One Very Good Thing on an Otherwise Grim Sports Saturday

Last March, I shared a narcissistic post to self-congratulate myself on knocking a home run over the fence at a tournament in Richmond.

This almost never happens now that I’ve become a decrepit old guy, so I decided to share the news.

Well, 560 days later, it happened again. Earlier today, at our final tournament of the year, I managed to line one over the left field fence.

Here’s the satellite view of City View Park in Virginia Beach, VA, with an approximate illustration of what may be the last over-the-fence home run of my lengthy softball career.

Some day, I expect there will be a historical marker to commemorate this important event.

But there is also some bad news to share.

• My home run put us up by seven runs going into the other team’s final at-bat, yet we managed to lose.
• My beloved Georgia Bulldogs got spanked last night by the South Carolina Gamecocks.
• At our seeding games on Friday, I hit a triple in the last inning when we were down by two runs. Why is that bad news? Well, our third base coach thought it would be a good idea to wave me home – even though we had zero outs and I almost certainly would have scored the tying run if I stopped at third. As you probably already have guessed, I got thrown out at the plate. But we did manage to rally for two more runs and win that game, so I guess all’s well that ends well.

In any event, these unfortunate happenings pale into insignificance. Thanks to the home run, I can enjoy Walter Mitty-type fantasies for the next few months.

P.S. I’m also taking off in a couple of hours for a few days in the Cayman Islands, so life isn’t all that bad. Maybe I’ll be able to scout out a nice place that I can escape to when America descends into Greek-style fiscal chaos. I’ll just have to re-remind the local politicians not to wreck a great place by imposing an income tax.