We are the champions, my friends

I?m 41 and this week was the first time I?ve been part of a season championship team.

Sure, I?ve won some tennis tournaments, took some bowling awards, and won various other contests involving individual achievement which sent me home with some hardware. I?ve even been part of several second-place teams in basketball and baseball over the years, just missing a chance at team glory. I?ve even coached a couple of championship teams over the years.

However, when Locust Street captured the church league softball championship Tuesday night, that was the first time I?ve ever been able to celebrate with a winning squad that I was actually a part of. Granted, I was lack-luster in the finals, stunk it up actually, but hey, I put out in the semis the night before to help get us there, plus my hammy was hurting Tuesday. Regardless, it?s a team sport, you win as a team and lose as a team, and trust me, I?ve encountered a lot of the latter.

The championship, the first in softball for Locust Street, was a long awaited one for my church which has trophy cases adorned with Sportsmanship trophies earned over the years in softball. In case you don?t know code, Sportsmanship is usually the trophy reserved for the last-place team, presumably because it takes more grace to lose than win. Now, if you?re the last-place team and don?t get the Sportsmanship trophy, well, you must have charged the mound, blessed out the umpires or did something unbecoming the sport during the season.

We used to have teams back almost 20 years ago, teams which rarely made a run at the prize. I guess that?s why we got out of the softball business for a couple of decades until this year.

In the meantime, I?d been playing a lot of other sports. I pretty well gave up softball after college since it tended, as most of you tournament players know, to be very, very time-consuming. So, when I did return to the game this year, it was a bit surprising how the simple game of slow pitch softball has changed.

First off, what happened to the bats and balls? They ought to call them launchers since it?s apparent they are juiced. Back 20 years ago, only the biggest and strongest could put one over the fence, then only if the pitch cooperated. Now a kid with scrawny arms and a neck like a roll of dimes can hit a monkey killer (that?s a ball at the church league field which goes into the trees past the outfield fence).

Hey, if you have to limit the number of home runs in regular league games around the country, perhaps it?s time to start modifying the makeup of the bats and balls. Of course, then the companies who have loaded them can?t charge you $600 for a bat.

Back when I was playing in college, you hid your old guy at pitcher. Now, your pitcher is the guy with the best life insurance since the juiced balls can come back like a .44 caliber bullet. The only place you can hide someone now is the dugout, or maybe at catcher ? where they hid me this year.

But, I figure the juiced balls and bats are here to stay, so we may as well join them. Therefore, I?m going to take out bank loan to buy me a bat and adjust my swing so I can kill some monkeys next season when we defend the title.