Thursday 18th May
Pre Match
In modern day sport the professional game is subjected to intense media build up. The morning newspapers feature the views of the coaches and the protagonists, the radio stations pick up the same themes and often bung a well appreciated £50 for some clichéd musings from a 1980’s vintage old pro, still bitter about missing out on the riches bestowed by Sky TV. The 24 hour rolling sports news networks, tap into the developing story, live press conferences again padded out with the insights of 1990’s old pro’s who command around £200 for repeating the clichés the producer could have got for £50 if he’d only skipped a generation. Hype, hype, hype, by the time the match commences you feel like you have already played the damn match yourself.

As for the protagonists, the team is selected the night before, everyone remains focussed on the job in hand, they turn up at least three hours prior to the start time, there is nothing that will get in their way, the day is all about one thing. The match is all, nothing else matters in their world.

Thursday night softball in Bristol in general and the LSDs Too in particular couldn’t be further removed from this point, even if Pickfords dedicated their entire fleet of removal vans to the task you’d still struggle to move the two scenarios to within a continent of each other.

This Thursday was a prime case in point.

First off the hype! No-one is remotely interested in Division Two of the Bristol Softball League, not even the majority of the players who participate it in. So, if you are going to generate some hype, it is best done by yourselves. Within the LSDs Too’s, that task is taken up without much prompting by our very own Jose Mouriniho, Alex ‘The Special One’ Parker, the chosen medium of hype, being that of the group e-mail.
hey all
I’m okay to play today, Tuesday 24th and at the tournament.
how cool am i??!!
alex
It was that final question that prompted the days’ debate, initiated by myself.

Subject: How Cool is Alex?

On a scale of 1 to 10?
With
1, being people who have to leave early tonight to go and watch Star Wars i.e. nerds!)
And;
10. Being those people who cannot play next Tuesday because he is working with Martin Johnson our World Cup winning rugby captain.

You decide!

Regards
David Cotton

Matt, weighed in first.

Subject: RE: How Cool is Alex?
Ewww, this can get dangerous!

Anyone cool enough to wear shades all the time gets at least an 8 in my book!

And um...Martin who?

I didn’t rise to the bait, but dangerous, he was right. Dawn piled in saying she reckoned it was at least a ‘seven’ and likened Alex to a young David Hasslehoff, and ventured forth a new nickname ‘The Hoff!

David Cotton > wrote:

No, but I know that he is a big fan of Knight Rider and hopes one day to have a talking car of his own!

He wears them because they are prescription glasses, which in all consideration means it should be a six!

I was bored, so I gave him a six, which really was based on the fact that it was actually prescription sunglasses and that it was a medical necessity not an actual sign of coolness.

We then all received an e-mail from Wendy currently in Florida:
________________________________________
From: wendy silva
Subject: Re: Why does Alex wear shades?
Knight-rider fetish or not, if you want to be cooler than an 8 Alex then come on out to the U S of A. You should see the three who have just shown up to mow the lawn - clearly cowboy-wannabes. This country would be great if you could rid it of all Yanks. They are so weird!

Anyway, back to business - I can play the 24th and the tournament. So I'm not quite as cool as Alex but getting there. Maybe I can make up in tan what I lack in shades!! And no Dawn, before you say it, I'm not quite Hoff orange yet!

See you soon

W

We then all received an e-mail from Matt:

From: Matthew Turrigiano
Sent: 19 May 2005 16:01
Subject: RE: Why does Alex wear shades?
Oi! You are in Florida....lets not damn the whole of my people!
We don't all look and act like that!

Anyway, some had more pressing matters to attend to, not least what to call our new Anderson Rocket Tech. We couldn’t call it Pamela, because that’s what the first team called theirs. Gillian was ruled out on grounds of being too old, (not by me I hasten to add). Dawn weighed in with Rocky, of course this means future purchases could be called Rocky 2 till V. This one is going to have to be opened to the rest of the team.

Enough of the pre match hype! What about the ‘focus’, the match being everything in life. Again some continental drift between the realities of professional and amateur sport was occurring.

Clearly Hayley’s missing appendix meant the rest of her was missing, Matt also dropped out Tuesday, but thankfully come Thursday lunchtime I still had a large squad, or so I thought.

Mark e-mailed me to say that he had got tickets for the Bristol part of the world simultaneous release (escape?) of Revenge of the Sith, and therefore the force would be leaving us at around 7.30pm. Angela the medical student was also going over to the dark side. I got a text from Hen dropping out to childcare problems and her new found need to visit Cambridge. Wendy was in America, Rachel C was up north dog sitting. Fiona texted me at five to say that she was stranded late in London and wouldn’t be able to make the match, the other Hayley also incapacitated.

As I turned up to the ground, having been picked up the ‘Special One’ at Temple Meads, it dawned on me that last week I was being castigated by the league for having too many girls now I had six including a ringer. The phone rang, actually the ninth time it rang, but I was out of earshot warming up. It was Chloe. Baby was puking up she couldn’t come up, so this meant we were without a first base and down to the bare five players, including ringer! With three minutes to go, we held the final of ‘First Base Idol’ choosing three girls from random okay the only three girls we could find and having the infield chucking balls at them hard. Debs, (our Sharon Osbourne?) was the adjudicator, and Sonia, a 28 year old doctor from Bristol was the winner.

So at 6.50pm, we were late because they couldn’t get a team together, I really had no sympathy, the LSDs Too (or more specifically what remained of them) strode out to their positions, most had to be guided. As I began preparations to pitch, behind me was a first base who had never played in the position, a second base who had the benefit of three minutes tuition. On third, we had a star wars fan for whom selection was based solely on his lightsabre skills at bat. In the outfield we had a centre field who between them had played half a game out there. Four of the girls had yet to reach base all season, in contrast to last week, their pitcher and captain was stressed, wound up and was in no mood for proceedings. There could only be only possible outcome.