Last Night, On The Killing Fields of Northeast Minneapolis
It started off well enough, with the goodguys, the Moetown Marauders, scoring a run in the top of the first.
We took our positions in the field; I started out in left. And then the hits came. Long hits. Short hits. We moved in. The team from the Terminal Bar hit them longer. We moved back. They hit them shorter. For good measure, we booted a few balls, too.
We were down 12-1 after the first inning, but we are a spry bunch long on fight and tradition and team chemistry, although that chemistry is typically altered in one way or another most games. There was no way these Terminal Bar chumps were going to beat us by 11 runs.
We kept taking our hacks. We scratched back. Sure, we made some baserunning mistakes, like having a runner get thrown out at third with two outs while we were down 11, with the play in left field for the runner to see. But we needed that extra base, damn it!
I moved to left-center, and the balls kept coming. Many found my glove, but many others did not, as these behemoths from Terminal Bar kept sending moon shots into a tough cloudy sky and a friendly wind. Our entire outfield at various points tried to recreate Willie Mays' amazing over-the-shoulder catch in the '54 series. No matter that the balls were landing a full 20 feet over our heads; what mattered is that if the ball had happened to land in our gloves, our gloves were open and waiting and ready.
And simply turning and running and covering ground in that outfield is no mean feat, let me tell you. For one thing, there are no fences. So when a ball gets by you, it just sort of keeps going. For another, there are these huge light poles stationed at various points in the outfield, all of them situated on these three-foot high hills that look like Native American burial mounds. Playing that outfield is like running around on a miniature golf hole.
Only last night, it was more like a pinball machine. As I said, there was no way these posers were taking us down by 11 runs; the final was 18-4. I lined out to the pitcher for the last out of the game.
The only good thing that happened was I got about a year's worth of practice at hitting the cutoff man, and made a nice one-hop throw from left-center to keep their would-be 19th run at third base.
Take that, chumps.
10:28:51 AM 
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