Greatest Games Ever Part II - Hosed

In my original team's infancy, when we started out in the Pleasanton league, we had two arch-rival teams, The Hosers and the Outlaws. We thought the Outlaws were a gang of thugs - they looked the part and had the attitude. Later, amazingly, on the weekend after the Loma Prieta earthquake, we discovered that in fact they were Alameda County Sheriffs - they forfeited that game because they were busy helping clean up the mess from the earthquake.

But the Hosers, or the Hosebags as we affectionately called them - they were always trying to pick a fight with us, especially a couple of their players.

One game, we were comfortably ahead, something like 14-5, and it was getting late for them to come back. We usually had their number (hehe).

They had a little rally going. A runner on second I know, and maybe another one on third. A guy hits a grounder and our fielder decides to get the sure out at first. The throw is a little high - I have to stretch to get it. The batter decides at that moment that he didn't get enough hitting when he played high school football, and turns into a middle linebacker. He barrels into me, and I do a complete flip (but not an elegant landing, would not have gotten a good score if it were the Olympics). The ball is dislodged from my glove, and rolls a few feet away. The runner made a turn toward second base, and our second baseman, the Gun, is yelling at me to tag him out. So I go rushing at him with the ball.

Only the umpire did not hear Gun yelling this, so he thinks I am going to fight the guy for upending me (which he deserved but after all I am a pacifist).

In the mean time, the runner from second rounded third, and seeing the commotion, never stopped. Heads up, really. Except - our catcher is standing on home plate, also focused on what is happening at first base. Like a statue. And the guy coming in from third just blindsides poor Oil Can, and knocks him over.

The umpire sees this is now getting out of hand, and immediately runs to the guy who knocked me over, and says "Yer out of the game." And then to me too - "Yer out!" and then he wheels to home plate and to the third guy says "And yer outta here too."

And the Hosebags, who were short a player to start, now were down to 7 players, and that meant that they forfeited the game. We would have won anyway, but hehe, I was glad to sacrifice myself to get that win.

The Theory of Relativity

Last Tuesday was Opening Day of the 2012 Walnut Creek 'Creakers' season. The Creakers are, as the title suggests, a large group of old, older and oldest softball players. They range from 50 to over 80 years old.

The Creakers started (I think) in the 1980s as a group of older players who used to scrimmage on my own old Field of Dreams, Rudgear Park. As stated in the Field of Dreams post, we heard rumors of those players then, but they remained faceless for me until a couple of years ago when I was laid off at my latest dysfunctional company, and for a couple of years now I have been pretending I too am retired .

The Creakers thrived over the last two decades - Up to last year they numbered three levels of leagues, American (highest), National (middle), and Continental (or tongue in cheek, Incontinental, apologies to all parties involved, especially when I get to that later stage of my development).

Last year the American League players, who mostly are retired tournament players, decided to bolt from the ranks of the Creakers to hold their own scrimmages twice a week on turf fields at Sycamore Park in Danville. There were politics involved, and I will avoid them for now. Personally, I returned to the Creakers this year because I like being on a team more than I need to play at the highest level with the best players. I love competition, and being competitive, but part of that is the thrill of a pennant race, no matter what the level.

This is all background; I hope you are still awake.

The purpose of this diatribe, if you will, is what happens when you join the ranks of the 'Seniors'.

Your softball 'career' goes through many ups and downs and stages as you mature, if that is what you do and on some cases I am not sure. But even if you don't mature, you certainly age. And there is only one end to that line - eventually you will have to give up the field at some point, you just hope it is as close to the end of your life as possible. They will indeed have to drag me off the field kicking and screaming.

Everybody is different, and everybody ages differently, and a large part of continuing to play is avoiding catastrophic injury. I found that for me there have so far been three distinct eras in my softball life. The first is when you are in your twenties - you think damn, I should have kept up with baseball in high school or college or tried out for the pros - I am just so damn good. This stage lasts roughly until you are in your mid 30s. In my case, this fantasy was tempered by the fact that I gave up baseball the first time I saw a curve ball in junior high school. I avoided that whole mess until I was reborn and re-discovered softball when I was 27.

Then one day when you are about 35 you realize you don't quite get to all the balls you once did. You are a step slower to first. That pulled hammy takes an extra week to heal. This is the first crisis stage.

Here is how you overcome it. You tell yourself, well damn I was never gonna make it to the pros anyway so I will just become the best damn hitter slow pitch softball ever saw. And this works for a while. And then you say, well I am just in it for the post game beer anyway.

The second crisis occurs sometime in the next decade. Now not only do your injuries take longer to heal, they occur more often, and more easily. This puts a lot of players out for good. I remember my friend George, who was about 5 years older than me, when I was about 47 and he was about 52 and hanging it up. He said "Heff, just wait til you are my age. You will see that is is just too hard."

Well some of us are just too stupid to learn to quit.

And you discover - aha! If I actually stretch before games, and maybe even work out a little in the off-season, I can avoid some of those injuries. Is that why those professional trainers and the physical therapists get paid. Who knew what they did!

And I discovered one more thing, especially on defense: you can use your more mature mind to focus a little more and a little better and anticipate the ball when it comes toward you. This gives you back the step you lost! Hooray!

Then the 50s hit you. Like a line drive to the forehead. Because no matter how much you fool yourself (and even those that are in much better shape than me face this), you just can't do what you once did, and you can't compensate for it with your mind because now it is also beginning to age as well. Hell, sometimes you can't even remember how many outs there are! You wonder, well what do I do now?

And then you find Senior Ball. And Senior Bats. And playing against other seniors. Who are just as slow and banged up as you are. And even better - now that you are playing against other guys in their 50s and 60s and even 70s, You Are The YOUNG GUY. Suddenly you are leading off, because you are faster (OK at least as fast) as most of them and you get on base more than ever before.

This is because first of all with bat technology what it is today, they make these super bat models that are only legal for old guys like you. The ball just jumps off the bat, and the grounder that you hit square has a much better chance of scooting through the infield. It doesn't hurt that the guy you hit it two feet to the right of can't bend over either.

And the line drive you hit has that extra zing to carry over the infielder's head. And the gapper, oh the gapper, it is beyond their reach before they can react.

One time my friends Joe and Gerry watched me play a game in my first year in the Creakers' National League, where they made me pay my dues in the first year. I hit a legitimate shot down the right field line, beyond the right fielder almost to the fence. The way they described it was thus: "Heffe is running around the bases like a madman, and the fielder is chasing the ball, but it all looks like slow motion." I got a home run on that shot, and I don't care how slow it was, it stands that way in the score book.

Some day, I too may be in the Continental League. And I will be lucky to be there. And I will have a damn good time then too. In diapers if I have to.

Berjudah Triangle

For years, two of my good friends and I played First Base, Second Base, and Pitcher for the Coneheads. Respectively, Me, Larry and Joe. You can conclude what you want about the resemblance or semblance to the real Three Stooges (that makes me Moe). Woop woop woop woop!

It just so happened that like the comic Stooges, we are all of the Jewish persuasion - not all that religious (as far as I know none of us ever missed a Conehead game because of a Jewish holiday), but our heritage like it or not. In fact we sometimes refer to our team as the Cohenheads. If you knew us, you would have to conclude for yourself if we are stooges or not - the jury is still out on that (I did play on a team called the Stooges but that's another post).

As you may or may not know, there are certain plays that are very frustrating in slow pitch softball. But none more than the swinging bunt - after all, this is slow pitch softball, and everyone should hit the ball hard, but sometimes it just comes out so slowly, there is almost no way you are going to get the batter out.

The most frustrating of all is the one that goes between the pitcher, the second baseman, and the first baseman. The pitcher doesn't know if he should try to get it and risk the first baseman also going for it, or go cover first if it is by him. The first baseman knows he probably has the best chance to get there first, but then no one would be covering first in time. And the second baseman could charge it but it is hit too slowly - the runner would beat any throw from him unless he was really slow. The ball just gets lost in the middle, and it is like the Bermuda Triangle eating planes and ships. On the Coneheads, we call it the BerJudah Triangle. In one game a ball in the BerJudah Triangle cost us a run or two, and there was nothing we could do about it. Luckily though I think we won that game.

And don't believe everything you hear - the rumor simply isn't true - none of us wears Bermuda shorts any more.

Going Yard II

Just once...

Anyone who reads this that is a power hitter, just look away. This is for the little guys.

I've always been a slap hitter. Well almost always.

When I was a kid, even though I was born a lefty and did almost everything left-handed, I was a natural right-handed hitter. Think Ricky Henderson with a short jewish guy's speed.

I was a decent hitter, and I had pop from the right side. I pulled everything. One time I was in a slump. I had this coach named Eddie Cohen. He looked like a cross between Don Zimmer and Popeye to me. He was tough. He yelled at me "Well you are lefthanded, why don't you just hit left handed???" After that, I became a switch hitter. I had much better control left handed, and to this day I can hit it all over the field, except one place - the traditional right center power gap. So no, I have never hit the ball over a fence in organized softball.

One time my friend Don and I went up to this field in Oakland that had short fences - 250-265 feet all over the outfield. I was going to have him pitch it to me until I hit one over. I had my new Miken Freak Plus Bat...it was gonna happen.

Well it didn't. I even moved out in front of the plate. I was just getting tired. The ball kept falling shorter and shorter. Finally, I gave up.

So no, I still haven't done it, but I swear one time I will.

Just once...please?

Greatest Games Ever Part I - Is it Live or is it Memorex?

For a couple of years we played a team called Memorex. They made recording tape back in the day. If you are of a certain age, you will remember the TV spot with Ella Fitzgerald where she sings a high note and the sound of it breaks a wine glass. Then they play a recording of the same voice and it also breaks the glass to show how realistic the tape is. Ancient stuff now.

We were playing Memorex and it was a really low scoring game. I mean REALLY low for slow pitch softball. We were being shut out, 4-0 going into the bottom of the seventh. We had two outs and none on too. Very dismal.

To our own embarrassment, the next two batters hit dribblers between the pitcher and third base and they are hit so slowly they beat them out. Now, there are two on and two out, but we are still down to our last out and down four. The next couple of guys get legitimate hits, and we score a couple and they walk Woody, who was our young buck in those days; he was about 25 and the rest of us were in our mid to late 30s. I come up to bat with the bases loaded, two outs, the tying run on second, and the winning run on first. What we all live for, except it wasn't the major leagues and it wasn't the World Series. Still, all I wanted to do was get a base hit to score the tying run from second, and then let someone else be the hero.

Well, I hit one of my patented bloopers behind SS (I am left handed). The shortstop backpedals, and promptly falls on his ass. The left fielder goes into a full dive and slides right past the dropping ball. Did I say it was late in the year and the grass was wet? The left center fielder does essentially the same thing going across the other way, so now both outfielders are almost to the infield, sprawled on the ground.

All the runners are running wildly except me cause I don't matter. I am jumping up and down as I round first and watch the action. It is clear that we will at least tie the game up. Woody takes off from first base and never hesitates...he gets a full head of steam and nothing will stop him at third base. One of the fielders finally picks up the ball and throws wildly, and Woody scores the winning run easily, 5-4, game over.

Our rallying cry from then on - Is it real or is it Memorex?

The Bench

My old team all had nicknames. Mine was Heffe. Another was Doc. Ok, I'll give you a few: Doc, Woody, Gun, the Dud, Squint, Sir Guy, O.Z, Weird, and Oil Can. I'm not making this up. Gun gave us many of them, some came with the person, but each one has its own history.

Another one was a guy named Jimmy who we called The Bench. After Johnny Bench, but not. He couldn't hit like Johnny Bench but he did usually play catcher.

The Bench was a below average player, hence the name. Yes he rode the bench.

Here is the story of how we recruited him: One day Oil Can said he had a new recruit. He was a good guy who actually had gone to MIT at the same time as me (I didn't know him there, but we traveled in some of the same circles, so we had some common ground). We went outside at lunch one day to meet him. Bench was playing Frisbee with some other people. My first sight of him was he was going after a Frisbee and ran smack into a "No Parking" sign. I kid you not. This should have been a sign, please forgive the pun.

He was a sub for a couple of years, and usually came in later in the game when we were short-handed. But he stuck around, and eventually got on the roster. He was a good guy, don't get me wrong, just a little less, er, talented than others.

That is, until we would have a practice game where the other team was short and then we gave The Bench to the other team to even out the sides. Suddenly he turned into Superman. He'd hit gappers for triples and homers, make diving catches to rob us of hits, and go 5 for 5. Every single time. It was an unbelievable spectacle and display of softball prowess. We would wonder, where was this when he played for us? For us it was always pop up to second, ground out, missed fly ball.

I'm not sure if he was offended by his nickname. I would have been. But in the end, he was being transferred to Australia in his job. He went to our coach at the time, Gun, and asked if he could start just one time as it was his last game. I can't remember exactly how the decision was made, whether Gun unilaterally decided or if he consulted the rest of Team Management, which was Sir Guy and me. At any rate, I think we were in the midst of a heated playoff race, and you know how important that is; we said no.

So Bench came in the game in the third or fourth inning for a couple of innings and then was taken out. This is the part I will never forget. We were in the dugout, and there was Sir Guy and me and the Bench on one end. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Bench says, kind of quietly, "F you guys", and walks out. He proceeds to walk slowly down the left field line, beyond the fence, and all the way around the outfield to the parking lot never to be seen again. Gun or someone asked, "where did the Bench go?" and we pointed and there he was, off to Australia.

Now that I have the wisdom of the years, I say to you Jimmy, we should have let you start in that game. We apologize. But you really shouldn't have robbed me when I was oh for eight that time.

Field of Dreams

The Senior League in Walnut Creek is called the Walnut Creakers (get it?). We are in spring practice games now; this group has a long season; it goes until the end of August. A lot of these old guys have to start slow, so for the first month we just play practice games. Today my senior league team had a game on a field in a place called Rudgear Park.

Most of the games are in a complex of fields called Heather Farm, which has 6 fields and is also where the regular Walnut Creek league plays. But some of the games are at Rudgear Park, and I get all nostalgic there.This place has special meaning to me.
My original team, which we ultimately dubbed the Lyons (we started as a Chevron sponsored team but then started having post-game beer at a pub called Lyons Brewery) held practice here every Thursday more or less for about 15 years. We built our own field drag out of chicken wire and some left over 2X4s, and we eventually received permission to connect to the city's water supply to keep the infield watered in the dry months. Every practice, we dragged and watered the infield until it was perfect. After practice, we would stay until long after dark more often than not and drink our beer and talk into the night.

Most of us were starting families then, and we only played on the one team (it was before I became a total slut) - our Thursdays were really boys' night out more than the game nights, as we often brought our families on game nights. The friendships that were cemented on those nights remain strong to this day. The team played together for 26 years altogether, and two of us have now been playing together since the beginning (32 years and counting) and we still all get together for a Super Bowl Sunday practice and then watch the big game together.

One of our players, George, was somewhat of a gambler, he would vacation at Tahoe and gamble. He used to say when he hit it big he was going to buy Rudgear from the city and we would put lights on the field there. It would be just like in the movie. Shoeless Joe would probably come.

We played this team of bikers every week for much of that time - we were a rag tag team but we had some really great years of winning in our heyday. We played together really well, and knew each other so well. And every week we would beat the other team, which was called the Silver Bullets. It didn't matter how far behind we got, or who was missing that week, we always had their number. This must have gone on for 4 or 5 years. Until one Thursday they finally, finally broke through and beat us. They never came back. I'll bet they made a pact to do that early on - it must have been frustrating for them.

At the time, we would occasionally hear about this team named the Creakers that practiced and played there. They were just a few 'old guys' that played during the day! Who knew that one day it would turn into an entire league and I would be one of them!

Today, I played left field in the 4th or 5th inning. When I went out there through the swamp behind third base, I knew for sure where I was - Rudgear with the bad drainage behind first and third, and the grass too long, and the bad hops on the infield (we called any bad hop anywhere a Rudgear Hop) - it was like being home.

In the old days there were horses in the adjoining yard behind the fence behind the third base bench. We would lock our drag to the fence there. The lock is long gone, and yet no one has touched it. Yes, the drag is still there, and so am I.

Bad Baserunning

One season, in three successive games (I am not sure if this part is true, but one of the freebies of writing a blog is artistic license) I was struck by batted balls. Once when taking off from first by a line drive, once on a hard grounder up the middle as I was leaving second, and the last one when I was on third.

The last one was particularly galling - I was on the bag when the hitter hit a screamer down the line. I determined I was not going to bail out and dive into foul territory, which of course is the right thing to do from both the perspective of injury and not making an out. Instead I jumped up and tried to fold my legs under me, and sure enough took it right off my ankle.The humiliation of my awkward dance was nothing compared to the embarrassment of making an out and taking a hit and an RBI from my teammate.

I vowed to never let that happen to me again after that streak, and to date it has not. And that is over something like 1000 games ago.

Which brings me to today's topic - bad base running. Especially when someone gets doubled off on a line drive or hit by the ball. The kind of play that makes you say 'What were you thinking?'

We know that you don't want to publicly berate your teammate when this happens to him. It will eventually happen to everyone if they play long enough. Believe it or not, I have been known to yell at a teammate when they do something bonehead; I know, it is bad for team chemistry and may damage someone's fragile ego. I am in therapy now for it, and I am working on it, and my doc says he is proud of my progress.

But sometimes, you just have to let it out. So here it is for all past and future indiscretions on the basepaths:


ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Oh, that felt good. I am better now. Thank you.

Lucas

Writing the last post reminded me of a story. A Legend, really.

You see, my favorite team is called the Coneheads. I am convinced that this is the most fun team in all rec league softball, and we are highly successful on the field and off. Our winning percentage over the 12 years I have been on the team stands at .785. We have won first place in 13 of 28 seasons and won the playoffs 11 times. Do you know how hard that is on an aging team?

I joined the Coneheads in 2000. We did not lose a game the rest of the year. I scuffled at the beginning (why are people nervous when they join a new team?) and then got hot in the playoffs, and never looked back on that team. I hit better on it than any other.

But no matter how well I do, there is something I can never overcome.

I replaced Lucas.

Lucas was 8 feet tall, never made an out and hit the ball out 90 % of the time, and played first base better than Keith Hernandez and J.T. Snow put together.

Every time the Coneheads started talking about Lucas, their eyes would glaze over. More than once I saw drool coming out of our pitcher Joe's mouth when he spoke of him. These are grown men. And our catcher Don, whom at various times I hassled mercilessly, always knew that he could push my button by bringing up the Legend Lucas.

After about 8 or 9 years on the Coneheads, long after establishing myself as one of the most consistent team players ever on the team, I still heard about Lucas. And then one day, I obtained the stats sheets from the two years before I played to incorporate into the stats I had kept since 2000.

You can imagine my shock when I discovered, LUCAS PLAYED ALL OF ONE SEASON, and only made SIX GAMES. His stats were impressive: in 28 at bats, 5 doubles, 6 triples, 5 HRs, 26 RBIs. But he was a drunk who couldn't manage to make half the games, and never came back. Un-real. Did I say these were grown men who drooled?

And someday, I swear, I will pass him in career Home Runs. I only need a couple more. I have time on my side. And my tombstone will say, RIP Heffe, you were better than Lucas.

Recruiting

It's that time of year. You have to get your roster together for the upcoming season. If you are lucky, that weak player who was getting older, slower, and dumber finally retired (no that will never be me so deal with it).

And someone else decided he was too good for your team now, or someone's wife had a baby, and he is not allowed out of the house any more.

Or even if your lineup remains intact, you want to get that extra superstar who will get you over the hump, or if you won the championship last year, will ensure that you can defend it.

In any case you have to find someone new.

Invariably, someone comes up to you and says they have this awesome player who can play anywhere and will hit .700 with pop. Of course the team doesn't have practices; you are stuck with having to decide on spec whether the guy is the real deal. And your starting left fielder had shoulder surgery.

One of two things happens. Either the guy never shows up, or he does, and you wish you never had to see him again. And as we all know the hardest thing to do is get someone not to show up after they are on the roster.

One time on a team sponsored by the company where I worked, a guy showed up in the mail room that wanted to play. Someone said he had been in a minor league camp not too long ago. We added him to the roster. He played two or three games, and must have gotten two or three hits total. He didn't fit in with the rest of us either. What to do. And then - in one of those "this story is so bizarre I couldn't be making it up" - the guy got busted stealing credit cards in the mail room that were getting sent to employees. Well I shouldn't say busted...when they found out he had put $5000 in charges on the cards, he bolted for Mexico. My recollection is that they eventually found him. He goes down in the history of the team as the only one that did hard time.

Just to prove that the exception proves the rule, there is a another story. Another work team that I coached. One night, the Engineering Manager comes into my office and tells me he has a new player from one of the vendors that 'hits .700'. I rolled my eyes and said Oh Sure, Here We Go Again. But he showed up. And showed up. After two years his average stood at exactly .700. Over the years, time averaged out his stats some but today 12 years later, his career average is .664. Not bad. And he's a good guy too, and we are good friends. But he never spent a day in minor league camp.