I know -that- feeling.

I never played any sort of organized baseball; I played a bunch of varieties of disorganized baseball, though. I suffered from a variety of curses when it came to athletics - I was the wrong age, there wasn't anything in the area to do, and I was something of an anti-athlete; I could muck up any game by stepping onto the field. Any game, that is, but baseball or softball.

The neighborhood I spent my young adolescence in was much like the one where I spent my childhood - the only children in the area were about four years younger than I. Since most of them were boys, though, occasionally there would be a father-son game going, and the game was almost always baseball. I'd play, of course - usually for whichever team needed an extra player to even things up, since I was in the wrong age bin.

My moments of glory, though, came in a gym class. I was well known as an anti-athlete. I was also one of those freaky people - a non-atheltic girl who didn't just sit down and ignore the class entirely. (This is why, frex, I played halfback when we played soccer; fullback was where the girls who wanted to sit and gossip played. I eventually grew into a semi-competent halfback, though.)

I played right field. I do remember at one point tagging out a runner headed for home, because the $^*@ catcher had wandered off, the 1b was incompetent, and the pitcher was gods know where. I was rather proud of that play, though on a competent team it wouldn't have happened.

The great moment, though, came at my first at-bat. The pitcher was one of the jocks, and one who additionally took great joy in attempting to make my life hell. Evidently, a pretty, non-athletic geek-girl was a target in his sights.

So, all chortlingly and chucklingly, he steps down off the mound, stands about three bat-lengths away, and lobs me the most condescendingly fat pitch imaginable, all the while commenting that he was going to make my life easy by being 'nice' to me.

It's a pity that he didn't realize my one athletic skill.

I can hit. Not always fair, but I could just about always make contact - when I was in elementary school, I would have ten-pitch at-bats, fouling off pitch after pitch until I actually managed to miss one. (Or rather, I could hit, at the time; I haven't played in so damn long I don't know if I can still claim it as a skill.)

I lined the goddamn softball right over the shortstop. Left field was out in left field, clearly didn't expect to have to field anything from -me-.

Laughed all the way to second or third, I did. Great sports moments don't come often to math geeks like me. ;)

Someday I may find a baseball league that caters to the mediocre and get in some playing time again.

--
Heather Nicoll (©) - Darkhawk - http://aelfhame.dslonramp.net/~darkhawk/
Did you exchange a walk-on part in the war for the lead role in a cage?