Rec Softball
Sixth-grade girls are paralyzingly self-conscious. It doesn't matter if they are the Jami Laniers or the Paula Gentrys of the world.
I happened to be on a softball team populated by Jami Laniers and Paula Gentrys. And I was a Lauren Duffey.
I only played softball because that was what you did. One's ultimate goal in life as a sixth-grader is to be popular. And the popular girls at my school were athletic and played softball. Thus, I played softball. I also played softball because I come from a pretty athletic family -- a family whose outings primarily revolved around sporting events.
I quit softball for several reasons, the least being that I was the most unathletic person on the team.
The first event that led to me renouncing the sport (and consquently, being scarred for life) occurred at a practice at Clem Community Center where the infield was pure rocks and the outfield had weeds that reached my knees. (This is no exaggeration, by the way.) We were taking batting practice which was a disaster in and of itself for me. But imagine the horror of a sixth-grade paralyzingly self-conscious girl when the "coach" yelled, "Choke up on the bat, Lauren! You're a BIG GIRL!" I was aware of enough physics and watched enough baseball to know that the two statements were totally unrelated and, thus, pure crap. So I was irrate at the idiot coach and blamed his pitching for my complete inability to connect bat to ball. (Which didn't stop me from crying the whole way home from practice.)
I mentioned that the itchy weeds in the outfield were up to my knees. (And, apparently, I was a BIG GIRL.) I know this because, yes, I was an outfielder. I can't remember if I played right- or left-field but, suffice it to say, I was where the ball was least likely to go. Unfortunately, in a real game (at a slightly better field) a ball did come my way. Which leads me to Reason #2 that I quit softball. I was running to get to the ball when somebody (I swear it was one of my teammates) yelled "FOUL," meaning foul ball, out of bounds, right? So I stopped. Not slowed down. Stopped. Only to see the "foul" ball bounce in fair territory.
And finally, the all-excusing reason that I quit softball was that, during the middle of the season, my family and I moved to Seattle for my brother's bone marrow transplant. So ha.
I happened to be on a softball team populated by Jami Laniers and Paula Gentrys. And I was a Lauren Duffey.
I only played softball because that was what you did. One's ultimate goal in life as a sixth-grader is to be popular. And the popular girls at my school were athletic and played softball. Thus, I played softball. I also played softball because I come from a pretty athletic family -- a family whose outings primarily revolved around sporting events.
I quit softball for several reasons, the least being that I was the most unathletic person on the team.
The first event that led to me renouncing the sport (and consquently, being scarred for life) occurred at a practice at Clem Community Center where the infield was pure rocks and the outfield had weeds that reached my knees. (This is no exaggeration, by the way.) We were taking batting practice which was a disaster in and of itself for me. But imagine the horror of a sixth-grade paralyzingly self-conscious girl when the "coach" yelled, "Choke up on the bat, Lauren! You're a BIG GIRL!" I was aware of enough physics and watched enough baseball to know that the two statements were totally unrelated and, thus, pure crap. So I was irrate at the idiot coach and blamed his pitching for my complete inability to connect bat to ball. (Which didn't stop me from crying the whole way home from practice.)
I mentioned that the itchy weeds in the outfield were up to my knees. (And, apparently, I was a BIG GIRL.) I know this because, yes, I was an outfielder. I can't remember if I played right- or left-field but, suffice it to say, I was where the ball was least likely to go. Unfortunately, in a real game (at a slightly better field) a ball did come my way. Which leads me to Reason #2 that I quit softball. I was running to get to the ball when somebody (I swear it was one of my teammates) yelled "FOUL," meaning foul ball, out of bounds, right? So I stopped. Not slowed down. Stopped. Only to see the "foul" ball bounce in fair territory.
And finally, the all-excusing reason that I quit softball was that, during the middle of the season, my family and I moved to Seattle for my brother's bone marrow transplant. So ha.
posted by Lauren | 10:35 PM
7 Comments:
LOL, Lauren; LOL. I LOVED this post. You wrote it so well! Why did you decide to post about this, anyway? It was GREAT! I'm so sorry you had such an idiot coach! See? THAT'S why I NEVER played sports!
Beautiful. What brought that memory on?
I went through 6th grade twice: from September to the end of December in 1992, we lived in upstate New York and my ultimate goal was to become the heir to Bill Watterson's throne (*sniffle* I miss "Calvin & Hobbes" so much!); January 1993 heralded the beginning of my exile in the West. There I was beaten daily by "open-minded" Californian youth for crimes such as reading books, being too short, being too fat, and not sharing a half-eaten lollipop. I nearly flunked out and it was decided that I should repeat the grade. From then on my goal in life was to be left alone and be punched in the face and kidneys as infrequently as possible.
Did your brother's bone marrow transplant work? I envy you for having lived in Seattle!
Yeah. The transplant worked. It was the 11th "bone marrow birthday" on June 20th this year.
My one sporting triumph was a stint as my grade's top handball goalie (never heard of this sport - well it's REALLY BIG in Taiwan). After years of being picked last for teams in every P.E. class, suddenly I was in demand: the #1 draft pick if you will. But alas, after two months we quit playing handball to move outside for softball. I started out well, but one morning was smacked square on the face with a fast pitch from my so-called friend Ansley Lucas, and that pretty much finished off my confidence. By the way, the large object thrown from a distance and impacting Genevieve's head is something that became quite a theme for me. But that's a story for another time.
Its just to bad you can't be an All-American bad ass like your brother. The athletic genes must have skipped you. I'm kiddin, sorry we haven't talk in forever
By the way...your weird.
"Your" dumb. But I love your high-school has-been self.
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