I'm in it for the fun

I know that today for sure. I didn't have a great day at baseball, but it was fun. I had a smile on my face most of the day, joked with our guys and the other team, and just had fun.

We were paying a bit of a hodge-podge team, a few new players, and a slow pitcher. So we expected to jump on them. We did, getting a few people on base, but we ended up hitting out to people and not scoring in the first. We shut them down, me in center, and that was good. They blooper two into center that were short, and one was a single. The other, however, was dropping fast, and while I couldn't get it, everyone thought I might. So when it dropped, I snagged it on one hop, and then threw to second for the force out.

After that things went downhill. I hit 2 hard flies into right, one with a friend's 33" bat (mine is 32") and it was deep at the warning track. The guy dropped it, and I got a single. It would have been a double, but the people in front of me had slowed down (2), and I wasn't sure they'd make it to third, so I stopped.

My next time up was a hard grounder to first that the guy got lucky and snagged, and the next time was a strikeout, but I think it was a bad call. A few other people, including a teammate at second couldn't believe that was the call. I was two steps to first when it was called, and I'm sure I never could have reached it. Oh well.

I walked in the last inning to lead off, us down 3, and managed to get around for a score. I actually ran for a guy, and then came up again, with 2 outs and a man on second. I worked a full count, getting a silly knuckleball that I should have hit. It was up high, almost softball-like, and I started laughing. It dropped in, and I should have hit it, but it was just funny to me. I fouled off a few more, he threw me a similar pitch that might have dropped low, but I swung and missed. It was a good laugh, but I ended up 0-5 with a walk.

In the field I caught a short pop-up in center, which was good. All the balls during practice had looked deep, but hadn't carried, so I was ready. I was playing one of their strong hitters shaded to left center and he hit one to right center, short, and I was running over there hard. I just missed it, diving forward, and rolled coming up and chasing the ball. I threw it in and we got the guy at third. However 2 more steps to the left and I'd have gotten it easy. Earlier there was a hit to left center I chased, and ran it down on the ground, but it got me moving more to the right.

The last couple innings I was in left, and in the bottom of the last inning, us up 1, I was deep in left. A hard hit to me, I turned and ran, and got to the fence just in time to see it go over. I wish I'd jumped and hit the fence, though it would have been for show. No chance of catching it.

We lost, but it was fun, even though I wasn't thrilled with my performance. I tried hard, and didn't get (more) hurt.