No one wants to play through the loser's bracket, so losing in a double-elimination tournament is always best to avoid. Most important is to avoid losing your first game of the tournament, because then playing through the loser's bracket just means you have to win more games or go home. But that's exactly what my city team did just a week ago. Well, you say, it happens, right? Sure it does. But when it happened to my team, it also happened to me. You see, with two outs in the bottom of the last inning, I was the tying run, up to bat. Hero situation. Slow. Pitch. Softball.
I grounded out.
Now, we're not just playing through the loser's bracket, we're playing through the loser's bracket.
Monday was our first loser's-bracket game and we take the field first. I'm playing left because our left-fielder is pitching (I usually play rover - the tenth position in softball). I'm thinking to myself, this is a moderately tough bracket, but I'm a moderately tough softball player. I've got to redeem myself so everyone forgets I got the last out in the first tournament game. What better place for me to do that than here, in the outfield, where playing well is second nature to me.
So imagine this: first man up to bat, blooper to right; second man up to bat, grounder to rover; third man up to bat, blooper to rover. Bases loaded, number four coming up. In baseball, they call number four the clean-up batter, because he's the first one to take a shot at "cleaning up" the loaded bases in a game (which rarely happens in reality, but for some reason Monday, was the case). Well, I was ready. I was going to redeem myself.
Fourth man up to bat, line drive down the left field line. I will pick that ball up and throw it home. I will pick that ball up and throw it home. I will...and the ball bounces right over my glove and rolls to the fence. By the time choice words were spoken and the ball was finally flying to the third baseman, fourth man up to bat was 10 steps from home.
0 outs; four runs in the first inning; not the best way to start a game.
Redemption
1 Blooper to right
1 Grounder to rover
1 Blooper to rover
1 Line drive that bounces casually over your glove
This recipe is guaranteed to make your teammates forget you got the last out of the previous game.
2 comments:
Addendum: We did win the game, by the way, and I played a large part in. That's a different sort of redemption, I suppose. However, last night we played again and got 10-runned (we lost 16-5). I got the last out.
I love that you are still playing ball.
Post a Comment