Take Me Out to the Ball Game, Part Two

I am happy to report that our softball team won our game last night! I hereby take back all comparisons to the Bad News Bears. I mean, we aren't super great by any means, but at least we didn't suck completely. And we won! Yay. I also found myself playing a little better, there was less running from the ball, and more catching of the ball. I'm not quite here yet:



But I"m working on it. All the way May! How great was the movie A League of Their Own? Definitely one of my favourite movies ever.

Remember when the other week I asked the question, who injures themselves playing softball? I now have additional things to add to my things to worry about while playing softball list. At the very top? Pulling a quad muscle. I can now say, this is an extremely painful injury, and why the hell didn't I stretch properly beforehand? I think it's because in my mind it's like, hey, it's softball, barely any effort is required. Except! Except when you are at bat, and have to suddenly sprint like there is no tomorrow for first base. So, once again, lesson learned. The lesson being: stretch properly, because sprinting will be happening. I can now not bend my left leg properly and am gimpy, but there is no game next week, so hopefully in two weeks time I'll be back to normal. Another random injury to add to list: slicing your inner arm open with your glove (or something). I was standing there playing catcher, and I looked at my arm and it was bleeding. Seriously, I have no idea what I did, but it proves to me that if there is a way to injure myself doing something seemingly benign, then I will. OY! I never cease to amaze myself with my complete spaziness.

Last night's game was great. Everybody was much more talkative. AND! There was beer, which really only makes things better. We stayed and watched a bit of the next game, and I think we are finding our groove. That groove may not be greatness, but it is a vast improvement on the obliteration that was last week. I'm not an overly competitive person (except maybe when playing board games...), but it's nice to win every once in a while. Keeps the moral high.

Sports and TGIF

Wow, this day is eternal.

I just signed up for a dodgeball team, and it starts in January. Yup! Dodgeball! I hope this foray into sports goes better than the one in the summer. I will go in with exceptionally low expectations that way I won't be disappointed if it sucks! I tend to think that you can't go wrong with dodgeball, but people often seem to screw up the simplest of things in the largest of ways, so time will tell on that one.

I have been on a dodgeball team before, and I lasted approximately one game. This was during university when I lived in hell on earth Saugeen Maitland. Each floor was given the chance to sign up a team for indoor dodgeball, which we did. Or, two of us from our floor wanted to join, and no one else did, so we got stuck on some random team. En. The first game was like the storming the beach scene at the beginning of Saving Private Ryan. Shit was flying everywhere. It didn't help that the game was played with the hardest ball they possibly could have found, and that there were approximately 30 people per team. No, these things didn't help. Basically, the only rule of dodgeball is don't hit people in the head with the ball. It's almost common sense, but yet, people found it very hard to follow. During the first game, I got hit in the head with the hardest ball ever- twice. One of those two times, it hit my ear, partially ripping my earring, and making my ear bleed a little. It was very unpleasant as far as team sports go. So yeah, that was basically the end of that.

I however, am going to try again. I have faith that this time, a) teams will be structured appropriately so as not to have so many people on a team, that it is hard to identify who you should even be throwing the ball at, b) the ball in use won't be hard as a feckin rock, and c)People will actually try and not aim for others heads. Those are the only three expectations I am allowing myself to have, at least until I finish my first game.

All that being said...woooooot dodgeball!!

Sports

This summer, I signed up for rec rowing. I was oh so excited when I heard about it, and oh so excited for it to start. I signed up with an ermm friend of mine, and together, we were excited. I should have known things would rapidly go downhill, when she also signed up her asshat boyfriend, but really, that was the least of my issues.

The very first get together was promising. I met my crew, they all seemed nice, albeit, at least 20 years older then me, but nice. My friend and her boyfriend were late to the first meeting, and this would be a reoccurring theme throughout the rest of my rowing days.

I rowed in grade school, and a little bit in high school, and I loved it. I especially loved it in grade school, because it was just a bunch of kids my age, and it was kinda like camp, except we rowed, and occasionally played capture the flag. It was good times. These were the rowing memories I was recalling when I enthusiastically signed up for rec rowing this summer.

It never crossed my mind that I would hate it. Everything I had heard about rec rowing sounded a little something like, "it's so fun!!" "You'll love it!!" "It's more about the drinking then the rowing!!". I believed all this hype. I went in with high hopes that I would hop in the boat with my crew, and we would row in perfect synchronicity off into the sunset, and when we were done, we would all sit together on an outdoor patio somewhere drinking beers, and talking about how funny it was when so and so's paddle accidentally hit a duck.

NO. What I failed to add to this vision was the fact that I apparently suck at rowing. And the coach was crazy. Sucking at rowing + crazy coach= getting yelled at for two hours at at time. And that it was precisely what it became. I would drag my ass out of the boat at the end of every practice, hoping that someone would at least drop me a little, "you did good today" or "you've improved". I don't need constant accolades, but holy shit, after getting the crap kicked out of me for two hours, I need someone to throw me a bone. Judging by the way our practices were run, everyone else in the boat was a great rower, except me, because the coach would spend the entire practice yelling at me. "You're shooting the seat" "Lower your hands!" "Lower your hands!" "LOWER YOUR HANDS!!". One practice, after he shouted, "I've said it fifty to a hundred times now, lower your hands! Why don't you get it!!!". I cried a little bit beneath my sunglasses. I'll lower my hands buddy, into your face! Gawd, I wanted to just jump off the boat, and swim on home to shore.

After one particular practice, I was so pissed off from having being yelled at for so long, I just glared at everybody. I was stewing inside, I payed money for this? How is this possibly rec rowing? Too intense I say, too intense!

So I quit. I am a huge, big quitter. I never went back, because holy crap, it was stressing me out a little too much. I wasn't trying to train to get into the Olympics, I just wanted to have some fun and row. In the end, I ended up not doing much of either.

As for my friend I joined with, well, she and her boyfriend basically missed every single practice and race. I saw them maybe once.

Honestly, part of me wants to feel bad for quitting, because I usually like to see things through, but a larger part of me was liberated with the knowledge that, I really don't need to put myself through this if I don't want to. I had a very Twisted Sister, We're Not Going to Take This, kinda moment, and I must say, I enjoyed it. Some may call it quitting, I call it saving my sanity.

Lesson learned though. I"m not cut out for competitive sports. I just don't really care that much. Come in last, come in first, I don't give a crap, as long as it's fun. And the fun, it was sorely lacking in rec rowing. On to the next adventure I suppose. Or back to the gym.