Tagged: Ball Busters

Softball Week 2: Explosive Wednesday Game, Nothing on the Weekend

Ramblers vs. G00nies

The Ramblers are a team I played with last fall, and I even shot some photos of them during their last game. I signed up for the spring/summer team, and I won a spot in the pitching rotation. We played two games on Wednesday night at Whitey Ford field, in the north-west tip of Astoria, Queens, and won two games, each by a ten-rule mercy-rule margin.

This team has some really strong hitters. They’re not necessarily going to hit balls into the East River, but they hit hard line drives. Everyone in field is solid, and I’ve never seen such smart aggressive base running in a long time. Those skills are key to winning in New York City softball.

Robots Off

The Robots didn’t play this weekend because the league took the day off.

Ball Busters Rained Out

The Ball Busters didn’t play on Sunday either. April showers washed out my two softball games this Sunday

Softball Week 1: Bats Fell Asleep

Sleeping Umpire at Great Lawn 001

Softball season got off to a bad start. The Robots and the Ball Busters each played two games, and we each lost both games. Colloquially put, our bats fell asleep, like the umpire from the earlier game at Central Park’s Great Lawn ball fields.

Robots vs. Soft Spot and Robots vs. Balls Deep

My defending champion Robots lost a heartbreaker against a rejuvenated Soft Spot team on Saturday in McCarren Park. We dropped the first game 8-7 in eleven innings. We then lost the second game to Balls Deep by a much more embarrassing score. I pitched both games and by the middle of the second game, I must have ran out of gas because I just couldn’t get my pitches to not find the middle of the plate. We also couldn’t score.

Ball Busters vs. Jackals

On Sunday in Central Park, the Balls Busters, who finished in first place last season (but lost in the first round of the playoffs), lost the first game, 1-0, to the Jackals. We regrouped and put some runs on the scoreboard, but still fell short, 5-4, in the second game. I pitched both these games too, and I thought my arm was going to fall off, but it turns out all that cycling I did in the last few months have given me a lot more flexibility than I usually have in April. I wasn’t as sore as I would have thought. Thanks unseasonably warm April!

Three one-run losses in two days suck, but I suspect that both teams were very rusty.

Thinking about Softball

Earlier today, one of my teammates from the Ball Busters sent me a video of me getting a base hit through the right side (the 3.5 hole, no less). It’s not that the hit was unusual—I regularly hit the ball that way—but in late January, softball seems so foreign. It was nice to remember seeing a sunny day in New York, my wearing shorts, and of course, playing softball in Central Park.

Thankfully, softball is only about 10 weeks away.

Games 5-6-7: Washed Out

The grand weekend of softball hit a pretty serious obstacle today. Rain. Lots of it. Nonstop since late last night.

Obviously the rain cancelled all of our games today so the Ball Busters have to wait yet again to start our playoff run. To some degree, it worked out for the best because we were missing a few players and some were flying in from Chicago to make the game in time.

The rain has been so bad, I wouldn’t be surprised if it washed out tomorrow’s Wilson Softball game. When it rains in Central Park, they usually don’t open the fields for several hours after the rain has stopped so it’s a pretty safe bet to anticipate no game tomorrow.

Weekend of Softball

Sarah left today for a weekend trip to see her family in Kentucky and also to go to a bridal shower for a high school friend. Since I’m poor for the next few weeks, as I usually am during this stage of the summer, I thought I would have a quiet, productive weekend while Sarah is gone, spending time at home, cooking for myself, and maybe even doing some writing.

I still plan to do all that, but it also happens to be a very busy softball weekend. On the docket so far are no fewer than six games over the next four days:

  1. It begins with a double header on Friday morning with the Librarians taking on Juicy Lucy in a fierce battle on the artificial turf of East River Park.
  2. On Saturday, the Robots take on the always bothersome Papacito’s All Stars in McCarren Park. We want to beat them so bad, and I know they’re looking for a competitive game. I’m looking forward to this game.
  3. Sunday is going to be a grueling day. The Ball Busters begin the first round of the Lower Manhattan Softball League playoff tournament on the Great Lawn in Central Park. It’s a best-of-three series against the enigmatically named Awkward Times. We enter the tournament with the number-one seed so we want to carry our winning ways from the regular season to the postseason.
  4. Finally, on Monday, things will be a bit more relaxed with the weekly Wilson Softball game on Central Park’s North Meadow. On most Mondays, I can barely walk after most weekends of softball. But I imagine playing this game is akin to a recovery ride after putting a lot of miles on my bike, like a century’s worth of miles.

And earlier today, as if he sensed that I didn’t have enough softball this weekend, my friend Crazy Eddie asked me to sub on his team tonight. I was planning on seeing M.O.T.O. this evening at Saint Vitus in Greenpoint, as I just found out about the show this morning.

But I’m ready to play. Summer is going to end in three weeks, and I won’t have this opportunity again.

Ball Busters Clinch First Place

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Earlier this week, we learned that my Sunday softball team, the Ball Busters, finished in first-place in the Lower Manhattan Softball League, and we clinched the top playoff berth for the second year in a row.

Our record this year stands at 19-3 with two games to play, which isn’t too different from last year’s record, 20-2.

We have a pair of game left on Sunday, July 31, and then we start the playoffs on Sunday, August 6.

Congrats to my teammates for another great year. Now let’s win the whole thing!