My mother is a newspaper columnist.  Or was.  Still is, I suppose, because it runs through her blood and she absorbs human interest stories like oxygen.  If I have any talent at all, then this is the woman to blame.

The PI folded.  I guess everyone knows that now.  It’s the second paper to fold underneath my mother – readership and friends and community and income and lifeblood all falling away in so many swoops.  It’s a headline to us now: Seattle P.I. shuts its doors.  She’s a statistic, a casualty maybe, depending on how you look at it.

What matters is that writers don’t stop writing because newspapers have not figured out how to be businesses.  What matters is that my mother still channels human love and human hurt and human suffering and human triumph unlike any other person I know.  She’s a master.  And she classically gives herself less credit than she deserves (a characteristic that she admonishes me for regularly).

Right now we’re regrouping and plotting and planning.  Backed into corners, Swifts have been taught to come out swinging.  Eyes rabid, possibly frothing.

In the meantime, she and my father are circling the wagons as most of us are.

And you know what?  I’m still calm.  I’m still riding my stupid bike.  I’m still admiring the way that spring is sneaking in on us.

And my father, another family writer, is still reading my blog, which is interesting both from a sociological and family psychology perspective… but I digress.  He has observed my current bike mania and wishes to illuminate my former pipsqueak-ness for you.

Enoy.

“I Used to Be a Pipsqueak”
by Kermit Swift (yes, Kermit is his real name.  And, for the record, he is older than the frog.)

Heidi Swift, known for her bike blogging, was famous for writing about softball first and foremost. Never mind that her life seems to have been overtaken by bike porn and the exquisite pain of rollers and asphalt kissing crashes. I knew her when she was Heidi the pipsqeak, base runner for the older kids. This is my favorite (and true) baseball story of Heidi-Ho. It marks the beginning of an awesome, (and soon to be renewed?) softball career.

It Began on a muddy little field under buzzing, crackling power lines. Skyway park, at the time, had small swamps near first and third base and usually a nice ten foot stretch of mud approaching both. It was a wonderful place to teach sliding to ten, eleven and twelve year old girls. On this soggy diamond Heidi’s mom held court with her old golden bat. Smoking grounders to the crouching infielders and sending flies deep into the outfield.

The problem with this scenario was that base running practice, badly needed to sharpen infielding skills as much as base running , was almost always short at least one runner, leading to the imaginary runner phenomenon. It was sort of like Bang-I-got-you! in war games. The ball would eventually get to the right mitt and the team would loudly proclaim that the runner was out by a mile while the curmudgeon assistant coach chimed in, “Thank goodness the runner fell out of her wheel chair…”

Enter the pipsqueak. Heidi was four during her sisters last year in majors.

She was at the field every day. She was fast for a pipsqueak. She was recruited as a replacement for the fantasy base runner early in the season and since she loved to play “sliding in the mud” (cyclocross in the rain anyone?) she was a natural. So Heidi ran and she slid and she learned when to run and when to wait, and when to go back , but she didn’t learn to run over the catcher who was her tall, tough, twelve-year-old sister. Nope -  she went around every time.

Incidentally she learned to use a glove pretty well, considering hers has about half as big as she was.

The next season Heidi chose to play T-ball instead of ballet because “they don’t cheer for you in Ballet” She ran bases for the big kids between her practices.
This all leads me to my very favorite of all the many Heidi baseball stories.

Somewhere in her first T-ball season Heidi’s team came up against a team coached by a big noisy, belligerent, overly-competitive man.

Heidi was the first base person because she usually caught the ball and unlike virtually all the boys on the team, she knew what to do with the ball when she got it. All that base running had paid off.

Games were limited to 4 or 5 innings or a certain amount of time. In this game the inning limit was reached rapidly and there was time left on the clock. Heidi’s team was one run ahead. They should have won at that point. By the rules the game was over. But Mr. manly competitive, “show your five-year-olds true sportsmanship” went ballistic. He bellowed like newly neutered herford bull. (I grew up on a farm. I know these things): There was time on the clock! His kids deserved a chance to come back! The rules said the game wasn’t over till the clock ran out ! The poor umpire was just a parent who was drafted for this game. He had no idea what the T-ball rules were this year. He caved.

Neutered Bull’s team was up and Heidi’s team of five-and-six-year-olds stopped celebrating and bouncing around the dugout and hunting for lost sweatshirts and mitts and toy airplanes and took the field. Their concentration, always nearly non existent, had evaporated.

Ignoring abusive stares and comments from almost all the fans, Mr. Man, the coach, was yelling enthusiastically and trying to hype his kids into a killer offensive mode. It must have worked.

First batter up hit an infield single. It dribbled off the T about a third of the way down the third base line. Heidi was yelling “get the BALL!” but the third baseman and the pitcher and the catcher had each decided the other should be doing that. The single became a double.

Next Kid hit a slow dribbler to the pitcher who threw it to the third baseman. Runners on first and second nobody out.

Batter number three hit the ball a few feet past the third baseman. Who picked it up and ran toward home plate where he handed it to the catcher. (huh?)

Nobody scored but the bases were loaded.

It’s unlikely more than two kids playing defense really knew how bad things were. The center fielder was drawing circles in the dust with a stick. Right field was twirling around to make himself dizzy and starring into space each time he stopped. The shortstop and third baseman were arguing about what the third baseman should have done on the last play.

Neutered Bull was frothing at the mouth. His kids were going to win this easy. Already he had his Victory strut on as he sent his best hitter, a lefty, to the plate. It didn’t matter that the other team had another at bat. He figured a two run lead would do the job. The way Heidi’s team was playing anything fair would tie game or put the other team in the lead.. Some of the tough guys kids had caught his brand of sportsmanship and were yelling rotten comments about their hapless opponents.

Heidi ‘s mom’s team was the Patriots. Heidi had had it drummed into her towheaded little noggin’ that patriots talk with their bats and their mitts only.

Unlike some of her teammates she said nothing. Her little pipsqueak cleats dug into the dusty field a few feet off of first base and just behind the baseline. Concentration etched furrows into her brow. Grim straight lipped determination and a beady eyed stare directed at the batter completed the pose.

Pipsqueak was ready!

The batter was as good as his reputation. The first swing sent the ball high (relatively, he was six) in the air toward very shallow right. In T Ball this is a double at least. A triple or homer was not out of the question. But Heidi was wearing the glove where doubles and triples go to die. She was off at the clink of the bat running back and toward second.

Big guy coach was going berserk, and frantically waving his kids around. He KNEW the game was over.

But Heidi’s quick little cleats scampered over the infield dust almost back to the grass while the big mitt waved in the air like a tan tulip at the end of an undersized stem. Heidi reached way up and back as far as she could reach. The BALL dropped softly into the tulip. All of the runners had taken off when the ball was hit. Heidi sprinted to first base and stepped on the bag. Two outs! Neutered Bull had suddenly stopped celebrating and began to bellow at his kids to “GO BACK”.

Heidi wasn’t sure the second baseman was in there. She ran the ball about half way to second base before she could get his attention. She didn’t have the howitzer arm yet but she threw the ball straight and the kid caught it on one bounce.

He did that just before the returning runner got to the base. THREE outs! Triple play! Game over. Neutered Bull screamed NOOOOOooo! Then he glared viciously at Heidi , who didn’t notice, herded his stunned team back into the dugout and glared at the umpire and the opposing parents, all of whom grinned back at him like a bunch of cats with canary feathers in their teeth

Heidi trotted back to the dugout with the big mitt and was mobbed by all four of her team mates who understood what had just happened and the coach and mom and dad who were about to burst with pride.

At that precise moment a car full of budding ballerinas was unloading in front of the dancing “academy” next to the field. Their Fluffy tutu’s bobbed above snow white tights. Delicate pink ballet slippers dangled from clean pink little fingers. No cleats. no mud. no glory.

“This”, declared pipsqueak snarky-pants , “is definitely better than Ballet”

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No pressure.

I used to throw up before every softball tournament. It was just my thing. I was terrible at managing the anxiety that accompanied anticipating a big performance, so I let it all build up inside of me and then tossed my cookies. After that, I was fine.

I do not recommend this strategy.

Just in the past year have I been able to really make some conscious progress with my psychology around performance and sports. I’ve learned to talk myself off the ledge and leverage that nervous energy into productive focus and intensity.

Part of being able to do this has been learning to have confidence in myself and pushing away every tiny inkling of self-doubt that creeps in. Every internal voice that questions me. Every derogatory thing ever said about my game. Pushed aside, dismissed.

Instead of focusing on all the possible ways I might fail or suck, now I practice visualizing perfect execution of a basehit, a perfect throw to the cut, tracking a ball back to the fence with steady feet and a sharp eye. I practice positive self-talk and remind myself that this is what I do. This is what I’m good at. This is where I belong.

I woke up this morning with that old familiar sick-feeling in my stomach and I realized that I’ve been focusing too much on the fact that this is Western Nationals. I pulled myself back in, regrouped, and reminded myself that this is just another day on another field against another team.

I play my heart out whether we’re at a laid-back weekend fundraiser tournament or taking batting practice together on a Sunday afternoon so how should this be any different? It’s not.

This is a brief list of some of the techniques I use for managing sports-related anxiety or stress:

• Reminding myself that my perceptions and thoughts have a direct physical effect on my body
• Using relaxation techniques (deep breathing; visualisation)
• Sticking to a routine (familiarity is calming and reassuring)
• Positive thinking – encouraging and motivating myself
• Simulation and training (practice, duh – the more well-prepared I feel I am, the calmer I tend to be)

There’s about 2 hours before I have to be ready to roll out the door. I think I’ll turn on some Eminem and re-check the contents of my equipment bag about 100 more times (sticking to routine!).

Game on.

*

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Sunday, the best birthday present came from the opposite field.

My party on Saturday was a smashing success. I had friends in from far and wide – we drank and ate and made merry. My best friend Maggie’s parents showed up late in the night, after attending a Gordon Lightfoot concert. They were in fine form and demanded dancing music while her father sipped a vodka-redbull and her mother downed white wine and told us about her old “tequila days”. Sal bought cakes from the best bakery in Portland and the crowd delivered a well-lubricated version of “Happy Birthday” in the light of thirty blazing candles.

It went well.

I went to sleep, woke up, ate a helluva a hangover breakfast, drank two killer bloody marys, and then remembered I had batting practice that evening.

I was tired, drained, and anything but motivated, but I gathered up my gear and headed south down I-5 to meet a small group from the team. It wasn’t an official practice, just a mellow gathering to get a few cuts in. Jerry called me repeatedly to be sure that I was going to be there.

It’s no secret that I need batting practice like no tomorrow. Going 0-fer Saturday in a two-day tournament is pretty rough on the morale.

When we finally got rolling, I realized that this wasn’t going to be a typical batting practice where you take your 12-15 cuts and then go shag balls while someone else comes in.

This batting practice was about me.

Sure, the others were going to get to swing the bat a few times, but Jerry kept me at the plate through the whole practice, talking me through positioning in the box, strategies for different baserunner and out scenarios, and making me watch the old pros do what they do best.

As Tracey came up to the plate I decided to call a spade a spade: “Watch and learn, little one…. Watch and learn.”

She snickered and roped a ball to shallow left.

Watch and learn. Watch and learn.

She snickered again and roped a ball to shallow right.

There were a few humbling moments where the reality of what was going on really set in. I was getting schooled. Literally. Jerry was teaching me to be a better batter, and he was using the best that he had to show me how its really done. I was flattered and humbled at once.

I’ve always been a coach’s player. I take direction. I follow orders. I go 110%. I’m a freaking teacher’s pet. So I know how to do this. I know how to sit back and listen – I can realize when I am about to learn something important. I can realized when I need to really focus, concentrate, listen to what I’m being told, and then figure out how to translate it into execution.

So that’s what I did.

And an amazing thing happened – I started hitting opposite field.

I’ve always been a pull hitter. Even in fastpitch. Third base line, 5-6 gap, shallow left, left-field line, whatever. I’ve only hit to the right side of center a handful of times, and I’ve never done it in slowpitch. Ever.

Until yesterday.

There was a huge gap that occurred as I graduated from college and was forced to transition from fastpitch to slowpitch. I didn’t immediately fine a slowpitch team with and actual coach, so I just tried to figure out how to hit on my own. How hard can this be? The ball is floating toward me like a dream.

Newsflash. It’s harder than you think. Last year I took an athletic friend with me to the batting cages and ended up schooling him silly. He was fairly dejected about it but my point to him was – this is a skill. This is something you have to practice and learn. You can’t just get up and try to muscle it out. You’re going to hit flies if you do that. And if you hit flies, you’re going to be out.

So I never really learned how to hit a slowpitch properly, I just kind of adapted what I knew from fastpitch and tried to make it work. It was effective enough to get me through several decent seasons, but I’ve never been a great hitter – and I’ve certainly never been able to go opposite field.

And then 4 women from my team show up at a field on the day after my 30th birthday and let me hit until my head spins. CD throws up pitch after pitch after pitch with the sun in her eyes and me driving balls straight back up the pipe at her. Cheryl and PeeWee alternately shag balls and provide two insanely solid examples at the plate.

PeeWee talks me through frustration when things aren’t working. Jerry coaches, coaches and then coaches some more.

And somewhere, somehow through their patience, diligence and generosity, the 10-batter starts to get it. I start to drive the ball the way I should be. And I discover that I do, actually, like a deep outside pitch for the purpose of roping to the right side.

It’s a miracle. It’s a goddam softball miracle.

And in the midst of the euphoria I am beginning to feel at having just learned how to do something that will crank my game up at least 5 notches, I start to get another feeling. The tingly, stupid jock feeling that I get when teams come together for a greater good. When the sum is only as great as every single one of its parts, and every person rallies to make sure that the sum is the absolute best that it can be.

This is the essence of team sports. There is a chemistry and a commitment in good teams that transcends the individual effort and the individual experience. This is what I will never get from running 5ks or half marathons. This is what I’ll never get from boot camp. This is what I will never get from yoga.

This commitment. That love. That 4 women would give up a Sunday evening to make me better. That a little round man would call me 5 times to make sure that I was coming. That he would lecture me at the plate until his voice was sore. That his hands would wave uncontrollably as he made an important point just because it mattered that much to him that I learn and grow and get better.

When I say I love my softball team, it’s not just that I love them individually, that I love who each of them is individually – it’s that I love who we are together. What we create when we play the game together. What happens when we take the field. I love the entity of us and I realize exactly how lucky I am to be a part of a greater whole that is just that amazing.

I love that they blindside me with the best 30th birthday present I can imagine. That they came together and gave me the opposite field, and they didn’t even know they were doing it.

Consider this a thank you note, ladies.

Like I always say, Game On.

*

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It was one of the best days of my life.  Nothing particularly special happened.  I got up, went to boot camp (they sang to me), spent the day working and running errands for the party we’ve planned for Friday, had a happy hour drink at a hip little spot in town, came home, and went to bed.

But the day was marked by an all-encompassing feeling of dominance and ownership: “Hell yeah! I’m thirty!”

I am exactly where I wanted to be at this age and two years ago I would have never predicted that.  For all the turmoil and unrest, 2005-2007 was a hugely formative time in my life in which I took control, took action, and took on my dreams.

I feel good.  Really good.

And on the morning of  my 30th birthday my mother emailed me an absolutely hilarious version of my personal biography (she writes professionally) that is far too embarrassing to share.  However, it arrived with a rewrite that my father had done of the old country song, “Oh Lord It’s Hard To Be Humble (When You’re Perfect in Every Way)”

As a three year old I was in the habit of performing my vocal stylings of this song to large audiences (of three family members).  My mother would give me a grand introduction and I’d stand on a kitchen chair while I delivered what must have been a stirring rendition (I assume it was stirring because no one seems to be able to forget about it).

My favorite part of my father’s version of the song is the line, “And you’re faster than two scalded pigs”.  Who would write that?!  Only my father, that’s who. He was raised on a big farm with lots of siblings and hay bails.  That line is so quintessentially my father its not even funny.

Without further ado…

To be sung to the tune of “Oh Lord, It’s Hard to Be Humble”

    “Oh Lord, it’s hard to be humble,
When you feel older every day,
When you tremble to look in the mirror,
‘Cause you never know what it will say.

“Some folks say that you’re egotistical,
But we know that’s not how you are,
You’re just greener-than-thou (taking food from the cow)
And you don’t even drive your damn car.

“Oh Lord, it’s hard to be thirty,
When you get up at dawn every day,
When you’re trying to graduate boot camp,
And it looks like you’re in there to stay.

“Well, you’re still in the field playing softball
And you’re faster than two scalded pigs
But you look outdated in center
Dancing obsolete victory jigs.

“Oh Lord, we’re glad that your thirty
Though you’re old now we’d just like to say,
In our hearts you’re best beyond all the rest
And we know you’ll be staying that way.”

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Pink more than purple, but that’s beside the point. Nevertheless, purple turned out to be lucky in the tournament this past weekend (my team has a choice of either red or purple uniforms).

Since my camera body is in the shop (it died while I was shooting a wedding last weekend – I’m not kidding), I loaned my paparazzi lens (Canon’s EF IS 70-200mm/f2.8) to Suzanne, who got some shots of me and the other Purple Crusaders in action:

Our bat girl, Delaney. She is one of the coolest kids I’ve met in a long, long time.
I think she liked me because I’m loud. And I get dirty.
She’s wearing red but that’s ok – Delaney is lucky in red.

Yep. Yours truly. Mama didn’t raise no cream puff.
I swear that more often than not I look cute and friendly.
My hands actually *are* that large, however. I can reach an octave-plus-two.

This is our shortstop, Pee Wee.
This photograph absolutely dominates. Look at the way her weight is shifting, her center of gravity low, jaw set, glove in perfect position. You can tell she is just about to make some kind of fantastic play. PeeWee is quickly moving into my personal-hero category.
Tracey, just behind her (playing left), rocks equally hard.

Coach: Jerry.
His hat says, “Find a way.”
He is fabulously superstitious, ridiculously intense, and strategic almost to a fault.
This is a man that truly knows the game.

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After a demoralizing 0-for-Saturday showing, my bat has finally come ’round and I step into the box with a mission to drive something down. Pop-outs equal instant rally death, and we are in big-time need of a rally.

I single with a hot liner and shift in my shoes as I round first, challenge three steps, and then return to the base. Julie’s on second in front of me and the top of our line-up steps up to the plate.

No outs, the go-ahead run is on second. My skin tingles.

Lisa drives another hot single and as I come into second base I turn to see that Jerry is standing in the coaching box on the third base line waving his arms like a madman.

He’s sending Julie to the plate.

The shortstop fields the throw from the outfield just behind me and we make eye-contact for a split second. I’m two steps off the bag when she fires home. I turn to watch the result, knowing well that Jerry won’t risk me in a play at third.

Julie beats the throw by a few steps and suddenly we’re up 4-3 with no outs.

The next pitch goes up and I can see a basehit glowing in Cheryl’s eyes. We’re hungry. We’re all pissed off and hungry and fired up and rabid. Cheryl drives a flat ball through the infield and as I come barrelling into third Jerry is giving me the windmill and screaming, “CHALLENGE!!! CHALLENGE!!! CHALLENGE!!!” I can see the whites of his eyes get bigger behind his thick, round glasses. His hat says, “Find a Way.” and it’s just about to fly off his head.

I take the corner thinking, “Shit. He said challenge. That means this is probably going to be ugly.”

I’m coming in hot when I finally get a good look at the catcher, whom I’d not taken particularly special notice of prior to this point in the game.

She’s a rock. A wall. She’s got at least 60 pounds on me and she is using it all. She is everywhere – I can’t even see home plate but I know that it has to be a few feet behind her.

Now I have to find a way to get to it.

She’s protecting and there’s not enough clearance to go straight under her, and she takes up enough of the base path that I don’t have a shot at taking the outside line and sneaking in behind her. This leaves only one option. If you can’t go under, and you can’t go around, you just have to go straight through.

Game on.

She fields the throw just before I slide in low, hitting her at full speed. I’m praying that the throw will be high, or offline, anything to pull her away so I can get through.

Instead, the throw is dead-on, and I hit her like a mosquito hitting a windshield. Bone on bone, shin to shin, legs tangled – we land in a heap and I am stopped dead in my tracks. No skidding, no sliding – just stopped.

In the moment after the collision I am stunned but aware enough to see that the ball has just rolled uncerimoniously out of her glove. She’s just stunned enough not to reach out and pick it up.

I crawl the remaining three feet to the plate, touch it, and then clutch my left shin, which bore the brunt of impact. The pain is immediate and my face twists accordingly. And though the bone is already throbbing and purple bumps are already forming, all I can think is, “I’m safe. I’m safe. We are so winning this fucking game.”

Indeed, my team helps me back into the dugout and we drive in two more runs before they shut us down. Jerry lets me play the last half-inning and we handle them with a calm confidence.

The trophy is three feet tall and purple but it’s the furthest thing from our minds. We file out to the parking lot, open up the back gate of Pee-Wee’s truck, drink ice-cold beers from the cooler and relive all the best moments from the tournament.

Among them, of course, the epic Attack of the 200 Pound Wall.

*

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Everything is big right now.  Life is huge and expanding.  Explosive.  On fire.  Pounding, pulsing, pushng.

My work life is as challenging, energizing, and inspiring as it has ever been.  Limitless.

In the face of a week so incredibly professionally taxing, my body has found the point of exhaustion, rejected it, and moved on.  I’m napping strategically and completing tasks while en route to meetings.

And then, on a Saturday afternoon, in a town one hour south, there’s softball.  My arm is twitchy with anticipation, my heart big and ready for the passion that will inevitably flow.  The mindset transition from small-business-owner to left-center-fielder is tricky but not unmanageable. Turn the general-ass-kicking dial from SBO to LCF, lace up the cleats, and dig out a wife-beater.  The rest will follow.

Outfielders, real and proverbial, prepare to be gapped.

Game on.

*

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In 2003, I played just over 100 softball games. I was on 5 league teams and a tournament team that played 1-2 times per month. It was heaven. It was the best softball year in history. It was amazing.

But about halfway into the season, the arch of my left foot started to ache. I went to a podiatrist who told me I had plantar-fascitis. He injected cortisone into the ball of my foot (OUCH!), ordered me some orthotics and then told me I’d likely have to just play through some pain.

I did.

Then at the beginning of the 2004 season I was standing in deep center field waiting for the opposing team’s clean-up hitter to spank one my way, when my foot suddenly felt very weird. I hit the dugout, took off my shoe, and discovered that I could no longer bend my left toe.

Houston, we have a problem.

I found a new doctor (the same one who works on the SF Giants and SF ballet) and started what would be a year’s worth of torture. My Flexus Hallucis Longus tendon had been slowly pulled apart (like stretching taffy) over the course of many aggressive, repeated “jumps” in center field. Basically every time a hit went up, I was doing a tiny bit more damage with my explosive attack.

An innovative and rare foot ultrasound at Stanford Medical Center revealed that it was not completely severed, just seriously compromised. Unfortunately, the tear was located near the ball of the foot which made it almost entirely inoperable because that area houses a huge artery, as well as a ton of extremely tiny and fragile bones and tendons. Surgery would have left me with a 4 inch scar on the bottom of my foot and there was no telling how, or if, that scar would heal well enough to allow me to run pain-free again.

When she told me that the worst-case scenario with surgery was death (hitting the artery) or amputation, I opted out.

This led to The Year of the Walking Cast which included 3x per week PT and absolutely NO activity that involved any kind of impact. I was resigned to swimming (I hate swimming!!) and, after some time, exercise bikes (people freaked out when they saw me riding the exercise bike with a walking cast).

I can’t tell you how many doctor’s appointments, MRIs, and X-rays I had that year. In the end, I was given a super-custom pair of orthotics (so custom we “wood-shopped” the custom treatment in my doctor’s hospital workshop together), and a sweet-ass carbon fiber plate that sits in my running shoe underneah the insert. The carbon-fiber plate is “springy” and mimics the purchase motion (toes gripping the ground) that propels a runner forward.

I still cannot bend my left toe, and I never will be able to. We were able to recover an amazing amount of strength and motion in my foot, however, and I can still run with the best of them.

What’s the point of this story (get to the gear, already!!)?

With so much foot trauma in my past, my feet are an absolute priority now. It took me a long time to figure out a shoe-sock combination that did not bunch under my toe after 4 or 5 miles and put my toe to sleep (or worse, start my foot aching again). When I finally found the socks that did the magic trick, I bought 20 of them in one shot. And they cost $10/pair.

That’s how much I love them.

Which leads me to today’s featured product:

The Product: Balega Sport Hidden Comfort Sock
The Details:

• Superbly ventilated top panel
• Very low profile but with a wide lip on the back of the heel to prevent the sock from slipping down.
• Just enough cushion to provide a comfortable “ride” without bunching
• Super smooth feel – sock moves easily within the shoe, preventing painful and troubling binding.

Why I Love It: Minimal friction means my gimpy old foot stays cozy and my toes stay wide awake. Super low-profile doesn’t bulk up a shoe that is already bulked up with orthotics and carbon fiber. Low-profile also makes the calves look ripped and sexy and the legs long and lean – I’m not going to argue with that.

Drawbacks: Price and availability. They can be hard to find and are not cheap at about $10/pair. Good running stores usually carry them, but you should be sure to call ahead. I buy them online in quantity.

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The team has been together, in some form, for twenty-some-odd years. And throughout those years the same coach has steered them to victory over and over and over again. He’s a short, round man with black-framed glasses, a sharp wit, a little hat that says, “Find a Way”, and a mind that memorizes every softball game he sees down to every inning, every pitch, and every crack of the bat.

Seriously.

Jerry can tell you exactly how the ball was pitched over the plate when so-and-so drove in the winning run in that big game in 1985. His mind is a trap for softball memories and statistics. He lives, breathes, and dreams the game. Constantly.

And trust that he is loved.

I found these women last year after placing an ad on Craigslist to try to find a place to play pick-up games: “Good Female Sub Seeking Team for Pickup Games: Have Gear, Will Travel”. My ad was straight-forward and specific. I’m talented but not arrogant, I value the nuances of the game when it is played well, as a team. I hit a small ball, run well, and have experience in the grass. I want a team that’s good, but also down-to-earth. I want to be competitive but I don’t want softball to run my life.

I only got one response and it was from the left fielder of Jerry’s team.

Fast-forward one year and I am now playing alongside her in left-center field. She is one of the most talented fielders I’ve ever flanked. She can track a deep fly to the fence in her sleep. She dives and digs out the low stuff like it’s just another day at the office.

The truth is, on this team, I am somewhat out-matched.

I was never an All-American and I never would have been an All-American. I’m damn good, but these women are some of the best around. They define the game. They own it.

But the other truth is, they are getting older. And in softball, no matter what you do, there’s no getting around the fact that everyone has a shelf-life. When played well, it’s a high-impact, grueling sport. It’s hard on your joints and hard on your body in general. Our team boasts a long list of injuries sustained and then rehabilitated: knees reconstructed, rotator cuffs torn, ankles broken.

This weekend, over the course of 5 games, I solidified my place amongst these women. I came to an important realization about my own game: I am the legs.

I can run. This year, even more than ever, I feel like I am really flying. I’ve spent the last six months in Boot Camp running intervals and sprinting up hills and, by god, it has made me faster. There’s a chance that, at 29, I am as fast as I have ever been. There’s even a chance that I may run my fastest mile this year – faster than high school when I weighed a-buck-ten and thought I owned the world.

The speed now defines my softball game. Jerry is brilliant and bats me in the ten spot. What this means is that I’m going to run the bases basically whether I get a hit or not. If I’m the last out, I qualify to courtesy run for Nancy, who plays in knee braces and can’t run much, but bats around .900 and is almost guaranteed to basehit.

My bat started out slow this weekend but I was hitting the ball better than I have been and I stayed focused, relaxed, and kept my head in the game.

The bat came around.

In game two on Saturday I crushed a fatty pitch into the gap between left and left-center and sent the outfielders scurrying to the fence to chase it. As I rounded first I heard the pitch in Jerry’s voice rise as he hollered at me to Goooooooooooooooo! and I knew I had a shot at the whole tamale so I gassed it and got the green light to go all the way as I came flying in towards third base.

The throw to the plate came in high at the same time that I came in sliding low and hard. She never had a chance.

There is only one way to hit an in-the-park homer on a field that small.

Run.
Fast.

On Sunday in the championship game I found my stick again and unleashed back-to-back triples as we cruised to a first place finish, handling the competition (whom we’d beaten by only one run in a nail-biter earlier in the day) with poise and confidence.

There is only one word to describe our collective defensive effort over the weekend: mastery. Pee-wee hung in and sucked up everything and anything that came anywhere near the left side of the infield and was awarded the Tournament MVP award by the umpires. Mel was back in her first tournament since recovering from knee surgery last year and didn’t miss a beat – turning double play after double play and making it look easy.

Cathy pitched strategically to the point of brilliance, Bev bounced off the back fence while reeling in a long-ball during one of the biggest moments of the game, Shawna sat on third base and ate up everything that they drilled down the line at her like she was 21 years old and fearless (she’s in her forties). Cheryl, our 52 year old, (FIFTY-TWO!) batted me under the table driving basehit after sweet-lovin’ basehit until you just didn’t think it was possible anymore.

Our two newbies, Julie and Katie, filled key roles in right field and catcher and stayed in it even when the stakes got high and the pressure was on. This is not an easy team to walk onto and they both proved that they are going to be good fits: they did what the team needed them to do, took orders from Jerry unflinchingly, and got vocal in the dugout.

And me? I just stood in left-center next to Tracey, sucked up whatever was punched my way, and watched in awe as we executed the most seamless, masterful, steady domination of a tournament that I have ever witnessed.

We kept our composure through three miserable innings of a torrential downpour (welcome to Oregon softball… they didn’t stop the game) during Sunday’s first game, remained calm when we had to defend a 9-8 lead in the bottom of the 7th in game two, and then stuck in as huge wind-gusts moved the ball unpredictably during game three.

Throughout it all we communicated, took care of each other, and asked each other to give just a little bit more. Softball is a team sport. And it’s won by a group, not by individuals. It’s a collective effort and the teams that win tournaments are those that are able to find that special place that exists beyond the individual.

You put yourself aside and become something else altogether.

You put yourself aside, check your ego at the door, swing your bat, throw the ball, and put a first place trophy in the hands of a coach who loves you as if you were his own daughters.

*

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Tracey, the left-fielder, is on their side and hardly any help.

I don’t mind.

I don’t mind even as my tongue is hanging out my mouth and my legs are starting to burn. I don’t mind because I suck up everything that is within dreaming distance of my glove. Back and to the right? Got it. Dead sprint to the left? Hits the pocket with a solid thwak and I put the brakes on and line my feet up for the throw.

Sure, I suck at the plate but what’s new? I always suck at the plate on the first outing of a new season. Jerry over-coaches me and gets in my head and it’s all over. I try to relax and just drive a few down the third baseman’s throat. He lets me flail until I find good-wood and send a rope out to short left-field. We always end on a line-drive – that’s the rule.

I don’t need to be a big hitter although every now and then I’ll house an outfielder and send something long. In general, unless you have a top-of-the-line third basemen I can get on base with a quick shot down the line. My strategy is put the ball down and run like a bat out of hell. If I can’t outrun the throw (I often can) the fact that I might outrun the throw is usually enough to fluster a third baseman into launching something off-line that will buy me a free ticket to second base, which is where I prefer to be.

I’ll need to become a better hitter this year but at the end of the day if I get on base I’m happy. I just want to score and get involved in a gnarly tag play every now and then.

I had forgotten what my feet felt like when they were all tied up in cleats. I had forgotten the way my toes tense when they are waiting for the jump and how my leg muscles react when the bat hits the ball and the angle has been determined. My body in a perfect, coordinated reaction – moving according to my subconscious understanding of trajectory, speed, distance, angle and loft.

This is the first softball season that I can remember walking out into the grass and feeling sure about what I was doing there. Self-doubt, in all forms, and in all part of my life, is melting away. For the first time ever I think I actually really know who I am and what I want and, more importantly, how I’m going to get it.

I feel on track. Physically on track, emotionally on track, financially on track, and – finally – professionally on track.

The first softball practice, this year, was not the desperate cry for self-approval that it has been in the past. I did not approach the diamond and wonder if I “still had it” or if I would choke or how many awful ways I might disprove the theory people have that I am talented and worthy.

I walked onto the dirt and embraced the women I have come to know and love as teammates. I warmed up an arm that is strong and well-used and ready. I chased long flies and knew that I would catch them. I hit my cut in the chest again and again and again.

My team is a coach’s dream – stacked with players so talented and good and sweet and tenacious and committed that it’ll bring tears to your eyes. I am surrounded by former all-Americans and national champions and it’s all I can do to hold on tight, open up my mind, and hope that some of all this greatness rubs off on me.

2007 Softball Season, prepare to have your ass kicked.

*

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