Date: Feb 25, 2008
Weight: 198 pounds
Song: Cheap Trick - Surrender
This is entry #47, so it is a good day. 47 is my number! Heck - my favourite poker hand is 47 of clubs, although it generally gets me into trouble more than it ever helps me. Originally I recall that my lucky number was #7 and Gary Lupul was my favourite Canuck. Well that's not totally true because I preferred Tony Tanti as he was our answer to Wayne Gretzky.
Anyways, I played baseball back in Victoria for five years from ages 9-13. Prior to that would have been my illustrious field hockey career, but we won't speak of that here. In my final year of Babe Ruth, I was selected to the Gordon Head All Star team as one of our community's best and brightest. We played against some of the other leagues but never advanced out of the city. I was randomly assigned #47, and this is when I switched my allegiance from plain old #7 to the majestic #47.
I was pretty slight and weak at that age and had almost no power to speak of (Batting Average = Slugging Average). Still, I always had surprisingly good hand-eye coordination and hit for a respectable average. I mostly played second base, but don't really remember being a particularly good fielder.
My most embarassing memory from my baseball career was when I struck out on a pitch that hit me. It wasn't like it was a vicious curve or something, I just panicked and swung at something awful. That was a lonely walk back to the bench, and I doubt I played more than a couple more games after that one.
I have only played softball maybe 5 times in the 20-odd years since then and I always assume that I will pick up right where I left off, but then I miss the pitcher's lob completely with my furious swings and eventually hit a pathetic ground ball, and mutter as I walk back to the dugout to put an ice pack on my ailing shoulder.
So I'll admit that my baseball days are behind me, but I think I would like to play softball again sometime. It's a beautiful day today, let's play two.
