The Game

Thats what I am calling it… “the game.’” It happened Monday night on the Yankee Stadium replica field and I was in it. My team, a talent-diverse group of guys somehow connected to my church took home the championship trophy, and what a game it was. You will want to read this, I guarantee you have never read a better amateur sports story.

First, the backstory. We played a team at the beginning of the season called the Churros. On this team is a pair of cocky, young, loudmouths who are trying to relive their high school glory days by playing slow-pitch softball as 19 year olds. With their mouths they let everyone know that they are too good to be playing in our league, they just haven’t been discovered yet. Right.

Anyways, in this first game we went into the bottom of the last inning as the home team and down by a run. With two outs, we had men on all bases. An out and we lose. Our guy hit a routine fly ball to left, game over, right? Wrong. Mr Cocky, we will call him Sam, decided to be cute with this routine catch and DROPPED IT.

Two runs score and we walk off as winners.

I thought the next time would play these guys that Sam would have had his attitude and mouth adjusted but I was wrong. We played the again in the regular season and this time he was playing shortstop and his mouth had gotten bigger. Our whole team was frustrated by this kid. We lost badly.

So going into Monday night, we won our semi-final and then watched the end of the other game to see who we would face in the championship. The two teams playing were the Churros and the Bulls. The Bulls all had matching uni’s which looked A LOT like the Durham Bulls, the Triple-A affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays. The also had a first basemen we all called “Lurch” because he was huge, had a Barry White voice, and ate rocks instead of peanuts while in the field. On this particular night, the Bulls had a 10 run lead and I was happy. I would rather be pulverized by Lurch and his teammates and take second that have to deal with the internal anger struggle of playing Cocky Sam and the Churros.

The the unthinkable happened.

The Churros came back and won.

We had a pep talk before had to keep our ‘tudes in check and I even prayed the Serenity Prayer as I was walking to my spot at short.

To start the game, we mounted a huge lead. Sam got a grounder that was routine but he bobbled it and threw his glove down in an act of self-hate. Then a fly ball to shallow left bounced in the middle of four Churros and Sam berated his leftfielder for not calling it. The next play of the second inning should have been a 6-4-3 double play but 3 dropped it a first and Sam began yelling at his first baseman. Finally the inning ended and as we took the field, Sam got into it with his team.

First he shoved the left fielder who shoved back.

Then he went face to face with his second basemen who wasn’t too happy about it.

Then the yelling escalted causing the game to pause and the ump to get involved.

Sam then turned on the ump who promptly encouraged him to pick up his feces and leave the field. Ejected.

We all stood there looking at each other and feeling like you did when you were a kid at your friends house and then your friend gets in trouble in front of you with his mom… uncomfortable.

But the best part is that when Sam got ejected, his team was forced to take an out for every time his spot in the order came up to bat. Good for us, bad for El Churros.

The game went on and our 15-1 led shrunk to 15-4, then 15-6, then 15-10. I made a sick Ozzie Smith catch where I jumped at least 35 feet in the air to make a snow cone catch that made the #11 in the SportCenter Top 10 plays.

But going into the last Churro side of the inning, I had a bad feeling. We all had just watched these guys come back from 10 down the last game and Sam was in the stands heckling and his former team was rallying. I was doing the math in my head to see if it was even possible for the Churros two win one out in the lineup… it was. With two outs the bases were juiced. The best player came to bat. Our first baseman encouraged our pitcher to walk the guy since the next batter was supposed to be Sam… game over.

He didn’t.

One pitch later the batter was watching his ball fly over the left field facade and his team got exited to be within 1 run of tying the game. But wait… just like the first time we played them, Sam and his attitude cost his team the game.

Poetic justice.

My wife thought it was lousy way to win but I disagree. How else can you win and directly rub it in the face of the most arrogant opposing player? Sam watched the whole thing and the only thing his team said as they were walking off the field was, “Thanks a lot, Sam!” Ouch.

So today, I am a champion. I have a new t-shirt to do yard work in and I have a bounce in my step. I am also wondering if there is something to this whole karma thing.