Swingin' for the fences

I love slow pitch softball.
My career began years ago when I was an underage high schooler filling in illegally on a team with some folks my dad used to play with.
Back then I had the instant advantage of being 25 years younger than everyone else on the team, making me quite a bit faster than the others. I just didn’t have the skills to hit a slow, arcing pitch.
Later, I spent four years on a team with some friends. After a yearlong hiatus, that career is back on track.
I’m playing for Naturalist in the St. Helens Adult Softball co-ed league. We’re in the recreational division, Division 2, which means the competition level isn’t quite as intense as Division 1. But the fun level is still high.
Games are played Monday through Friday, two games a night. Our last game was June 26 against the until-then undefeated The Buzz.
But we gave them a buzz kill, officially winning 23-11.
Trudy Schlaitzer filled in for Chris Singelstad as our pitcher for the game and held The Buzz to single digits before the final inning.
We were able to take advantage of some Buzz fielding miscues in the first inning, as we sent all 10 batters to the plate. The Buzz couldn’t get three outs, and the inning ended after Gene Loss hit for the second time in the inning, giving us a 7-0 lead.
According to SHAS rules, a team can only score seven runs in an inning, except for the final inning, in which scoring is unlimited.
Our right-center fielder, Doug Edwards, stirred up some controversy when he crossed the white line in the outfield too early. When women are hitting, outfielders cannot cross the line until the ball is hit.
Left-center fielder Audrey Hald made sure to let us all know that women could hit it past the line, and proved that in a later at-bat when she smoked one to center.
A few innings later, Tony Davis belted a home run over the fence in center field. Two batters later, Shaun Schlenker didn’t want to be outdone and hit his own homer to right field.
Although I don’t quite have the power to put any over the fence, I added an inside-the-park home run in the marathon that was the seventh inning.
The 240-foot run seemed a little longer than it was and left me (just a little) short of breath.
We sent 18 batters to the plate in the final frame to put the game out of reach.
In fact, The Buzz had everyone on the team hit left-handed because the score was so lopsided. As it turns out, they probably should have adopted this strategy earlier in the game. The first five or six batters in the inning reached base and came around to score before we were able to register an out.
But nobody on our squad seemed to mind. Heck, The Buzz even let the scorekeeper hit at one point, even though she hit right-handed. All part of the fun.