Co-Ed Softball...if you can actually call it that.

Michael and I play on a co-ed softball team on Wednesday nights. We really look forward to the competition and interacting with other sports enthusiasts. A week ago we showed up for our game excited, as usual. We were throwing the ball around as we noticed some of the "women" from the other team throwing. I use the term women very loosely. They all looked like men. Michael and I discussed what a competitve game we were about to start playing. Our team was the home team so we took the field first. Michael and I both play in the outfield. He in left center and I in left field. The first player gets up to bat and we look at each other and couldn't decide whether it was a boy or a girl. If you have never played co-ed softball before, let me take a minute to let you in on some strategy. When you are in the outfield and a woman is up to bat you scoot in quite a bit because she probably cannot hit one over the fence. When a man is up to bat you scoot back as he can probably smash one over your head. Okay back to the evening...so Michael and I have no clue whether to scoot in or scoot back. He looks at me and says, "It isn't fair that we have to play against an all guy team". Michael and I decide that we should stay back just in case. Sure enough the ball came flying into the outfield. It was a dude. Michael and I knew that we had our work cut out for us that night. Our team made three outs very qucikly and we went in for our turn to bat. Michael and I have decided that every co-ed team has that one person on their team who thinks that they are AWESOME! Most of them are men who brag about how good they were in high school. Of course, they had some tragic season ending injury which kept them out of the majors. Anyways this team's super jock was their pitcher. He started talking trash right off the bat (no pun intended). A girl on our team hit a really hard ball up the middle which did come close to hitting him in the ankle and he was mad. He looked at her and said, " I hope you're playin' infield 'cause I am comin' fer you." Really dude?!? Who do you think you are? This pretty much set the tone for the rest of the evening. We get three outs and its back in the field for us trying to decifer male and female batters. This "woman" gets up to bat and cranks one right towards me. I run in to catch, very confidently, and the ball hits off the tip of my glove and ricochets past Michael. The thing I hate most about playing the outfield is when the ball gets past me. I feel like an uncoordinated shmuck who should be at home watching Oprah. Michael fields the ball and we're on to the next batter. This guy was a beast. He cranked one over my and Michael's head all the way to the fence. Needless to say nothing we could have done about that one. It was a great hit. The next few innings were filled with fielding, batting, and gender confusion. The batter that had hit the ball that ricocheted off my glove is back up again. I knew were she was going to hit it so, I scooted in. I was right. It was exactly like her previous hit so, I was determinded to catch this one. It didnt turn out exactly like I had planned. I ran in and then lost the ball in the light and the ball slammed into my wrist instead of the glove and bounced behind me. I was so ticked, it hurt soooo bad. I really thought it might be broken. I was so scared to touch it or even look at it. You know when you were a kid and you would fall down and you were totally ok until you saw the blood and would freak out. It was one of those moments for me. My wrist wasn't broken but, it immediately started to swell and get red. We got out of the inning and I was ready for some sweet revenge. So I am on the bench watching the game when my teammate hits the ball to the first baseman (the "girl" who hit the ball that smacked me in the wrist). "She" misread the ball and it hit off her glove and hit her in the chin. In my own sinister way I was so happy. She totally had it coming. What's the saying about karma? Karma is a...and so are you...We had a late run, but ended up losing the game. We will see them again in a month or so. Bring it on.