A new low, for me anyways...

It was softball. On a hard-hit double, the photo probably included the opposing team's shortstop, its center-, left- and right-fielders, and a rover.

Wow, how often would all five of those be freeze-framed in one photo? Maybe part of the reason the photo even ran...

 

A thousand apologies. In my grandmother-induced rage I misspoke (mistyped?). The five defensive players pictured included the pitcher, catcher, shortstop, right fielder and center fielder. The batter was in mid-swing and the ball was on its way over the shortstop's head.

Lady called to complain that there were FIVE players from the losing team pictured and ONLY ONE player from the winning team and because of this, we were clearly biased.  :

 

Obviously.

And those parents/grandparents are deranged. Obviously.

 

Aw, parents.... one more reason to love prep and little league sports.

 

Am I missing something? How did this mom see your photo database? Is she an employee of the newspaper? Otherwise, how would she have access to a photo that has not been published?

 

your first problem was not just picking one kid.

 

If it's high school softball, there's no rover.

 

Unless it's high school slowpitch. Sadly, they still play it where I am at least. Fastpitch in the fall, slow in the spring.

 

Covering slo-pitch? Holy Christ, will you guys report my beer-league stats this summer? Maybe you can do a feature on me, because -- you know -- I'm a bit of a rec star.

 

Thankfully the only time we really have to cover slowpitch is during the state tournament at, even more thankfully, I don't have to be the one to cover it.

The thing I've written that's drawn the most response was two grafs saying slowpitch should be eliminated. Good lord those slowpitch fanatics got pissed.

 

She also has many leather-bound books and her apartment smells of rich mahogany.

 

But, but, but ... you're advocating denying kids an opportunity to play – and they try SO hard – if you favor doing away with slow-pitch softball. And that comes straight from the mouth of the executive director of our state activities association.

Thank God they play it here in the fall, so we can ignore it with a clear conscience. Unless we have a rare occasion when one of our teams makes it to the state finals, then I'll go up and cover it and I don't mind that too much. It's just one Saturday, it's in mid-fall so the weather is usually gorgeous and it's all over and done before 3 o'clock, so there's no deadline heat to fool with.