Taking its toll

As I said in a response to Amanda's comment on my post last Saturday in which I reflected on my age, I stated that there are only a few times when I actually "feel" my age. Today happened to be one of those times - the pre-season tournament for our church softball league.

Now, the term "tournament" implies more importance than this event actually has. We don't have umpires, the games don't count, and there are no prizes. Basically all it is an organized set of scrimmages which allow us all to get in some game action prior to the start of the season in 10 days. 4 teams are assigned to a field, and we play a round robin on Saturday morning/early afternoon, giving everyone an opportunity to play 3 games.

Now, there were some things working against me today. First of all, we usually have a practice or two as a team prior to the preseason tournament. This year, due to some disorganization on the part of the leadership (and yes, I'm part of the leadership), that didn't happen, so I along with everyone else, was having my first softball activity since mid-August. Secondly, as has been well documented, we haven't had a ton of warm weather around here yet, with our first 70 degree days occurring just this week. Well, today, it hit 83 at one point, so when you couple that temperature with us being not fully adjusted from the cold, it was REALLY warm. And for the early part of the day, it was clear out, and where our field is positioned the sun just beats in on you with no real shade. And finally, the field, while in decent shape, had clearly not gotten the typical care it would get throughout the season, and was pretty hard and very bumpy. Not ideal for a 2nd baseman such as myself.

Some my highlights included:
The first ground ball I'd fielded in about 8 months being a rocket off the bat of a lefty that took a wicked hop and clipped my ear pretty good as I was trying to get my face out the way.

Going all out going 1st to 3rd on a single early in the first game. Not particularly noteworthy in and of itself, except that when I finished at 3rd, I was ready to pack it in for the day, with 2 1/2 games to go. I'm actually in fairly decent aerobic shape at the moment, but those kind of sprints kill you if you're not in shape for them.

What had to be one of the most chaotic looking move I've made in while, when in the 3rd game my instincts made me start into a dive on a line drive in the hole between me and first base, right before my brain reminded me how hard the infield was, that I was just wearing shorts, and that this was just preseason after all. At this point, my reflexes once again kicked in, and threw my right hand to the ground, presumably in a misguided attempt to stop the dive. So, instead of going into the full dive and presumably scraping up both my legs, I did this half dive, half fall thing that resulted in me scraping up my left shin and my throwing hand. I think the Lithuanian judge gave me a 9.2, and I thank her for that.

Anyhow, it wasn't any of those particular highlights that made me feel my age so much, as it was the general fatigue I felt at the end of the games, and the knowledge that I am going to wake up very sore tomorrow. There are a number of muscles that I only use in certain ways when I play softball, and history tells me they are going to be screaming in the wake of this tournament once they get a chance to fully tighten up. So I have that to look forward to.

All of that being said, it was a fun day playing and hanging out with the team, and I'm very much looking forward to the upcoming season.