Juan Monroy

Last fall, I began playing with the Ramblers, a mens softball team in Queens not far from Sarah and my place in Long Island City. Although I was hesitant to join because I already play too much softball, I stuck with them and became their everyday pitcher. I initially shared the pitching duties with Sebastian, a guy I knew from the McCarren league. But about month ago, he left for California, and I began pitching both games of each week’s double header.

The team started the season explosively winning 14 of our first 18 games. We struggled a bit in the last few weeks, but last night, we won our last two games to take the “Masters” division. We decisively beat the Maulers, a team that had beaten us three times in our past four meetings and was tied with us for the division lead. We won the first game, 16-9, although the Maulers had kept it close until the end of the game. In the second game, we strung together hit after hit and won the second game, 13-2, in five innings.

After the game, we were awarded a modest trophy and a novelty check (apparently with a real routing and account number) for $300, which we quickly gave back as a deposit for our fall league. Our celebration was abbreviated: pizza, beer and home by midnight. It was a Tuesday night, after all, and we all had early mornings ahead of us.

The playoff tournament (and the real fun) begins next week.