My whole body hurt. Softball made me do things I normally wouldn’t do, like sprint. Or leap. I even stretched for as long as I could. Swung the bat, rolled my shoulders out. Still I was stiff for days. I had to use my arms to lift my legs from a seated position. I felt both strong and weak at the same time. Strong because I felt the muscles I didn’t know I had, weak because I couldn’t use them.

I thought it would be a good idea because I needed to get out more, to meet new people, be sociable. And it seemed an affable enough thing to do now that I was sober: a church softball team that played on Friday nights. Felt pretty wholesome, worth trying on.

But they were a mixed league which means they needed an even split of men and women, and women were harder to come by. So as a man I was needed more as a score keeper and wow, that’s not fun. Especially because our team was so bad the other team was always getting like 15, 16 runs: it was hard keeping track. And many games they’d end early, mercifully, because we weren’t so fun to play—being so bad.

This was my first time playing, a team called the Kirkland Sluggers. Our teams were tied for last place, tenth in the league. I sized them up as we were warming up. They looked mostly legit, more than us.

I got put in center field and that’s a lot of territory. In a mixed league the batters alternate between men and women. When a guy bats you have to play back in the outfield, when it’s a woman you play in because most women can’t hit as far. I was constantly moving up and back, running, bending, throwing, twisting.

It was early in the game when the first fly ball came my way. The guy really creamed it, when he made contact you could hear the metal thwack. And all the sound got sucked out as I followed the ball flying through air, slowly dipping down, planting myself at the bottom of the arc.

And then I thought to myself, how long has it been? Like 1981 or 82? When was the last time I played baseball? Back then I was a normal boy, mostly athlete, before all this. I practiced. I played on a team that spent hours every week hitting balls, catching balls, living and dreaming baseball. I really couldn’t give a shit now and hadn’t since like 81 or 82. And now I really had to care. The ball was coming my way fast.

I had to stop thinking and go to instinct. To not think about my failing eyesight or worse, my mind. The part of me that said what are you doing out here? I caught the ball. I had to use both hands and jammed my pinky really good but boy was I glad. Nothing else mattered the rest of the night. I got a few hits and walked, I fielded some grounders and did okay. I hadn’t played in 40 years.

The ref kept looking at his watch, and I sensed some eye rolling each time we made a bad play. I guess we were laughable but it wasn’t even funny, it just got old. We had like eight fans and half of them left after the first game. He said we’d have to score four runs our last at bat or else they were going to call the game. The Sluggers were up by 10 or something, it was getting dark. Another team was waiting for the field, stretching, eyeing us up. We were mostly checking our phones in the dugout. And when they called the game we were glad to get out of there, glad no one got hurt. The last game one of our players Linda (74) had passed out from the heat. A game before that one of our guys got concussed.

There’s nothing soft about softball. Even with slow pitch, when they lob the ball before you it can be hard to hit. You can see how batters get frustrated, they get stuck in their heads. I always took the first strike without swinging to make the pitcher work for it. I savored the moment, tapped the plate with my bat, paused and looked at the outfield. I remembered what it was like as a boy. I was the same, even now.

Categories: Memoir, writing

Tags: creative nonfiction, humor