Albatross -- Week 4 Recap

Once upon a time, there was a softball team. This team was young, and strapping, and energetic, and... happy. We were happy. And occasionally victorious.

But the season ended, and we went back to our young/strappy/energized lives, and we felt like something was missing. Some team members wisely realized that this something was softball, for Pete's sakes, and went on to play on other teams... or coach... or simply and patiently wait it out until the next season could arrive.

But the rest of us... ah, the rest of us. We grew restless in the off-season, and we sat around and stared at the walls, and thought: Where did we go wrong? What can fill this hole in our hearts? What can soothe the savage beast that roars just under our young and strapping and energetic flesh? Ah! I know! We must need a baby!

So babies we conceived, and babies we had. Boy babies, girl babies... well, girl baby anyway. And those of us who did not have babies? We got married, or engaged, so that some day we could have babies without that pesky social stigma.

And the babies are cute, and the spouses wonderful, but gol' if they don't take a lot of energy to maintain. The diapers! The crawling! The screaming! (And that's just the husbands! Yuk, yuk.) And all that energy has to come from somewhere, and I hate to say it, but... I fear it has come from our defense. Let's face it, we're not the impenetrable wall, the well-oiled machine, the sheer tour de force we may have been a mere 24 months ago.

So there's that. Not to mention the injuries plaguing our marriage- and baby-wracked bodies, and we're a sorry heap of humanity indeed. But! Does the Phoenix not rise from its own ashes?? Does the airline industry not pull itself up by its own plucky bootstraps after the terror of September 11?? Does Terry Mulholland not make a miraculous annual September comeback?? Oh, dear, I've gone too far.

So! We cobble together a team of brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and in-laws and outlaws. Of K(C)aras and Watsons and Vanyos and Gronaus and Ryans and Pats and Joels and people whose nicknames could be K-Matt and... er, one guy named Scott Pudwell. And we drag these pathetic, lost selves to the ballpark every week, and we smile and we feel happy to be out under the lights on a beautiful late-summer evening, and we HIT. Holy Moses, do we hit!! We hit and we run and we run and we hit and THAT, my friends, was a beautiful thing. And you can keep your silver and your gold and your league trophies and your first basemen who can do the splits and your sluggers wearing jazz pants... I will content myself with the Beauty.

See ya next week. :)