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August 15, 2006

Softball Smashing

I'm pretty sure I haven't ever been in, or even heard of, a softball game quite like the one I was in last night with the E Free church team. It was a road game at First Baptist in Bellefonte, and first of all their field is somewhat unique, in that it's on a plateau carved out of Bald Eagle Ridge, so there's a huge dropoff just beyond the first base line (when playing left field it's gorgeous to see the valley and the next ridge as a backdrop to the field of play), and then a steep hillside in deep left and left-center field. Any ball that hits the hill on the fly is a homerun, or a double if it bounces or rolls up onto it, so First Baptist is of course well-practiced in "swinging for the fences." But anyway, onto the score. We were missing quite a few players, and they had a lineup full of power hitters, so it's perhaps understandable that they beat us 36-7 after six and a half innings of play. But if we would've decided to stop after four and a half innings, when the mercy rule would've taken effect, the score would've been just 23-2. In either case we lost pretty badly, but we still had a good time. We made a few errors here and there, but they were crushing the ball to the outfield so well that even with a perfect game fielding, we still would've lost by 20, especially with us being virtually unable to hit a ball out of the infield off their crafty starting pitcher and his nasty spin. Allowing 12-run innings just doesn't do a whole lot toward helping you win the game. :-) The only comparable slow-pitch softball game to this was with "Team Weather" when we mercied some team 19-1 after 5 innings back in July.

Oh, and I also found out at the softball game yesterday that I'll probably be playing piano at a wedding here in State College in late September. Word got around to Suzanne that I have played piano in the past, and she and Julian (they're both from the E Free church) have been desperately looking for a pianist who's available that date. I told her that I'd even though I'm really rusty from not having played at all in a year, I'd try to shake it off and at least take a look at the music, but that I couldn't promise that I could do it for sure. Well, there goes a fair bit of my free time for the next five or six weeks, but it'll be good to get some of my piano skills back. I'll have to look into getting a key to the church, since that's the only place I know of where I could practice...

Ahh, football is back. Even though it was a preseason game I did watch pretty much the whole Vikings game (and thank goodness Vikings coach Brad Childress opted not to go for a last-second field goal that would've sent it to overtime!), partly to see rookie QB Tarvaris Jackson out of Alabama State, who's priming himself to swipe the backup QB job, and to hear how Tony Kornheiser would do in the Monday Night Football booth. Overall I'd have to say I like him in the booth for his wit, and for how he makes fun of Joe Theismann, who I think is a terrible announcer. As for the new Vikings uniforms, however... Well, I don't think they're quite as bad as Uni Watch says they are, but I still think they're pretty bad. Their old uniforms (home, at least) were one of the best in the NFL, and now they have to go add that awful side stripe and piping on the jersey and the pants. Yuck. I'll wait for a full evaluation of their road unis until I see them play at Pittsburgh this Saturday for their 2nd preseason game. I wasn't really a fan of their old road unis, but judging from the new home uniforms, the new away unis will likely be a major downgrade. Oh well.

Posted by Jared at August 15, 2006 11:58 PM

Comments

What do you think of "MV" replacing the Vikings' logo on the 50-yard line in the Metrodome?

Posted by: Jeff at August 16, 2006 10:37 AM

Well, I absolutely love the Vikings logo (the head with the helmet and yellow braids and everything), so I was sad to see that no longer on the 50-yard line, especially since they only started adding that to midfield a couple years ago, and really only after baseball season was done. But I think the stylized MV is still pretty cool, I like it far better than a plain vanilla 50-yard line. And I also much prefer the MV to, say, an image of the Vikings helmet.

Posted by: Jared at August 16, 2006 11:04 AM

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