Fear the Crab

Two weeks ago The Office participated in the annual AUW Softball Tournament. Normally I’m jazzed to report about this event, but I needed some time to get over this year’s poor performance. Unlike the last two years, we were eliminated in two games thanks to some shoddy defense, and while our bats were “okay” we couldn’t stop the other teams from scoring.

I played third base, and personally committed four errors. One was a bobbled grounder, and three were bad throws to other bases. On the other side of the plate, went 0-2 on a fielder’s choice and ground-out. My teammates did slightly better, but still had their fair share of mistakes on defense.

Overall we just weren’t in it. Our fielding wasn’t crisp and our throws were horrendous. It seemed every hit was a single caused by dropped balls. Singles turned into doubles thanks to bad throws. It didn’t help that the other teams have started to “run the bases,” such as going for second even if the outfielder has the ball. It’s a tactic that forces the defense to throw, which can increase the chances for errors if the fielders aren’t particularly skilled in catching or tagging.

If I could do things over again, I’d want to work on defense during practice. We only focused on hitting, theorizing that the nature of this tournament benefited the team that could score a lot of runs quickly. While that’s nice, it doesn’t really matter how many runs you score if you can’t stop the other team from doing the same.

To go along with the defense, I’d probably suggest that we have pre-determined positions. We were just thrown out there with the order to “find a base,” leaving a bit of confusion as to who would go where. I actually went to the outfield first, but moved to third when it became apparent that nobody was going there. In fact, each time we went out we seemed to have been short one or two players.

Granted, practices are on a volunteer basis, and you can’t force people to show up. It’s very apparent, however, that the other teams took their practices much more seriously. The difference in performance from last year was very noticeable (to me, at least); throws were more accurate, fielders knew their cutoffs, and batting was on point. Even the AUW team seemed to have players that knew their stuff.

Hopefully next year, Systems will follow suit and step up performance. I’d hate to turn out such an embarrassing show again.

My own contribution to “getting better” is the joining of a community softball league. The games are weekly, and the league is in the middle of its fall season. Each team is named after a bird, and I was placed on the “Nenes (Hawaiian goose).” Played my first game yesterday, and was put in the outfield.

The league has an extensive set of special rules. For safety, there are two first bases and two home plates, and I can overrun second and third (obviously that would mean there’s no sliding allowed). This is to minimize collisions and injury from having to stop at a base.

Another rule is that runners cannot leave their base until there’s contact. If there’s a missed swing and the runner leaves, they are out. It happened once during my game, so everybody really pays attention to that. I think I’m going to have to just stand on the bag with both feet, just to avoid temptation and jumping the hit.

The rest of the rules are meant to even the playing field between men and women. Men get a mountain pitch with a 14-inch softball, while women have a slow pitch 12-inch ball. If a team doesn’t have at least 4 women on defense, it can only have three outfielders instead of four. A player is allowed one home run over the fence, after which subsequent homers are counted as singles. There was also something about how an outfielder cannot throw a woman out at a base, plus some other rules that I can’t really remember.

While the rules seems extensive and complicated, I’m sure I’ll get used to it with time.