Play Ball!

It's that time of year again, where alumni gather across the county at their Alma mater to celebrate homecoming. The wife and I are no exception. The only thing we do a little differently is we join the festivities on the softball field. Each year, the softball coach invites all the crusty alumni to battle against the existing college team for shits and giggles.

Now, you all know I am too old and too injury prone to be on the field actually playing, so I go to coach a base and announce the game. The wife decided she was playing this year (quite to my surprise and horror, I might add). I've done the past several years and have thoroughly enjoyed the chance to ham it up with a microphone. This year, I emailed the coach and said if she dug up a pair of the pants we used to wear (um, back in 1980 and 1981--those are some mighty old pants), I would wear them to the alumni game. These throw back pants are purple pinstripes. Sure enough, the coach came through so I honored my part of the bargain; those are indeed the original pants from the inaugural softball team at my Alma mater. The wife said she thought the pants looked much better now that they did when we were in college--I told her that's because I was forty pounds heavier in college.

I'm not kidding: my pants were older than the current students. That gave the crowd a few laughs. I was by far the oldest alumni--being a graduate of 1984 and the "nearest" next alum was 1997 (well besides the wife, but she doesn't count).

A wonderful surprise was that my coach from 1983-84 also joined the fun and came along to coach first base....who is non other than Master Reiki! It was like a bad flashback. Also present for the festivities was Blue Eyes, class of 1987. She wasn't a softball player but who cares? She was a volleyball player and dear friend and graduate of the school, so it was wonderful to have her there, too.

The only problem with the uniform the coach gave me to wear is that it had obviously been rotting in some back gym closet. I am telling you that thing stuck so badly of mold and mildew that I literally almost couldn't wear it. I washed it in special laundry detergent, I Fabreezed myself to oblivion, I kept the car windows open. It gave me a headache from the mildew-y smell. It was so bad I couldn't wear the top of the uniform. I bit the bullet and wore the pin striped purple pants and hoped no one would smell me.

It was a LONG car ride to the game, wearing those pants.

It struck me funny that I was wearing purple pin striped pleurisy pounds. Woof!

At one point, while in the student dug-out, I announced to the batter (and for all the crowd to hear) that if she hit the ball to the wife in right field, I'd give her $5.00.

Damn if she didn't hit it right to that very spot. I had to pay up. After all, I am an alum of my word. That was a highlight of the day for me.

The Alum dug out was stocked with some very interesting items--several different kinds of beer, licorice, water (thank god) and jello shots. Now, we may have done really wild things when I was in college on the softball team, but we never had jello shots. I don't think Jello shots had even been invented back then. I was corrected when I announced to the crowd that the Alums were drinking jello shots--you don't drink them, you slurp them. I guess that would be true, as they aren't exactly liquid. They're jello, for pete's sake. Whatever happened to beer bongs?

I think fun was had by all. No one was hurt, no one got pissy, no one got drunk (well, not that I could tell). I'm happy to report that the Alumni won by slaughter rules, 13-2. I wasn't injured, the wife got on base several times. You go, girl!

Ask me if she can walk tomorrow. Bet you fiv bucks she can't.