Recap: A Well-Balanced Double-Header

Russ' neither came out ahead, nor came out behind, but rather maintained a balance: One win, one loss. The first game was won by a lot, but we worked hard to get there, and we had fun doing so. The second game? It was pretty clear what was going to happen right away. Any attempts to put up a fight were shut out immediately. It... was brutal. (And we play them again in a month!) Grace took notes, so I'm now able to bring you: the game summaries.

(Note: I am not a sports journalist. RBIs? Line drive? Sacrifice fly? No clue what those mean. This is written in a very informal way.)

Practice Highlight
- A little kid got hit in the eye. Kids, am I right?
- Mike was running to get a ball, didn't quite know where on the field he was, and... ran into a trash can.
- The game started a little over ten minutes after the scheduled time.

Game no.1
Inning no.1 - "Wow, we are kind of amazing!"
We had a little bit of trouble with fumbling with the ball when throwing to get the other players out. But when we got up to bat? That's when the confidence took over. Nate, Dan, Kyle, Becki and Mike all ran to home, scoring us five points. (That's right, this blog does math for you.) Three of those points were all scored at once, which was an incredible boost for team spirit right there. Inning score: 5-2, Russ' favor.

Inning no.2 - "Wow, we were amazing last inning!"
There was some more fumbling with the ball. Brian, the evening's pitcher, got a little mad, in his Brian-esque way. All in all, the other team only managed to get one player by us, giving them an extra point. Butler struck out, Melissa walks to first, Devan struck out, Leen got to first, John out. Inning score: 5-3, Russ' favor.

Inning no.3 - "Let's more than double our score, okay?"
There is a good play made by Jason, but I can't remember what it was. Mike makes a catch "high and pretty," as Grace put it, which worked out really well for us: the opposing team scored just one more run. When its our turn up at bat, it is pretty much an explosion of awesomeness, except for Julie. Julie ran to first. Julie thought she was safe. Empire said otherwise. Julie tried so hard to not be so mad! Basically, here's how it went: lots of the team got runs. Dan, Mike, Kelli... lots of runs. Inning score: 12-4, Russ' favor.

Inning no.4 - "Don't slide!"
I try not to bring Grace's note-taking in that much, because she was doing me a favor, and she wrote notes so that I could turn them into these wonderfully unreadable paragraphs. However, I think I'll just write what she wrote for while the opposing team was at bat: "Devan gets high and pretty. B(rian) T(enBrock) walks one. Boring." Short, sweet and to-the-point, no? Other team gets two points.
When its our turn, Becki slides in to third base, in spite of her mom yelling rather loudly, DO NOT SLIDE BECKI! Classic. She winds up scoring for the team. Inning score: 13-6, Russ' favor.

Inning no.5 - "What's a bad habit?"
While catching, Melissa gets hit in the head. And there was a joke made about "bunting," but, you really had to have been there. Or have a better memory when writing up recaps. One of those two. We shut the "others" out from getting a single point. Kyle runs to home, scoring Russ' another point.
Someone mad a mention about having a bad habit, leading me to state: "You know what's a bad habit? When all the nuns steal from the poor." Thank you, I'll be here all week.
EDIT: Apparently, the joke doesn't work, because logically, nuns live in an abbie and wear a habit. Still.

Innings no.6 & 7 - (We can really just combine these two)
Brian does a pretty sweet slide action. Julie does the splits for an out. Dan catches a high ball. And... well, other team scores two more, but that isn't enough to win the game.
Game score: 15-8, Russ' favor.

Game 2 - "Hey, weren't we good just two minutes ago?"
The entire game can be summarized as such: It took about forty minutes to get through the game. Immediately we realized that we were like David and we were facing a team with a few metaphorical Goliath's on them. Plus, we were tired, and the other team didn't have a game right before. Nate made a couple good catches, but, it really didn't matter if we caught the ball or not. The other team was good. And we didn't/couldn't/didn't bring it. Everyone is frustrated, because we did so good last game, and this other team makes us look like we've never played softball before in our lives! It took some doing, but we kept spirits up enough so nobody left the field feeling terrible. After all, we had one amazing game right before. Absolutely classic.
Game score: 0-8, Russ' mercied after five innings.

Next week's game: Is at 7:10 p.m. eastern time. I leave you with this sports quote that, according to the Internet, is supposed to inspire you. So, um... feel its spirit?

The pitcher has got only a ball. I've got a bat. So the percentage of weapons is in my favor and I let the fellow with the ball do the fretting.
-- Hank Aaron

See you next week. Pictures + video coming to the blog soon.