Monday, July 12, 2004

Two Years of Idiotic Pain...and Counting

Last year in our opening weekend of company softball, I had the wonderful idea of sliding on the sandpaper-like dirt into second....in shorts. Of course, my knees and right leg were mangled for the whole summer. At least Houser did the same thing the same game, so I didn't feel too stupid. We spent the remainder of the summer covered in peroxide and ointment.

So far this year I have been relatively injury-free, save a bad groin pull a few weeks back that nagged me for a full week. Injury-free until today, that is. I was standing on second base with another runner at third with two outs. The batter hit a line drive into left field so, of course, I took off running. Well the runner at third (who shall remain nameless) could not decide whether to score or not and kept running back and forth between home and third. By the time I noticed I was already at third. So I ran all the way back to second, but the outfielders had thrown the ball back in to second leaving me in a rundown. I decided to play a little game of chicken figuring the fielders would panic if I just barreled to third. However, the thirdbaseman got the ball with ease and poised to tag me out. I had invested too much in my speed and decided not to go down with a fight. I dove into third on the sandpaper-like dirt....in shorts....again.

This time proved to be a double-whammy because the thirdbaseman, a cute girl I had been flirting with all game, wasn't expecting this situation and jumped just at the last second. However, she didn't jump early or high enough and I flew into her legs. From what I could see from the ground, she flew a great deal and slammed down hard on her back. She was okay, but it took her a minute. I felt like such an idiot. I apologized profusely to her for the rest of the game. Now my legs are once again mangled and I had to pull the peroxide and ointment out of retirement. I have new scrapes over the scars from last year's scrapes. But guess what....we won! In fact we won the game from last year's sliding fiasco. I'd like to say that it's in part to my sacrifices, but I make the third out both times. Oh well.
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