Fear the Crab

Played softball on Friday. It was a mostly-informal tournament between some of the UH campuses and the Aloha United Way. 3-innings, slow pitch, 20-minute games or 10-run mercy rule. Your own teammate pitches to you. I played on the “Systems” team which included administrative, professional, and technical staff. Schedule of events were as follows:

* First game against the Aloha United Way team. We won that game thanks to the 10-run mercy rule.

* After about twenty minutes of rest, played against UH Manoa B (there were two Manoa teams). We lost that one because of the 20 minute rule and couldn’t score enough runs in time. That put us in the loser’s bracket.

* In loser’s bracket, an hour later, we played AUW again. Also again, we won by mercy rule.

* Another long wait until our next game against UH West Oahu. Won game after 20-minute rule.

* Not too much of a wait this time, and our opponent became Windward Community College. Won game by mercy rule.

* Suddenly we had to play another game, this time against the team that beat us, UH Manoa B. This time we won by 20-minute time out.

* Now, thanks to winning, we were in the championship and had to face unbeaten Kapiolani Community College. Another consecutive game without rest, and this time there would be no mercy rule nor a 20-minute game. It’s the championship and we would have to grind it out until three innings. I don’t know how long the game was, but we ended up winning with a final score of 21-3.

* Because we were from the loser’s bracket, in order to be considered the champion we had to play KCC again. Another consecutive game, our fourth in a row, and like before there would be no mercy and no time, just straight 3 innings. By this point, we were exhausted, and our batting slowed considerably. However, thanks to some great defense we managed to pull off the win by a score of 7-4.

Actually, defense was the basic key towards our success, but that knowledge came after a series of harsh lessons. After the first game, we got a bit complacent and any time someone got a hit, they’d jog around the field. That came back to harm us because we didn’t score as often as we could have, and learned a painful lesson about the 20-minute rule. When the other team scored ahead of us, we ran out of time to catch up and ended with a loss.

Later, as I was scouting the other teams, I noticed that some teams would field an extra infielder or outfielder. We only had the 4 basic infielders and 4 outfielders, plus 1 catcher. I brought this up to our “manager” (who was basically one of the VPs who volunteered), and he found out from the officials that we could field up to 10 players, so it was legal.

Finally that brings me to defense. We played in a baseball stadium, with the fence 325 feet from home. However, the bases were set at softball field dimensions of 60 feet. This meant that if a ball was hit past the outfielders, the batter would be rounding third by the time the ball was reached. Our players understood that it was better to keep any hits in front, even if it meant a single or double. This allowed us to keep the other team from scoring big runs.

Still, we had some skilled players. Most of us had previous experience in baseball or softball, so it wasn’t difficult to communicate effectively during play. It’s a lot easier when all you have to do is shout “Two!” to a shortstop and he knows that he should throw to second base.

This is why I say defense was key. Sure, our batters could knock some home runs (see rule about keeping ball in front; other team didn’t do that), and we started running hard to get extra bases, but it was our defense that enabled us to win by mercy rule or keep the other team from scoring. Our team had multiple double-plays (the only other team to turn a double play had just one), and we were the only team to tag someone out at home.

So we won the championship and was rewarded with UH football and volleyball tickets. I scored me some volleyball tickets for November, so I plan to attend as I have never been to one.