Sunday, August 28, 2005
A simple prop, to occupy my time...
It's not basketball, but it'll do.
Softball season has begun. Three of the girls from last year's eighth grade girls' basketball team, apples of my eye, are on the JV softball team this year. Thursday, I drove thirty miles to Fort Oglethorpe to watch them play against the number 1-rated 4A team in Georgia, and on Saturday I went back to the same stadium to watch them play three games in an all-day tournament that pitted them against three teams that had them sadly outclassed.
The games themselves followed the same depressing pattern: excellent (or at least reasonably good) defensive play in the early innings, keeping the lid on the opponent's score, but wasted by a stubborn inability to score, followed by a sudden defensive breakdown in the fourth or fifth inning. And opponent scores that balloon from 0 or 1 to 6 or 8 in the course of a handful of at-bats. Followed by yet more inability to score, despite loading the bases at least once per game. It's not hitting that's their problem so much as scoring.
By the time the team came up to sit near me in the bleachers during the game between their second and third games, they were tired, discouraged, and ready to get out of the blistering Georgia sun. Seldom have I heard a dozen girls make so little noise.
(During the games, though, they make noise -- some of it incomprehensible to anyone who's not them. I tirelessly interpreted a chant of "nice eye, nice eye" as some kind of Steppin Fetchit "no suh, no suh." In my defense, their own mothers, who were sitting beside me, didn't understand it either. In all our defenses, the girls were chanting in a Southern accent thick enough to armor a tank.)
(That particular chant, by the way, provided endless amusement for the rednecks who'd come out to cheer Dade County, the last of our three opponents for the day. One of them, a rangy-looking guy in a NASCAR T-shirt and a battered ballcap, delighted in yelling "nice eye, nice eye" and the accompanying "woop-woop" throughout the final couple of innings of the Dade game, commenting that our dugout had gotten quiet and making other observations. I was waiting for him to step over the line from complete moron to window-licking frontal lobe amputee, and dreading it -- at some point, somebody's going to say something at one of these things that I can't ignore, they're going to go personal on my kids, and then it will be on, my friends, oh yes it will be on. Like white is on rice, it will be on.)
Sammy Sosa -- not her real name, nor even close, and how she came by that nickname is something for another post that I'll probably never write -- was first to plop down beside me after the second game. She'd fanned air three times in her latest turn at the plate. And she was unhappy.
My hitting sucks.
What do you think the problem is?
I don't know.
(Okay, I think; back to the fundamentals.) Are you keeping your eyes on the ball?
No. I keep closing my eyes.
(This may be a joke. Play along.) Well, there you go. You're not gonna hit much with your eyes closed.
Big grin. Big Sammy Sosa grin. (Her grin is not why her nickname is Sammy Sosa.)
She makes a big catch later in the game. Sighs of relief all around.
There may be pictures -- Cassie's mom brought a camera and gave me an address to request the photos from. If there are, I'll either post some here or give a link.
Next game's on Tuesday, if Katrina will cooperate -- which looks doubtful.
But whatever happens... basketball season is coming...
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Softball season has begun. Three of the girls from last year's eighth grade girls' basketball team, apples of my eye, are on the JV softball team this year. Thursday, I drove thirty miles to Fort Oglethorpe to watch them play against the number 1-rated 4A team in Georgia, and on Saturday I went back to the same stadium to watch them play three games in an all-day tournament that pitted them against three teams that had them sadly outclassed.
The games themselves followed the same depressing pattern: excellent (or at least reasonably good) defensive play in the early innings, keeping the lid on the opponent's score, but wasted by a stubborn inability to score, followed by a sudden defensive breakdown in the fourth or fifth inning. And opponent scores that balloon from 0 or 1 to 6 or 8 in the course of a handful of at-bats. Followed by yet more inability to score, despite loading the bases at least once per game. It's not hitting that's their problem so much as scoring.
By the time the team came up to sit near me in the bleachers during the game between their second and third games, they were tired, discouraged, and ready to get out of the blistering Georgia sun. Seldom have I heard a dozen girls make so little noise.
(During the games, though, they make noise -- some of it incomprehensible to anyone who's not them. I tirelessly interpreted a chant of "nice eye, nice eye" as some kind of Steppin Fetchit "no suh, no suh." In my defense, their own mothers, who were sitting beside me, didn't understand it either. In all our defenses, the girls were chanting in a Southern accent thick enough to armor a tank.)
(That particular chant, by the way, provided endless amusement for the rednecks who'd come out to cheer Dade County, the last of our three opponents for the day. One of them, a rangy-looking guy in a NASCAR T-shirt and a battered ballcap, delighted in yelling "nice eye, nice eye" and the accompanying "woop-woop" throughout the final couple of innings of the Dade game, commenting that our dugout had gotten quiet and making other observations. I was waiting for him to step over the line from complete moron to window-licking frontal lobe amputee, and dreading it -- at some point, somebody's going to say something at one of these things that I can't ignore, they're going to go personal on my kids, and then it will be on, my friends, oh yes it will be on. Like white is on rice, it will be on.)
Sammy Sosa -- not her real name, nor even close, and how she came by that nickname is something for another post that I'll probably never write -- was first to plop down beside me after the second game. She'd fanned air three times in her latest turn at the plate. And she was unhappy.
My hitting sucks.
What do you think the problem is?
I don't know.
(Okay, I think; back to the fundamentals.) Are you keeping your eyes on the ball?
No. I keep closing my eyes.
(This may be a joke. Play along.) Well, there you go. You're not gonna hit much with your eyes closed.
Big grin. Big Sammy Sosa grin. (Her grin is not why her nickname is Sammy Sosa.)
She makes a big catch later in the game. Sighs of relief all around.
There may be pictures -- Cassie's mom brought a camera and gave me an address to request the photos from. If there are, I'll either post some here or give a link.
Next game's on Tuesday, if Katrina will cooperate -- which looks doubtful.
But whatever happens... basketball season is coming...
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