Mistake ball
May 15th, 2008, 2:40 am · Post a Comment · posted by itsonlyagame
I love the playoffs, but I hate them, too.
Sometimes, it just doesn’t seem fair. One loss — sometimes caused by just one mistake — ends your season. One minute, you’re playing ball out in the sunshine with your friends; the next, you’re headed home to face three months of mowing the lawn.
Softball is the cruelest sport, I think. The games are so close, even during the regular season. One little thing can mean the difference between winning and losing. We saw two games like that in the past two days. Beardstown, a great team, was felled by not one but an uncharacteristic five little things in one inning — including the most routine of routine things: a throw from the catcher back to the pitcher after a pitch. This time, the ball got past the pitcher, allowing a New Berlin runner to advance from second to third. I haven’t seen that all year. And I would bet Beardstown hadn’t seen it all year, either.
Yeah, you gotta give New Berlin credit for putting the ball in play and making Beardstown make plays; That’s part of the game. But Beardstown usually makes those plays. All those plays.
Then on Wednesday, a pitch that was just a little up in the strike zone sailed over the fence to give Nokomis a 1-0 win over Greenfield. Two more inches higher or lower, two more inches inside or outside, and the two teams might still be playing. Again, a good team, and a great pitcher, done in when just one pitch — just one — strayed ever so slightly into that margin of error.
I don’t know what losing like that is supposed to teach anyone. Life isn’t fair?
I think we all knew that already.
