Softball season is finally over!  I am usually happy when the softball year ends because I play on a lot of teams and just want the break.  However, I only played on one team in the fall this year so I wasn’t ready for the year to end.  We did play in a tournament this past Saturday which actually marked the end of the year for softball.  The roster for the tournament was actually a blend of the Tailgaters and the Spartans.  The tournament was in Aurora and the Spartans are the team that basically “hosted” the tournament for the Tailgaters.  There were six players from each team on the roster.  Three members of the Spartans used to be Tailgaters regulars and one was a sub.  There were five Tailgaters that played who were part of the same team the past couple of seasons who played with the three from the Spartans as part of the old school Tailgaters team.  The sixth is in his first season with the Tailgaters but did sub during the summer.  The roster consisted of the following players, the OS indicates old school – at least two years with the Tailgaters:

Spartans:

Steve (OS)

Drew P. (OS)

Dean (OS)

Drew

Craig

Bobby

Tailgaters:

Lane (OS)

Luke (OS)

Dave B. (OS)

Jerry (OS)

Zip (OS)

Paul

The tournament was played by the city of Aurora’s rules which are basically USSSA but each team is allowed one homerun with unlimited one up homeruns.  No team hit a homerun against us (well, at least none over the fence).  Luke was the only one to hit a homerun over the fence for us – in three of the four games we played, or was it in each game?  I don’t know, but he can crush it.  Those of us on the Tailgaters also had to use bats that we weren’t used to.  We couldn’t use our good bats because the city of Aurora has an extensive banned bat list.  I went to the batting cages the day before the tournament but it seemed like the bat I used (White Steal) weight about five pounds even though it was the same weight as my Synergy 2!  I hit OK but not toward the end of the tournament.  I also walked twice which is exactly two more walks than I took during the fall season. 

Anyway, we didn’t win the tournament but we did OK.  We finished with two wins and two losses.  Four games was enough, many of us were not ready for a game 5.  We won the first game 15 – 13 after trailing 12 – 2.  That was a nice win.  However, we had too long of a layoff until the next game.  We lost that one, I can’t remember the score but it wasn’t close in the end.  We played our third game right after the second game.  If we lost that one, we were done for the day because the tournament was double elimination.  We were the home team but we were losing 20 – 11 with less than a minute remaining in the game, with two outs.  We decided to make an out on purpose so we could go to the next inning with a fresh start!  I’ve never seen that work before but I was game.  By the way, I was the one going to bat so I had to strike out on purpose.  I couldn’t swing at the first pitch because it was behind me – they knew I was trying to make an out.  I guess the decided they wanted to hit again so they threw one over and I swung and missed.  I actually tried to step on the plate and hit the ball which is an out but I missed the ball because I stepped on the plate with my back foot instead of front foot – doh!  I pretended like I was swinging for a homerun on the next pitch but I swung about four feet above the pitch for the strikeout with about 10 seconds left!  For those of you who don’t know, only two strikes are needed in USSSA for a strikeout.  The other team took a 23 – 11 lead after the top of the next inning.  Our lead off hitter in the bottom of the inning made an out.  I was thinking my wonderful strikeout had just delayed the inevitable.  However, we started hitting.  We scored 10 runs before they made the second out of the inning.  Then we scored three runs to win the game!  It was an awesome comeback.

We went up early the next game but I think we hit a wall because most of us are old, fat and out of shape.  The other team had a lot of young, fast and energetic guys.  If we played them early in a tournament or in league we would probably beat them most of the time.  But I give credit to them, they didn’t give up.  Their pitcher is also a new Tailgater and I played with him for many years on different teams so at least they were the ones to knock us out of the tournament. 

Time to rest up and try to get in better shape.  The season starts in about four months.