Baseball – The Florida Edition

Debsue wrote a blog post on our annual trek to Florida to play baseball.  You can find it here.  I am going to take the approach to fill you in on the little things that happen in Florida. 

This is my ninth year playing in the Roy Hobbs tournament.  It runs for four weeks total for different age groups.  I play in the 47 and over Masters division.  I have in the past also played in the 38 and over.  At age 50 it is getting harder and harder to keep up with the younger guys. 

You play four games against selected competition based on your teams past track record.  Based on those results you get put in a bracket.  Some teams seem to sandbag to get into a lower bracket that they then can win.  Once you are in the bracket and you start tournament play, it is single elimination.  So you play at least six games. 

Our team, the Mudhens are maddeningly inconsistent.  We won the championship this year because we got hot at the right time.  But this week in Florida, we were lousy, all of us, and, in particular me.  I went 1 for 13 and hit one ball out of the infield.  Baseball is a timing sport and I can be really hot or really cold.  And I was just a little off and hit lousy.  Then there was my pitching which is was also awful.  Had my usual good stuff but many, many walks.  That is why I don’t pitch too much anymore.  I threw 13 innings and probably had 16 walks.  We were put into the lowest bracket this year because of our play and lost in the first round to a winless team.  At 50, the difference between good and bad can be slim. 

However, the real goal is to get threw the week healthy and not too sore.  A number of years ago, I caught a bad hop ground ball that sliced part of my ear requiring 17 stitches.  This year, it was just the usual aches and pains that come from playing every day.  Some guys play two weeks – now that would be hard.

The last two years, Debsue went with me.  I position it as an orgy of baseball (since Debsue loves baseball that is good) and a chance to go on lots of dates with her hubby.  We get some time to do other stuff and we went to Sanibel Island and also took part of a day and took a nice long walk.  I also do some work during my free time.

So all in all despite the disappointing play and result, it does not get much better to be out in 80 degree weather playing a little boys game.