Game One vs Imperial

Thursday May 3rd
GAME ONE: LSD Too 5 Imperial 15
“Well, at least he didn't hit a home run off me.”

Well, that sorted the Kevin problem out didn’t it?

The pre match defection of Kevin Pattenden to Imperial, left me without any experience in the outfield, and as Imperial didn't possess the decency to hit into my quality infield we were well and truly exposed. Why did Kevin leave us? Probably for some all round peace and quiet.

Well, we will have to thank a couple of precious violets in our team who objected to being told what to do, and then subsequently brought in the sort of performances which merely confirmed that listening instead of whingeing would have been the best course of action. There was a lot of irony in the fact that Kevin fielding at third did make a lot of outs off the girls. Mind you everyone including Kevin seems to be happy, so this may end the politics.

It also leaves me without a back up pitcher and certainly conscious, as are others, that at the moment Kevin wasn't really the problem. Mind you since Imperial have been an organisational shower, Kevin is needed as much there as he was by us. Not that this crossed my mind at 6.45pm.

The season started in a biting wind whipping in from the Bristol Channel, which may account for the freezing of individual performances. Always one to lead by example, I had a shocker, and I think that the softball gods were paying me back for a relaxed pre season. Certainly felt an overwhelming sense of disappointment, but only in my own performance, defeat was shrugged off, no inquests were demanded, just a collective sense of people enjoying their evening out and determined that next time they will do better. Hang on, I’ll read that line again...This is so alien to me, I don't know whether I can cope, but after game one, my pitcher expectations have hurriedly changed from ‘ah flyball that's out' to 'please, please can we keep them to three' type exhortations. Things will surely get better.

My other lost player was an American called Dan. Now when Milly states he was a 'complete twat' and Alex and Debs, the people responsible for his presence, felt his attitude was, 'offish and that they wouldn't expend any energy begging him to stay' then you get to realise that this isn't causing me so much distress. He apparently objected to being subbed, I was fairly oblivious to his annoyance, but as we were in the middle of trying to fit 17 players into 10 spots, I kind of thought that chances were some people were going to play half a game, as I was, until my back up pitcher defected! His marshalling of the outfield was akin to watching an episode of 'One Man and his Dog', an episode where the man had just been introduced to his dog and the sheep are all deaf. At one stage I had three centre-fielders in a neat triangle, though I have to concede that it looked symmetrically beautiful especially to the batters.

But as Hen says, 'the rest are really nice!'

It all started so well, I led off into right field and got on base, it would have been a double but they had a boy ringer out in rightfield. Hayley B then hit into the outfield and as Lorraine fumbled I 'sped' into third drawing the throw and creating the space to enable Hayley to creep into second. Alas we had Shepherd Dan on base-coaching duties and he called Hayley B to two after a detour via the outfield, where she was easily tagged. To compound the waste, our left handed slugger Matt Turrigiano hit the ball way over right field for a two shot walk round home run. After the first innings we were 3 - 2 down, that unfortunately was as good as it got, at one stage nine batters were retired in a row. Time certainly flies when you are three up three down. Meanwhile, Imperial batted err imperiously, though an experienced outfield would have halved their score.

With the squad turnout higher than enjoyed by most parliamentary constituency's it at least gave me the option to use 17 players in the match. None was finer than Chloe on first base! She hadn't played for two years yet every chance was taken with ease and despite the hypothermic conditions, you could see she was enjoying her comeback. Chloe scooped the first MVP LSDs Too trophy. It was a shame that Hen couldn't play, but there again someone last week had to get injured doing cartwheels and who better than Hen? We managed 11 hits out of 30 attempts. Great if you are playing baseball, pretty poor if you are playing softball.

Reality bites your bum, not only did we lose two points, we lost two players as well. The only consolation being that my good friend and opposition pitcher Jerry Gyde didn't hit a home run off me. Have to admit that he even pitched better than me, which must have a lot to do with this being the first season he's pitched with a real not imaginary girlfriend.

So what else did I learn?

I know that out that I have a great short stop in James, but knew that already. I now know that I have a good outfielder in Alex and Andrew (another American) certainly knows what he should be doing.. In Matt I trust, to hit very large and very long, whilst doing stellar defensive work on third. I know that our girls have to do a lot more training but are about a month from getting it sussed. I know Hen will make a big difference, I know Chloe will make herself alot more available. I know that we cannot stop recruiting. I know we have to play more friendlies and I know that surely I cannot play so badly this time. But above all else, I all know that Thursday nights will never be the same again and that for the next 14 weeks I are going to go through a lot of highs, lows and at this rate, players!