Day 1152 -- Hartland

Superior Precast Products of Kalamazoo proudly takes credit for the entrance to Hartland High School, in Hartland. It's a fine entrance.

Our church has formed a softball team, consisting of three or four young guys with some talent, and eight or ten old fogies in various states of decrepitude. The first game was last week, but I was out of town. So Thursday night, I played my first organized softball game in about 20 years. I'm proud to say that I didn't totally suck.

I hat one hit in three at-bats, a grounder between short and third. I struck out in my second trip (two strikes is all you get, and a foul ball counts as the second strike.) My third time up, I hit a long fly to the left fielder, who dropped it, allowing a runner to score from third. An RBI for me. In the field, I had one put-out and one assist at second base. No errors.

My dumbest moment was running the bases after my hit. I was really, really concerned about making it down to second if the guy behind me got a hit. I'm not exactly a speed demon. If it were thirteen miles from first to second, I imagine I would be one of the top base-runners on the team. But sixty feet isn't my distance. In any case, I took off sprinting as soon as Warren hit the ball, which was a mistake, because it was a line drive to the shortstop, who easily picked me off of first. And in trying to get back to the base, I instinctively slid, although I was wearing shorts, thereby compounding the stupidity. My shin is still raw.

In any case, it was a fun game, although we lost, 7-6. They'd lost 11-4 the week before, so I attribute the improvement to my presence in the line-up. What other explanation could there be?

I ran an easy four this morning. It was hot a muggy. Tomorrow doesn't promise to be much better, and I'm scheduled for twelve. We'll see how that goes.