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Oh man, I'm really feeling it today.

Both games yesterday were nine innings, and halfway through the second I was just crashing hard. Felt liable to boot a routine grounder if it was hit to me. Had a good game, turned a double play (nice way to start things off your first game with a new team), but everything from the knees to the quads to whatever other bundle of nonsense is in my legs was just feeling worn down. Two more today, too, though yesterday's games figured to be the toughest.

Count is at 83 games (some partial, but some longer than others) and over 300 at bats now. Should get up near 110 based on current pace.

Definitely have a lot of respect for the pros, they must be constantly playing tired or banged up, even with their obviously superior level of conditioning.



Do you have a stat nerd that keeps a book? The main team I played with for over 20 years had a guy that loved doing the stats and would give the book to the guy with the highest average at the end of the year. I have one book. It's corny but when we would have our parties and reunions it was a blast to look over the various books and see who led at what that year. One of the guys (Founding Father of our league which started in the 60's) would show up with books from the 70's. It's funny how some guys can remember specific stuff from games that were played over 40 years ago. Especially considering they were all on drugs back then.



Do you have a stat nerd that keeps a book?
You're talkin' to him.

Elaboration: for the two teams I actually run, I keep a full book and we record the games (they're all on YouTube), and we have an official site with detailed stats I enter from the book, including splits (based on outcome, field, day of the week, temperature, and a bunch of other stuff).

This year, I basically copied that setup so I could track all my stats across all leagues, even the ones I don't run. But that granular level of detail is just me-specific on those other teams.

The main team I played with for over 20 years had a guy that loved doing the stats and would give the book to the guy with the highest average at the end of the year. I have one book. It's corny but when we would have our parties and reunions it was a blast to look over the various books and see who led at what that year. One of the guys (Founding Father of our league which started in the 60's) would show up with books from the 70's. It's funny how some guys can remember specific stuff from games that were played over 40 years ago. Especially considering they were all on drugs back then.
Ha. Yeah, stuff like that is fun. These days it's easy enough to make a public Google Sheets spreadsheet and share it with everyone, so you don't need to geek out too hard to do this. Admittedly a relational database is pretty nerdy, though, but I can't help it. I'm going to think about this stuff anyway, so I might as well lean into it.

That's a fun tradition you guys had. I dig it.





"The forecast for today's game is cold ass wind. Back to you Bob."

I did the stats for a couple years when our guy retired. The first year I made a huge mistake and waited for all the games to be played rather than do them every couple weeks. Huge mistake. I probably had a computer, which could have made it easier, but I didn't use that for anything other than downloading music, malware and viruses, so compiling the stats - it was a lot of flipping back and forth.



Game #91 last night. We got stomped and I both a) played outfield and b) had to field about as many hits out there as I've ever seen an outfielder have to field. Just an utter barrage. Not as sore as I'd feared today, though.

That marks 28 games in August alone, my busiest month of the season so far. And if the rain holds off tonight I'll get one more in before we roll over into September. September should back off that pace a little with a few leagues ending, even though most are being replaced, because I expect fewer two-game days. I played about 20 in July and I think I'll probably end up just a little over that in September.

August is the first month where I played as often as a professional ballplayer would, though, and perhaps not surprisingly it coincided with a handful of new nagging injuries.



Update: games 128 and 129 last night, and I'm subbing for 130 tonight, and I should have at least three more after.

My goal was 100 games and 400 at bats, obviously I'll fly by both. I'm actually at 478 at bats, so I'm really hoping to get to 500. I should, probably at minimum, get another 14 or so, and if I can get a couple more and my last remaining team wins our first playoff game (or if I get to sub again/called to play in a late fall tournament), I should make it. It could be close though.

Sad it's ending, but also excited to finish, rest up, and finally be able to lift and stuff regularly in the offseason.



It's going to happen! One game left, and check it:



(I'm tracking my games in a database so I can analyze stuff later.)

I got invited as a last minute replacement the night before an out-of-state tournament and it got me another 10 ABs. The last three happened because we had a crazy comeback walkoff win in an elimination game, too, and given where I'm sitting now there's a really good chance that weird series of improbable events will be the reason I hit 500 plate appearances.



You guys start up yet? Our first game was last week and we won! Only five teams in the league this year and the season will be over in mid-July. Yeesh. That's sad. You can't play five times a week if you wanted to anymore. I don't get what happened. It just died.



Oh yeah, played in my 15th game last night and I've got another tonight.

Re: can't play five times a week if you want anymore. Remind me, softball, or you mean for baseball? If it's baseball then yeah, that's the same here. Just not enough demand for serious baseball at such a low level, but a fair bit for softball still.



Softball leagues are disappearing in the city. Maybe it's still going strong in the suburbs but there is only one Wednesday league and no Friday leagues in town. I remember, not too long ago, managers panicking about getting their rosters/payments in before all the leagues were full. Don't have to worry about that anymore. The leagues that are still around only have 5-10 teams in them. In our league we have to play every team 3X just to get a full season.

I don't know what the health of baseball is. I know the old fart league, the one I was in, is still going but that's a one game a week, Sunday league.



Oh, maybe I misunderstood re: "five times a week." There's basically nowhere hear where you can play multiple times a weak (other than double headers or tournaments) for the same team. All the leagues I'm in play once a week, so I just join like six of them. And most of them are 6-10 teams here, too. So maybe our situations are similar, actually, but you'd just rather not be on a bunch of somewhat disparate teams.

Anyway unrelated to all that I had an in-between fly ball last night I was running in on and it clanked completely off my bare right hand, and boy does it hurt today if I press on it at all.



All the leagues I'm in play once a week, so I just join like six of them.
That's pretty much how it is here. There was a lot of crossover with players on teams though, my Friday and Saturday teams, at times, were almost the exact same team. Usually what would happen is a guy would kind of recruit you for their team and the next thing you know your on that team and know one guy, sort of. And that would repeat until every night of the week is filled up.

I didn't mind doing that but it wasn't as much fun as playing with close friends. My Fri./Sat teams - I played over 20 + years with some of them guys. Those were good times. Must've been good. I can't remember half of it.

Was talking with an old manger last night and we got to talking about how dead softball is and he says Covid pretty much killed it. Once the city shut down all rec., the guys went to the suburbs looking for their fix. What they found was everything was better. The fields were better, the umps were better, a lot of these places are sports complexes so you can grab a pitcher of beer while your playing, turns out guys like watching balls fly over fences which all the suburban fields have and sponsors were easier to find. In town you play at a park that has a ball diamond, no fences so you're legging out HR's and technically you're not allowed to have a beer while playing. Was usually ignored but there were a few umpires who were like this guy:


Bummer about your hand. Hope its feeling better.



That's pretty much how it is here. There was a lot of crossover with players on teams though, my Friday and Saturday teams, at times, were almost the exact same team. Usually what would happen is a guy would kind of recruit you for their team and the next thing you know your on that team and know one guy, sort of. And that would repeat until every night of the week is filled up.
Yeah, pretty much the same here. After awhile you see the same people, either on the same team or the same opponents.

I didn't mind doing that but it wasn't as much fun as playing with close friends. My Fri./Sat teams - I played over 20 + years with some of them guys. Those were good times. Must've been good. I can't remember half of it.
Ha. Well, you can always backdoor it, by which I mean you play with those people over and over and become closer friends. That's mostly what's happened with me.

Was talking with an old manger last night and we got to talking about how dead softball is and he says Covid pretty much killed it. Once the city shut down all rec., the guys went to the suburbs looking for their fix. What they found was everything was better. The fields were better, the umps were better, a lot of these places are sports complexes so you can grab a pitcher of beer while your playing, turns out guys like watching balls fly over fences which all the suburban fields have and sponsors were easier to find. In town you play at a park that has a ball diamond, no fences so you're legging out HR's and technically you're not allowed to have a beer while playing. Was usually ignored but there were a few umpires who were like this guy:
This is a good point and it's true here, too. I played in a few leagues more in the exurbs and yeah, fields are easier to come by, people don't really care what you do, you can usually use composite bats, etc. Worse in some ways (the driving, duh), but better in others, so if you reach a critical masse of players who leave near those places anyway it's really hard to coax them back.

Kind of amusing to hear we're in almost the exact same situation, except we still have a decent foundation of players in the "city" leagues. I think maybe that's because Pittsburgh's less of a "city city" than most others, so most games are still in the surrounding areas anyway.

Bummer about your hand. Hope its feeling better.
Little bit. I played last night and didn't hurt it any worse, I get tomorrow off and tomorrow should be rained out (and maybe Sunday too) so I think I'm outta the woods.



Interesting play I was involved in yesterday. It's a three or four run game, fourth inning, we have the lead. It's still a game. I'm leading off the inning and I hit a medium hard roller to short. I don't run very hard anymore, hamstring injuries are a thing of the past, especially for teams where I'm a sub, but I'll admit that I was really loafing on this one after about 3-4 steps out of the box. Shortstop picks, throws...up the line and out of play. I get second base. I hear a couple guys complaining about my loafing while standing on second. You called me to play, I wasn't blowing up your phone. You get the good and the bad. Next guy hits a single and I score.

Get back to the bench and one of the guys mentions the loafing again. I tell him if I'm running hard that throw probably hits me, stays in play and I'm standing on first, not second, there would be a force out at two and we probably need at least two more hits to get me to score. Dude, do you even think while your playing? My loafing was a net positive as I scored on the next hit, whereas had I been running hard I'd still be standing on second after the next hit, with force outs all over the place so.... you're welcome. Franco Harris is part of one of the greatest plays in NFL history because he was loafing it. Not that it matters, but we ended up winning comfortably.



We had an interesting 2nd week of the season. Hit the time limit after three innings. Playing with 9 guys, we ripped off 9 runs in the top of the first only to allow 19 in the bottom half. Got most of them back in the 2nd but gave up six in their half. We were down 25-17. Then in the third we piled it on and took the lead 32-25 so all we had to do was hold em. Final at bat for them - three up three down. Unreal. Yes, there was some bad defense but an awful lot of hits were solid, especially against our three man outfield.




Wild stuff. Kind of the fun part of these levels of competition, all sorts of crazy stuff can happen.

Meanwhile we played last Thursday and every single game since, across multiple leagues, has been rained out. Looks like we'll finally start playing again this weekend though.



I play baseball in an adult rec league on weekends, primarily as an infielder and pitcher. Sadly now on the right side of the infield because I haven't taken good enough care of my arm.


Haven't played softball in several years.