"You're killin' me Smalls!"

If I need to tell you that the above quote is from The Sandlot, then do yourself a favor and see the flick. It's a great kid's/family movie with a baseball theme.

Our third game of the year did not go so well. This time we were a man short, and played with nine fielders plus an automatic out. I played poorly in the field and at the plate, going 0-3 with a strikeout (I did tip the ball, but you can hit only three fouls in our league). We ended up losing the game 18-11. The other team kept finding holes in our defense, and several of my teammates also dropped balls.

I decided that I didn't want to embarrass myself anymore. Since practicing fielding was not practicable, I went to the batting cage with my brother-in-law. We each bought one token, supposedly good for 24 balls. I hit first, and the machine kept on pitching. We estimated that we each got closer to 70 pitches on each token. My hands HURT before I even finished. I even tore a patch of skin off the inside of my left thumb (especially painful as I write left-handed).

My mother-in-law took pity on me and bought me a pair of batting gloves, which seem rather nice.

The game last night went better for me and for our team. I singled twice in three at-bats, with the third being a sharp grounder to shortstop. Mostly I was happy that I swung the bat three times, and hit the ball pretty sharply all three times, though my second hit was more of a "bloop" than a line drive.

My fielding was bad, far worse than it ought to be. I missed a hard line drive hit about 1-2 feet to my right. I couldn't scoop a ground ball, but at least blocked it with my ankle so the runner got only one base. The real embarrassment came when I dropped a soft throw from the shortstop, a catch I make over and over again in warm-ups every week.

Still, we have enough good fielders that out overall defense was solid. The other team wasn't hitting all that well, and we ended up winning. I'll be in PA next week, so I will miss one game, but I am hopeful that when I return in two weeks I'll be able to contribute to our team.