By Ambrose
BOX SCORE
LEADERS
First things first - on this Memorial Day weekend, before there's any talk of our feats and accomplishments on the turf at Jimmy Walker Park (and there were many), let's give a shout-out to, pour a little of the 40 out for (I'm enjoying one as I type this), everybody serving in Iraq and Afghanistan right now. Whether you're Blue or Red, pro- or anti-war, blogger or reader, top or bottom, it's impossible to be against a sincere wish that no one dies in combat, for any reason. Good luck to our armed forces, both on the battlefield and in the bars of Manhattan tonight (it's Fleet Week).
But enough sentiment - on to the ball!
Tonight was, naturally, Roe v. Wade (or, as some doofus wrote for Game 2: "Wade v. Rode," which is less historically accurate but probably a better description of what actually happened to Roe).
That there were any games to recap at all is a surprise. The owners had evidently locked the players out. The park was tighter than a virgin on prom night. How is it we don't have a key? Didn't we pony up $40 a head to use the goddam field? Luckily, Hans and I espied a chink in the field's armor (I know: racist), and thus did a group of grown men... lawyers, professors, writers, TV producers, architects, power-bottoms, and promiscuous college students... perform a kind of limbo beneath a section of chain-link fence. It felt very early-80s, if you ask me. We should have all gone for a Chipwich instead, listened to Yaz, talked about what we'd do when we were grown-ups.
Game One felt like a bunch of boys playing against their older brothers. Roe, my team, managed only five hits in as many innings. Our opponent scored more than that - eight runs, to be precise. The ball was, to borrow a term, "assy" as hell (or was it "assey"?) and wasn't jumping off the bat. The kind of ball you need to place well. We didn't. Futility at hitting a softball feels like the worst kind of impotence. And wouldn't you know it, didn't my wife choose this very night to come to her first game in at least five years? Another childless summer. Wade pummels Roe, 8-2. Somewhere, Antonin Scalia is smiling.
And yet Game Two was worse. It was more like playing your Alzheimer's-addled granddad in a game of "Simon" (remember that, you children of the 80s?). I couldn't remember how to field a groundball, Dinny couldn't remember how to catch a pop-up, and no one could remember how to hit a ball that seemed to be filled with sand. Of course, Wade slapped the old beanbag around the field with impunity, mounting rally after rally, and cruising to an easy 9-0 win.
Let's now pour what's left of that 40 out in memory of the athletic careers of myself, Dinny, Steve, and a few others. When I was a kid, I followed the Mets. I recall being astounded that analysts thought Keith Hernandez was over the hill at age 35. I couldn't conceive of a reason a player would hit a wall at such an age. Now I'm amazed anyone lasts that long.
Game One Ball goes to James, for a gallant 4-4 performance full of several rips right down the third-base line... moreover, it was his first baseball or softball game in years. Now ice that elbow down.
Game two ball goes to Jon, for a 4 for 4 night of his own in the face of several never-before seen defensive schemes concocted by Dinny (who knew a box-and-one zone could be used on a softball diamond?).
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