Three Run Jimmy Jack

Yesterday my baseball team, the Zephyrs, played at SBC Park in San Francisco. I played 2 innings in right field, 2 in left field and pitched a scoreless top of the 9th. At the plate I K'ed, hit a 2-out RBI single up the middle, then got hit by a pitch. I can see the ball's laces in the bruise on my thigh.

There are certain places a person is in life where they won't be again. I doubt if I'll ever be pitching in Pac Bell Park again. I'm getting too old and too sore to play baseball. But a few weeks ago we played a team whose starting shortstop is 56 and starting second baseman is 60. How do they do it? We have a guy on our team who is 51 and going to have knee replacement surgery on both knees this fall. This was his last day out there too.

There are very few places on the earth more beautiful than SBC Park. Maybe nowhere built by man. The grass is perfect, the dirt is perfect, even the color and shape of the seats as viewed from the field are just about perfect. The only imperfect thing out there yesterday was the the players. And boy was that imperfection visible. I think we all knew the players who belong on a beautiful field like that are the Major Leaguers who play baseball about as well as it can be played. So it is a little bit of a fantasy to just be there, doing that. And it is once a year and costs us $250 each for that one chance to pretend we belong on a field that nice. They turn teams away every year.

I wonder where I'd be in life had I not become massively addicted to baseball? Maybe richer, certainly less injured. Smarter? Happier? Probably not. Life after baseball will be starting soon, I am going to need other hobbies. I was thinking of getting into biking, it is something I can do.