Wednesday night's mandatory managers meeting featured the typical detailed explanation of league rules from Ron, the league director. Actually, he read the rules word for word, occasionally asking us if we had questions. Mostly there were a lot of blank stares.
But, Ron got really animated when directing our attention to Rule 6 in the banned bats guide. It is illegal to alter a bat. Who knew softballers were so serious. Apparently some people try to used banned bats by painting them to look like other bats. Or they open up the bat and put stuff in it, or take stuff out. Clearly this is a level of sophistication well beyond that ever attempted by the Slugs.
Well, Slugs, let me tell you...don't even try it. Ron told us a story about an altered banned bat that happened last year over at "the complex." A female batter went up to the plate with an altered banned bat. It was perhaps painted or taped over. She swung and hit the bit exceedingly hard straight into the face of the poor pitcher, who Ron says "broke every bone in her face. She's still going through surgeries and will be disfigured for life." And as if the guilt wasn't bad enough, the batter was banned from softball for 2 years. Not just Sacramento softball, ALL softball. The owner of the bat got an even stiffer sentence: 10 years. Can you imagine being banned from softball for a decade?
The next 3 months...a snap analysis.
Our schedule looks pretty darned good. There are actually quite a few bye weeks - more time for us to practice, or compete at eating dollar hot dogs at Rivercats games. Also, I believe we have just one 6:30 game, which means we should have excellent attendance all season long.
We only face the SoCal's Force once in the whole season. That means we have to beat them straight out of the gate if we want those league champion fleeces we've heard so much about. We take on the Bad News and Review Bears twice. They're good. We shouldn't take them for granted. We also face a team called Majority Rules. I haven't seen them before, but based on their number on the phone list and their name, I surmise they work in the Assembly.
Start stretching out those arms now Slugs. Try running to improve your cardio...and make sure to do whatever it takes to avoid serious injuries of any kind.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
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3 comments:
but skipper, running at my age is EXACTLY the sort of thing that leads to injury.
That's a terrifying story about the girl breaking every bone in her face. Did she get hit with the ball or a chunk of bat?
It was the ball. Our bats are all metal and if they broke apart that would be truly horrifying.
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