softball in winter January 25, 2006
Posted by stoneunhinged in germany.trackback
Just got back from softball practice. I don’t play: I coach a women’s team. Anyway, I went out to my bike and found the lock frozen solid. I played with it, then came up with the idea of spraying some WD40 on it, which worked, and rode in the snow to the gymnasium to practice.
What in the hell? You don’t play baseball or softball in winter, unless you live in Florida or California or Mexico or someplace. Germany? Are you kidding?
The problem is that the weather here is so bad in the summer that you can’t hardly play then either. You play when you can. You practice when you can. So it’s winterr, and it’s snowing, and I go to the gym.
There were five girls, my assistant coach and myself. Is it worth it? Was it worth it?
I suppose if it makes us a better team it is, it was. But I envy those in America for whom baseball and softball is a sport for which you must have the agony of telling people, “I’m not putting you in the lineup today, Suzy’s been hitting better lately,” or soforth. No, I worry about getting 9 women on the field.
jj
Thanks for the WD40 tip.
Who’s your assistant coach?
I’ll PM you about coaching stuff–or, better yet, tell you the whole story over a beer. You’ll like the story and admire my tenacity. Or not.
The WD40 seems to provide a temporary fix. But I think some kind of de-icing spray would work much better, wouldn’t it? The WD40 was all I had in the house, so I tried it.
Last winter I broke a key off in a bicycle lock, so I learned the main rule about frozen bicycle locks–not to keep trying when it doesn’t budge.
Is that why the Kryptonite brand bicycle locks have a round key? So they can’t be twisted in half? But did you ever read that the Kryptonite round key lock can be broken into using surgical tubing?
Am I not a wealth of information?
jj
But the longing for a game of catch is often the most nostalgic I have seen a bunch of yanks get… especially as spring comes and summer sets. But any sport taken so serious reaks of idology or the cult of fitness, both the enemy of the failed political philosophers.
clifford,
it is indeed cultish: it is the cult of the “verein”, which we normally would translate as “club”, but is a bit stronger. Perhaps someone might come along and give a better translation.
Anyway, the “verein” requires weekly dedication, year round. It’s not just about the sport. Thus they voted this year (I and one other person voted against) to require 5 hours of work from each member per year–cleaning the field and storage shed, setting up for games, etc.
But what REALLY fascinates me is their incapability to play baseball and softball recreationally–they are perfectionists who want to perform as best they can rather than just have fun. But I’ll no doubt post on this some time in the future.
jj