January 13, 2020 Softball

It was funny because on New Year’s Eve day I was at Fry’s and ran into a friend of mine that I used to work with and he and I put a softball team together back in the day. We started talking and I told him how I was playing a lot of pickleball and he said he was still playing a lot of softball and I said I’d really like to get back into Softball someday. And he said well you should go here or go there (he was naming different communities) they have teams and always need players, and I kind of just took it all and I was like ok yeah. Then the following week I get a phone call from a girl named Annie who I knew because she had played with him and said Dan told me you want to get back into playing softball can you play next week? And I was like Annie I haven’t played in years and I mean years. She said it doesn’t matter just come and play we’re not very good it doesn’t matter. And I was like no you don’t get it I haven’t played in years and she again said it doesn’t matter just come and play we need players so I told her I would go and play.
So I show up to play and it’s incredible how I felt like I didn’t know how. I ended up playing third-base and if a ball came to me when I threw to first it would bounce to her three times. I didn’t get to bed and when I hit the ball it went maybe to the shortstop and then the big joke was me trying to run. But as the season went on I felt like I was improving and I was actually running for other people that couldn’t run. Plus I was able to throw over to first and it would only bounce once. And as more time went on and I played more I still felt like I was improving. We played every Monday and Wednesday doubleheaders so I was getting a lot of playing time in. I actually was hitting the ball out to the outfield and I got moved over to play shortstop. I was improving and I was loving playing softball again.
Initially when I first started playing I thought I’m not gonna play every Monday and Wednesday I play a lot of pickleball too and I would rather play pickle ball then softball. But as the season went on I did show up every Monday and Wednesday except for the few times I had actual conflicts of Pickleball Tournaments with playing softball. They were all asking at the end of the season if I was going to play again next season and I said yes I wanna come back and play.  I also decided that I will play softball over Pickelball on the days that we actually have games. It was fun to get back into playing again. And I can say when Annie said we’re not very good she was right we definitely had a losing record. A lot of the members on our team are older ladies, in fact our picture is 86 the other lady that played third base is 80 and myself and another girl were the only ones in our 50s. But it really was a lot of fun and they were super nice ladies so I’m looking forward to playing again next year.
The team I’m on is from a community in Mesa, Sunland Village East. There is a team out here in Queen Creek and their field is not very far from the house. I thought about checking into playing with them or my friend Sue who I play pickle ball with is on a team in Sun Lakes and she wants me to come and play on her team. But Sun Lakes is even farther than the team in Mesa. And I do know that I will always be put in to play on the team I play with in Mesa because I’m actually one of the better players even though I’m not very good lol. And I don’t know if it would be the same if I joined a different team cause some of the other teams in our league are really good. I did already tell the ladies I would come back next season so for now I’ll go back to the original team I played on and will see how it goes.

 It’s funny because I knew Sue played softball but I didn’t know we were in the same league so I pull up to play one day and we are playing against her team and there she is. As good as she is on the pickleball court she is even better on the softball field.