The Annual Alumni Softball Tournament was created as a fundraiser for the high school, a way for past grads to support their alma mater, catch up with old friends, and drink entirely too much beer. Great, in theory, but then winning gets in the way. Lifelong friends are reduced to raging competitors who stop at nothing in the name of rivalry, to put it mildly. Conceitedness takes reign and fun is abandoned. One team's shirt even boasted "You want the title? We've got it! The road to the Championship goes through us. 2007 Undefeated Champions" Rivalry got so strong that teams who lost games and were ineligible for the Championship stepped aside in their remaining games and paved the way for those eligible teams to breeze on through, as EVERYONE wanted the T-Shirt Bandits to be knocked back into place. All in good fun was gone.
I was on that team-the one who was deemed the golden child and the only hope to administer retribution. It was decided, in the spirit of competition, that the three girls who were able to practice together each week would play constantly, with the fourth girl position being rotated among the 6 girls in the dugout. I'm sorry, but if we're playing competitive ball and practice attendance is the criteria for playing time, then please give those of us who live out of town more than 5 hours notice of the practice schedule. That's a crock of bull that wasn't made known until the tournament started. What a rude awakening that was. And yet when it came down to the end-all-be-all game against the team that everyone wanted to beat, even the catcher's position was not up for rotation. And it was me who was chosen to fill that spot, oh praise be!
Fittingly, we failed. Who knows what those shirts will say next year.
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