by pbdotc
It was mildly drizzling on Sunday evening and James J Walker ballfield stood moist. Not good moist, like a Dove Beauty Bar ad, but bad moist, like a tent you forgot to air out before putting it away for the winter. But it wasn't a soaking rain and seven of us showed up at the outset for softball. Most of you louts decided it would be better to sit home and think about how the hours of your life were ticking away instead of getting a little wet and having a little fun.
We took an extended batting practice as we gave people as much time as humanly possible to show up. When it was clear there would only be seven we got together and discussed what to do ... leave? more BP? We determined we should play an every-man-for-himself type of game and rotate through the field on defense. This in and of itself wasn't striking in its originality except we came up with two critical updates to this timeworn solution:
-- first, we would close off first base and nobody would run the bases
-- second, we devised a point system in lieu of counting ghost runners and runs
James, probably because of his extensive cricketing background, must get credit for the points system, which was accepted by the rabble after a few blinking moments of incomprehension.
Closing off right field is standard operating procedure. But closing off first base is more radical. In this case it worked with flying colors because nobody had to run on the slick field (think sliding and ensuing raspberries) and nobody had to throw. Nobody likes those things anyway.
The rules system was as follows:
-- the batter had three outs to tally up as many points as possible
-- any ball that made it past the infield (marked by tires behind third and second) counted one (1) point
-- any ball that made it to the wall on the bounce counted two (2) points
--- and ball that hit the wall on the fly counted three (3) points
--- errors in the field cost the fielder previously accumulated points depending on nature of error (see point system above)
-- after a poor play, it was up to a fellow player to nominate an error and for the others put it to a vote
-- three swings cumulatively cost the batter one additional out
--- scoreboard shots counted ten (10) points [none occurred]
--- Inning-Ending Home Runs counted minus three (-3) points
--- any beer in the field of play hit by a batter tallied five (5) points for the batter and minus five (-5) points for the fielder [none occurred]
At the end of play the loser, he with the fewest points, was to shotgun a budweiser.
As the game got underway, with the mist falling, we realized quickly there was not enough beer. Only James had brought some. So Hans and later D. Lee jogged up the puddly boulevard and hauled back additional cans. A good deal of beer was imbibed by everyone.
In many ways, Handsome Andrew, whose normally stylish play is to be admired in an of itself, became the quiet hero of the night with his technology-rich phone thing. Andrew kept a running tally of the batting order and accumulated points on his phone thing, which became important because the scoring started to get complicated with the error subtractions and the onset of drunkenness. After every batter finished up and we rotated, H.A. could be seen hunching over his phone thing, trying to protect it from the raindrops, marking up the totals with a stylus, which apparently accompanies the device. Then he could be seen stuffing this bit of quicksilver back into his rainy shorts and resuming his intimidating defensive posture.
Of the seven of us, two had remarkable nights, four had average nights, and one -- yours truly -- had a hideous night with the bat. Hans Bungle and James had the best nights. They were locked in, dinking the softball off the fence on the fly repeatedly and adding up the threes like they were going out of style.
Danny Lee started out strong but he seemed to be doubling as beer anchorman. After a few rotations, his reaction time and batting prowess were dulled. By the end of the night he was staggering around the outfield like Hack Wilson after a bender, waking up occasionally to remind us all of his dazzling potential as a defender, but mostly stumbling around, muttering, and pissing on rats, legions of whom had taken up residence in the planters behind the outfield fence.
Alex and Marky (spelling? maybe it's Marquis) were game to stay and they had average nights at the plate and good nights in the field. Marky certainly must have felt this league was a strange one since the Rainball game was his maiden voyage at James J Walker field. What a good way to indoctrinate yourself. Marky also showed some real potential with the mitt, making a lot of key outs along the way. I think Alex and Marky, overall, remained more sober than the rest of us. Not positive.
At some point, as we had established the rhythm of the game and we were all happy as pigs in shit, Douglas showed up. He was greeted as a hero and seemed to take it all in stride as we excitedly blurted out "the rules" all at once, hands waving, and basically slotted him in. His arrival posed two problems:
-- first it mucked with the batting and rotation order, which wouldn't have been a problem for sober, intelligent men. Luckily, H.Andrew again took the reins and simply made a few calculations on his mission control phone thing and pointed out everyone's next spots
-- second, doug was the only lefty and when we shifted across the diamond we all became confused about the batting order again. But ultimately we figured all this stuff out as well.
Doug was given extra outs in the interests of equity and he made decent use of them, tallying a fair amount of points before burning through his outs.
Not long after Doug's arrival, Handsome Andrew and his supercomputer had to leave and we were forced to remember our totals. I was in negative territory and remain so to this moment at negative one.
Hans and James each were in the low 20s. The rest of the players were somewhere in that range.
James's last licks were a phenomenon to behold. He was locked in with his graceful, powerful swing, and chopping the rain-soaked ball all over the place. When he finally made his third out it was almost a mercy out. And he stood at thirty (30) points. During James's onslaught, I got to talking with Hans out in the outfield. We noted, looking at the empty Sunday night streets, that 10 million New Yorkers were sitting in their dank apartments, watching it rain and basically having a poor time, while eight New Yorkers, namely us, were having a fabulous time and enjoying life. We nodded in agreement and quickly woke up as one of James's frozen ropes came screaming toward the fence and we did our best to drunkenly prevent it.
Hans's last licks amounted to an epic comeback. He was at 22 and quickly tore a few off the wall and pounded a few for single-point hits. James, in center, was desperately trying to put a cap on the onslaught, and finally did with one of the finest, sliding catches one will ever see. James sprawled out, armed fully extended, on a line drive to short center field, and the ball lit in his mitt in the most graceful fashion. That left Hans with thirty points as well.
It seemed only fitting that the night should end with a sudden death playoff. Hans and James were each given one additional out per frame to do as much damage as they could. At the outset, it felt like two prize fighters looking for an opening, as nobody tallied any points. It took about three extra frames for James to break through, and he did for five points, But Hans came up in the bottom of the last and rediscovered his form, and his final, soggy base hit made him the winner of the first-ever August Rainball Classic.
We all congratulated ourselves and -- since there were two beers remaining in the dugout -- Hans (the winner) and I (the loser) each shotgunned one. It was the first beer I've shotgunned since the early 1990s. And it was delicious.
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