Old-Man Softball

We all have, or had, childhood dreams. Most of them focus on what we want to be when we grow up. Popular aspirations include a firefighter, an astronaut, a doctor, a member of the circus. Or maybe something less occupational and more physical, like taller, bigger, stronger, smarter. Me? A baseball player. That's all I wanted in life -- to be a professional baseball player. I vividly remember from my younger days my dad showcasing me around to friends and strangers alike, introducing me as (1) his son and (2) a future star in the major leagues. And I don't think he was trying to be cute either.

Well, that dream was fun while it lasted. Didn't take long for good ol' reality to pop in and inform us all that professional baseball is unfortunately only reserved for people who are actually good at baseball. If only I had known. Sure, I could catch the ball, throw the ball, and occasionally (heavy emphasis on "occasionally") hit the ball, but I wasn't good. Perhaps somewhere on the upper side of mediocre at best.

But, ah, softball. Now that I can play, friends. And I'm of course not talking about your run-of-the-mill fast-pitch softball that comes with harmonized dugout chants, hair ribbons, and sexual ambiguity. God, no, this is man's softball. Old man's softball. What's the difference, you ask? Well, for starters, we don't have any of those things I just mentioned. Rather we have slow bell-curve-like pitches, rock-scuffed bats, unkempt beards, zero game plan, and T-shirt jerseys with unknown stains from factors completely and inexplicably unrelated to softball. In this form of softball, water doesn't exist. Need to warm up? Try cooling down -- with a parking lot beer. Need to stretch? Of course you do, so streeeetch your hand out for a cold lager. Need Gatorade? Sure thing, here's a new flavor called Milwaukee's Best. Enjoy, big guy.

Yeah... old-man softball.

Now, I'll be the very first to admit that when I lose, I'm little fun. My intrinsic competitive nature convinces me that winning matters at the moment and you can't persuade me otherwise in the one-hour span directly following a game. But while I write this with emotions in neutral, I totally understand that these softball games [...deep sigh...] mean nothing. It's true. I mean, where do you go from here anyway? Even if you're in a blood-thirsty league, face it, you're playing old-man softball. You're going home to empty pizza boxes, poopy diapers, screaming kids, DVR-ed reruns, wrinkled Dockers, plumbing problems, and living partners or loved ones (if anyone) at home who just genuinely don't care what the game's outcome was.

Suddenly, hustling seems a little less important. I'm finding myself rationalizing against backing up a bad throw that might not even happen. The value of top-brand equipment no longer exceeds the shrewdness of clearance rack items. ...And yet I continue to slide into base and dive for pop-flies. I have no idea why.

The funniest part to me about this recreation is I distinctly recall as a child seeing these grown men playing this pointless softball game and thinking from the backseat of the car as it drove by, "So that's when you know your life has reached a dead end." I'm not sure if I was prodigiously provocative with that childhood observation or naïve and stupid. Now that I'm here, I'm really hoping it’s the latter.

Honestly, I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. Is "a professional softball player" an option?