve lost only two games, while our nearest competitor has lost five. So with two games left to play (three, if you count the one inning we need to pay to settle the one tie we had), we’re basically a mathematical lock for first place.

Tonight we also voted on our All Star team selections. Diane had us vote instead of her picking. What she said was “As far as I’m concerned you’re all All Stars. We’re the best team in the league, so what I’d like to see is, hey, let them pick All Stars from the other three teams and then let that team play us!” But that’s not how they’re doing it, so we had to pick six.

It was hard to decide who to vote for. I narrowed it down to eight, but then I just had to cross two people off my list at random. Everyone has contributed one way or another this season–it was hard to have to leave people off.

Saturday we play the makeup inning against Darlington Liquors, and then we have a makeup game from a rain out against ISL. By the way, I finally found out what ISL is. Insurance Specialists something-or-other. And Carter & Carter is a construction company, apparently.

August 9

Ouch. I had my worst day at the plate ever today–I was never on base once. Three at bats, three strikeouts. Tony, who is usually a very consistent umpire, today was calling balls that were at my ankles strikes. Even moving far up in the batter’s box, I couldn’t golf those low pitches. I fouled off a lot of balls today, but it was either swing and miss the low pitch, or take the low pitch for a called strike. Can’t hit it either way, may as well go down swinging. ow that I think about it, I had a strikeout just like that the other night, too, when the young ump was calling the really low stuff, too. I guess I need to learn to hit that unhittable pitch.

The plan today was we were going to show up at the field around 10:30, so we would be ready to play one inning against Darlington Liquors after their game with Carter & Carter. But when we got to the field, there was no one there. Eventually someone called Sarah, the D.L. coach, who told them Carter & Carter couldn’t get enough players and so were going to reschedule the game. This set off another round of grumbling about how Doc wants to make his own rules–technically if you can’t get enough players for a game, you forfeit. Why Darlington would let them off like that, we don’t know. But anyway, it meant that no one was there, and the DL team didn’t come down until 12 noon.

My first at bat of the day was in that inning, the sixth. We did’t score, but neither did they. We scratched out a run in the seventh, though, and then held them scoreless in the bottom of the seventh, to add another W to the win column.

Between games Diane gave a little speech where she told us this was the firts year she coached since she had left the league years ago, after he husband had died. Joseph Thibeault had been president of the league, and he and Diane had often coached against each other, and sometimes umpired together. After he died, and the kids wanted out of the league, she gave it up. Diane got pretty choked up at that point, and so did we. “Thanks for giving it back to me,” she said, and we all clapped. Then she looked up at the sky and said “You see, Joe? They’re good kids. Take care of ‘em.”

Then came the game against ISL. They had a girl named Renee on the mound, #3, whom we had never seen before. She had almost no windup and a very tricky delivery–well, not tricky exactly, but just a very very small arm motion, almost like she was short-arming the ball, so it came from behind her ear. But she threw hard and fast and she threw strikes. And she was getting those calls on the low strike. It was such a change from what we are used to–i.e. pitchers who throw junk all over the place–that it took a couple of innings to get used to it. But then we couldn’t get our hits together. Nicky hit a huge double off her that was almost a home run–the closest anyone’s come this year to hitting one out–when she finally caught up to one of those fastballs, but most of us were swinging and flailing. Even Karen and Robin, who are our two best contact hitters, both struck out. Michelle maufactured a run herself when she walked, stole second, went to third on the throw, and then came in on a sac fly. Unfortunately, we ended up losing 3-2, the closest, lowest scoring game we’ve had all season.

I made the last out. As I said above, another strikeout. At the time I wasn’t that upset about it, but about fifteen minutes later, I really felt like sitting down in my car and crying. Stupid, I know, for a grown woman to feel that way. Maybe it was Diane’s speech that was still in my mind, getting me all misty. The feeling passed pretty quickly, though, and honestly, I’d rather play a game that I really care about than waste my time on something that doesn’t mean anything to me.

I was already planning, as I left the batters box, to spend some time in the batting cage. Then Diane made it official, telling us each to do that instead of practice on Monday. I’ll go somewhere up here and save the mileage on my car.

We play ISL again Wednesday, and then we have one more make-up game against Carter & Carter the Monday after All Star day. And that’s our season. I’d like to get a couple more hits under my belt before it’s over!

August 12

So today I drove down to Good Time Emporium, a pool hall, amusement place that is a giant warehouse with sports showing on giant projection TVs everywhere, and also has a baseball batting cage. It’s one of the few cages near metro Boston that is self-serve. What I mean is, of course they have cages at Strike One in Danvers and such, but you have to have a friend with you to feed the balls into the pitching machine. At Good Time you put your tokens in and the Iron Mike throws to you.

My plan was to take about 75 swings, but when I got to the cage I was surprised to find it was occupied by a man batting, a kid waiting, and a third man feeding soft tosses. The walls and tables just outside the cage were covered with photos and brochures. Turns out the third man feeding soft toss was Dave Valdez, former infielder for the Mariners and Dodgers. Apparently the Good Time cage has been transformed into the Dave Valdez Baseball Academy. Every day from 3pm to 7pm he offers clinics, running on a weekly schedule that goes through hitting, fielding, etc… and then offers private half hour sessions on Saturdays. It’s just $30 for a week’s membership in the academy, and $25 for members lessons, $30 for non-members. I was perusing the brochure when he came out of the cage to say hello. He shook my hand and introduced himself. I was tempted to sign up for a lesson just to see what he had to say–thirty dollars is pretty cheap–but of course I have plans to be in Pawtucket this Saturday! Dave showed me some photos of a clinic he taught at Trum Field to about twenty kids. He seems like a sweet guy. Then he asked me if I knew Donna Mills, which it turns out I do–she pitched for the Robins in the summer I hung around with the NEWBL teams. Then I think he said something like she’s his sister in law? Not 100% sure–by then he was back in the cage, a little far from me, and they have music playing in there and such. But what a small world, eh?

Anyway, it looks like he’s going to be set up there for quite a while, so maybe in the winter when I have no other options for places to work out I’ll take him up on that offer for a lesson.

August 14

So I went down to Rhode Island yesterday for our game against ISL. The weather has been soupy for about two weeks–every day hot, humid, and unsettled with sudden showers, thunder clouds, etc… coming and going all the time. Yesterday was no different. The sky was black and it was pouring when I left Boston, but by the time I went through my first toll booth it was sunny overhead. So who knew what we might get at Slater Field?

It was overcast and patchy when I pulled up at the field, just before game time thanks to stop-and-go traffic on I-95 South. “You’re the DH,” Diane told me. “I figured whoever showed up next would be in that slot, so you’re it.” That put me tenth in the lineup. Our team batted first and we were facing that same pitcher, Renee, who throws hard strikes. She’s the only one in the league I’ve seen pitch who throws hard enough that the ball hisses as it cuts the air on the way to the plate. She handled us pretty good the other day, but on this night she had first-inning control problems, and by the time three outs were recorded, three runs came in. We got them out pretty quick in the bottom of the inning, as rumbles of thunder came over the trees.

A large, dark thunder cloud was moving in as I stepped to the plate. Nie ominous rumble as I stepped into the batters box. By then Renee had her control back and was throwing strike one, so I decided if the first one was right in there, I was going to swing. Sure enough, the pitch was a high fastball, but not too high, and I put the best swing on it I’ve had all season! Unfortunately, the ball I whacked good and hard went right at the second baseman (basewoman?) and I was out by plenty. Dang! By the time I got back to the bench, Michelle was stepping in, but then she stepped back out as a flash of lightning was seen. “I’m not standing up there with a metal bat in my hand,” she said. Then large rain drops began to fall.

“It’s going to pass over, it’s going to pass!” Diane shouted as people began to scatter to their cars, grabbing bats and gloves as they went.

“I can wait 15 minutes but then we have to make a decision,” the umpire said. So we scattered to our cars. About the time I got into the driver’s seat, a huge flash of lightning and a sound like an explosion went off on the tennis courts about fifty yards from the field. Yowza. The rain then ame down so hard that the parking lot had three inches of water in it. After fifteen minutes of soaking rain, even though it was lightening up, the coaches and umpires decided the field was going to be too puddly to be safe. So they rescheduled the game for tonight.

Tonight the humidity was slightly less and the clouds not a threat. We had to start the game over again, wiping out our three runs. That was too bad, because we could have used them. Renee was on her game. Michelle, who had started the game for us yesterday, started for us again today and found her groove in the second inning. She even broke out a great little curve ball that not only fooled the batter, it fooled Tony the umpire! The only run they got off her in the early innings was a runner from third who scored on a passed ball/wild pitch. But in the fourth, I think it was, her control began to waver. Probably should have taken her out sooner, but Nicky’s elbow has been acting up and Brenda–what a trooper–was playing third, but I don’t think Diane wanted to put her and her broken nose back on the mound just yet. (Amazingly, Brenda doesn’t even look that much the worse for wear–just a touch of raccoon eyes.) So in that one inning they piled on 5 more runs.

By then I was out of the DH slot and playing left field. Murphy’s Law of the outfield seems to be this: whenever Diane tells me to play deeper, the next ball hit is a shallow pop fly that I have to run and run and run in to get… and can’t get because it’s just too far so it drops in for a hit. It happened to me twice in right field last week, and tonight in left. Sigh. I haven’t had a legitimate chance to make a play in the outfield all season. This makes me nervous that I won’t be ready when one finally comes near me!

Anyway, at the plate tonight, I had almost a replay of last night’s at bat against Renee. First pitch strike, first pitch swinging–this time a popped liner to second. Argh. My second at bat, though, I got to face another pitcher, Crystal, because Renee had planned to leave by a certain time–other plans, I guess. Crystal was a more typical Slaterettes style pitcher, not as hard and not as accurate. I walked on four pitches, moved to second on another walk, stole third/moved up on a passed ball (depending on how you look at it), and came in on a walk also. We put up three runs that inning, but going into the top of the sixth and final inning we were still down either 6-3 or 7-3, depending on whose scorecard you looked at. I came to the plate with it getting rapidly dark, with two outs and one on.

I just didn’t want to make that last out. By then Paula was on the mound, the mom whose daughter is her battery mate, and I knew I could hit her. I felt like my last two swings the past two days had been really good cuts. On a few of the strikeouts last week I had a bunch of foul offs, and I felt like my bat was really coming around–even though my trip to the batting cage had only been mental. So when Paula threw me a strike high and a little outside, I just whacked it and was very gratified to see a line drive to right that fell in front of the right fielder. So I was on. Typical inside-out swing for me! Then came another walk, etc… eventually I ended up on third base, with one run in and the go ahead run at the plate. Jen took a great cut at a pitch and it went deep into the outfield but just foul. The catcher was waving at it like she could help it foul with body english. Maybe she did. I had crossed the plate but had to go back. Jen made out on the next pitch, grounded in the infield. Ah well–we put up a good fight and it was a good game.

The All-Star game is Saturday morning–our team’s and ISL’s all star selections are on one team, and Darlington Liquors and Carter & Carter will be the other. hen we have our makeup game against C&C on Monday, and that is it for the regular season. But then we start practice for the Roy Hobbs tournament we are hosting. Diane is going to coach the tournament team, which makes me even more interested in playing in it! Which reminds me, I better get my player fee paid…

And looking ahead to October, I have sent out my first round of fundraising letters/emails for the AWB 24 Hour Game for Africa, women’s baseball marathon game. I am more than halfway to the minimum for sponsorship already! Woo hoo! So, Tucson, here I come…

August 16

The Slaterettes Major Division All Star Game was a hotly contested battle that our side ended up winning 6-5. The combined Narragansett Electric and ISL squad scored first, putting up three runs in the third via our typical method of getting a lot of people on base via the walk, and then timely hitting. Michelle pitched well through the first couple of innings but started to tire. We lost the lead though when Brenda got some bad breaks on the mound–they were hitting her pitches, some of them hard, some of them just falling in the right places. Nicky relieved her, but even some of her pitches got hit. It was 5-4 going into the fourth, and in the bottom of the inning we tied it but couldn’t get any more, then got the go ahead run in the bottom of the fifth, and shut them down in the top of the sixth and final inning. Whew!

After the game the coaches and umpires voted Nicky as the MVP, and gave her the game ball signed by all of them. And then we, Narragensett Electric, presented Diana with a plaque from the team. We made her cry. Did you expect anything less? I told her “You’ve made my summer.” “No, you’ve made MY summer,” she replied. “You guys have given me my life back.” I predict it won’t be long before Diane takes over the whole league.

Then a photographer took a team picture for us, and we went over for the awards celebration/picnic. They had a dj letting the kids do karaoke, a big inflated trampoline castle, a giant barbecue grill, and we chowed down on hot dogs and hamburgers.

Then came the awards. Each player’s name was read out by her coach, starting with the youngest in the instructional league, and eventually working up to the majors, the first place team–us–going last of all, of course. The young kids got trophies (bobble-head trophies!) and we majors got medals. Damn but I’m proud to have one. It sounds almost silly, like as a grown-up I should be past stuff like that, but you know what? Anyone who believes that a player of any age wouldn’t or shouldn’t want some symbol of their accomplishment is out of touch with reality. Major league players who make a minimum of $700,000 a year still want that ring. And it’s not so much about having the material thing–it’s about two things: competitiveness and teamwork, which are the reasons we play a game like this instead of taking water aerobics classes in our free time.

This was my first experience with a team sport like this. Hard to believe, isn’t it? The closest thing I had before this was one marking period in high school I took deck hockey as my gym elective. Instead of mixing people up every day with new teams, the teacher we had (whose name I have forgotten now…) ran it like an intramural league. I was only a sophomore at the time, and the rest of the class was mostly junior and senior boys. I got placed on a team of guys who were all friends. One of them, Joe DiBenedetto, was a goalie, but a week into the class he sprained his ankle. Since none of them wanted to play goal, that became my every day position.

And I was good at it. We racked up shut out after shut out. This was long before I had formally studied the martial arts, but I somehow had a sense of what to do–relax, see the whole picture, read the fakes from the true shots, and react lightning fast. I’m sure I let a goal in here or there, but I don’t remember them. We dominated that class.

But the guys didn’t really talk to me, didn’t really know me, and since I was behind the goal line and behind the mask and pads, I was kind of in my own little world. I didn’t have to cooperate with them in any way, and I barely had to communicate with them. And I also knew that as soon as Joe was better, he was going to be back in the goal and I was going to be on the sidelines.

Well wouldn’t you know it, Joe came back to class on the last day, the day of the “championship.” Somehow I knew that would happen. He strapped on the pads and got in there. Now, this was a class that was only 40 minutes long or something like that, and we would play two 20 minutes games–ours being the last one that day. When he had let in five or six goals in the first five minutes, I knew we were sunk. They let him play another five minutes and then, grudgingly, they gave the pads to me. I held the other team scoreless after that, but it was too late to make up the deficit and we ended up losing. I thought the guys were pretty stupid to have let Joe play when I felt I had proved beyond any shadow of a doubt I was the best goalie in the school. But then, I thought, who cares, really? He’s their buddy, they signed up for this class so they could play together, and who really cares who wins a P.E. class anyway? Other than me, that is?

And of course there were all those years of track and cross country track. But track is not a team sport. Not really. There’s no teamwork involved, no cooperation. There’s a little camaraderie, which is fun, but it’s not the same as teamwork. Likewise with the martial arts: with full contact tae kwon do teams like I was on in college, you have five individuals who each fight an individual fight, and then you total the scores. (If you’ve ever seen the Eric Roberts movie “Best of the Best” you know what I’m talking about.)

So anyway, that was a big divergence from what I’m trying to say, which is that this was my first time really belonging to a team–and man, it was great. That’s all. Diane got to hoist the championship trophy, while the dj played “We Are The Champions” in the background. She’s decided we should each have it for a few weeks and then pass it on, like the Stanley Cup.

We have a make up game with Carter & Carter to play Monday, though, so we’re not all sad that the season’s over, yet. Plus then there is the tournament and it looks like a bunch of us are going to do it, so that should be fun, too. And then there is next year!