A 'lil HooHaa

Messing with the blogging world since 2005

softball

Summer softball is still a blast, despite fewer players, teams

It’s that time of the year.

What a difference a year makes.

The softball team I run is out to a 6-0 start, despite not always having 10 players on the field. I’m not sure what’s different between this year and last, but things are clicking a little bit better.

And I’m all for it.

We’ve scored a lot of runs, too. Everybody seems to be hitting, we’re playing decent defense and it appears the fun factor is back in the game. We’re still not without flaws, though, as we’ve yet to field consistent team and lineup. We have our core players who make every game, but outside of that, we’re filling in spots as we go along.

As the guy putting the lineup in the book, that can be maddening!

One thing I’ve realized in recent years is how softball — at least at the modified fast pitch level — in our area is really a dying sport. When I started playing softball more than 20 years ago, this area was a hotbed. There were no fewer than five solid leagues within a 50-mile radius or so. They were all pretty solid, too.

The local league was a consistent 10-12 teams. The one up the road had two divisions that held probably 10-12 teams in each, as well as a solid women’s league. The league I’m in now was also large and the others were solid in their own right.

I still love stepping on a softball field and giving all I can. It helps keep you young.

Back then, we didn’t even need to wear helmets!

In my “prime,” I played in three leagues. Basically, I played every night of the week — sometimes two games. It was so much fun and something I’m glad I had the chance to do.

Weekends were often filled with tournaments. That pretty much meant from May to late August, softball was life. And it was worth it.

During my top year or two, I approached the 100-game mark. I know some guys in our area still do that, but it’s with slow pitch and such. We did all modified pitch, which is as close to baseball as any other softball in my mind. It’s pitching, defense, hitting and strategy. Run and gun, bunt or bomb long homers.

Each year, we’d go to states or nationals, too. Talk about a heap of fun — it was at those tournaments.

Things have certainly changed.

People don’t, as often, bring their families and play softball. There’s golf leagues, and other things to do. Softball continues to die out. Though there are still some hardcore players (and it’s a shame they didn’t play in the earlier years when I did — they’d have loved it), there aren’t as many.

The game is changing, that’s for sure.

I still love playing. I go on game nights and want to win. I give it what I can for a couple of hours, grab a bite to eat and maybe a cold one and call it a night.

I once thought I’d play softball until I was well into my 50s and 60s. Now I’m not sure how far I’ll be playing once I hit my 40s. It might not be by choice, either.

Until all of that happens, I’ll continue this year. Hopefully we can keep playing well and maybe make a run in the playoffs when the time comes.

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

Softball season begins today

Lace ’em up and play ball!

It seems like I probably use this day for the same sort of post each year.

But softball season starts today.

Softball has been a massive part of my life since I was in high school. Once baseball season ended, we turned to softball. I’m pretty sure the first time I ran a team was my senior year in high school. Since then, I’ve continued with a team and have had varying sponsors. We’ve been bad, we’ve been good and everything in between.

We’ve gone to many tournaments where, like our league play, we’ve been bad and good. We’ve placed as high as fifth at a state tournament and more than once gone 0-2 barbecue.

Softball begins today (maybe)!

The bad for our league ended a few years after starting a team. Since then, we’ve always seemed to be in the mix some. I believe it was our fourth year as a team when we were seeded sixth in the playoffs and made a run to the championship series. We lost, but getting there — that year — was the story.

We made several return trips to the finals and never found a way to win. Finally breaking through in 2001 was one of the coolest softball moments I ever had. The league was my local one and several of us finally got to hoist the cup.

The league folded two years later.

We switched to a new league and lost a few people from the team who already committed to another team. No worries, away we went. We competed in the league, reaching the league finals a few times. We broke through again in 2011, winning the championship. We followed that up with another title in 2012.

Last year was a bit rougher. we went through good and bad stretches. In the semifinals, we played the team we had faced in the championship the year before. It was a solid series (low-scoring for the most part, only a few runs difference in each), but we were swept and the season ended.

So goes the run.

Alas, we’re back again this year.

Though the team is similar to last year, we have a few guys playing full-time again, which is awesome. But, we had a few people who were going to play back out on us. That stinks, of course, but we’ll persevere and see what happens.

Line ’em up!

It’s nice just to get out and play the game and still be able to (somewhat) do it.

As long as we can stay competitive and play right, who knows what will happen. And as long as Mother Nature cooperates today, we’ll be opening the season.

And we should even have enough to field a full team.

In the end, it’s about playing the game. With that in mind, I’ll leave you with a quote from the best movie of all time:

A good friend of mine used to say, ‘This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains.’ Think about that for a while.

Play ball!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

Notes from my noodle: Aug. 7

My noodle has been speaking lately — and it’s asking why I haven’t written one of these in a while?

My answer? No idea.

So, here it is. For those new to the blog, this is basically a spot where I’ll write about some things that have happened or caught my eye recently, but didn’t really work as its own blog post.

For the first time in a few years, our softball season ended before reaching the league final. We’ve won our league the past two seasons, but this one was a bit of a struggle. Despite a large roster, we had issues getting some people there at times.

No three-peat for us this year.

The problem with that?

We never really had the same lineup or people in the same positions. Though we had a lot of good players, we had to move people around. That makes things hard.

Still, we finished quite strong.

We earned the fourth seed in the playoffs and opened with a 2-games-to-1 series win over the fifth seed. We then took on the top seed, who we beat last year in the final.

In the opener, we played well. Our top pitcher got hurt and I had to finish. We ended up losing, unfortunately, in a game we played really well.

I pitched Game 2 and did as well as I’ve done in a long time. We ended up losing, 5-3.

Though not all their faults, the umpiring we had in these two games was downright awful. It seems like that was a theme for most of the year. Both teams suffered from it, too. The second game really hammered us, though, as we lost three close plays where I think he was dead wrong. He also threw one of our players out of the game for “throwing a bat.” The umpire didn’t even see it. He heard the bat clip the fence on the toss (and it was a toss, I was right next to it). The guy was downright awful and was for most of the year.

Look, bad umpiring is one thing. It’s at all levels. All I ask is to be consistent. If you strike zone is a shoebox, fine. Make it both ways. These things can’t — and shouldn’t — change every inning. But with some umps, they do. And for the money they are being paid, there should be some accountability. The semifinals of the playoffs should have the two best umps, not some of the worst. We got that in our two games and I’m sure the other team will agree.

In the end, it’s all good. We still won 10 games, found some new players for the future and have an idea on how to move forward. I’m sure we’ll be right back in the thick of things next year.

****

When it comes to geocaching, I’ve gone through several phases.

The excitement of being new, the numbers hound, someone who chased first-to-finds to now, where I kind of just dig playing the game and having fun.

One thing I’ve always done, however, is plan when it comes to a bigger trip. This, too, has gone through phases. I used to be an in-depth planner and then it got to the point where I basically wrote down caches in the best order to grab to be efficient.

Every once in a while, though, I go back to the in-depth planning. This upcoming weekend is one of those times.

My current Delorme map — which will hopefully be filled in much more by the end of the weekend!

Four of us are going on an insane trip through the top of New York to fill in squares for the Delorme Challenge. For those who don’t geocache, the Delorme Challenge is based up on the New York  Atlas and Gatetteer, which is published by Delorme. In the atlas, the state is broken down into 80 squares. Your job is to find one cache in each square. Once you do, you get the coordinates to the Delorme final so you can go find that cache. My hope is to make that my 3,000th find, of which I am approaching.

At this moment, I have 63 of 80 pages filled on the Delorme map.

As long as nothing goes wacky, by the time this trip is done sometime Saturday night, I should have filled in 11 more squares and will be a mere trip to the Buffalo area to get six more squares to finish it up.

At the same time, I’ll be getting all the counties I need (sans the Buffalo-area ones) for the New York Counties Challenge.

The three others on the trip will also be filling in squares and counties, but on different levels. Some have more and some have fewer to get. We’ll also be taking a quick trip into Vermont for a few caches.

In the end, I had to go in-depth because with a trip that will eclipse 600 miles and be for more than 12-15 hours, we needed to make it as efficient as possible. We have some good caches on the list and we have a lot of quickies, too. But in the end, it will make for a memorable and fun trip with caching friends. I’ll be blogging more about this next week.

****

Speaking of geocaching, I’ve recently gone on a hiding spree. I archived some of my older caches and decided to place some new ones. Another cacher in a town not far from here has placed a whole heap, too. Hopefully with all of these new caches, some cachers will come our way to make some finds.

One of my recent hides.

See, this area isn’t easily hit by major highways and such. We’re in a rural area, so sometimes people don’t want to come here and find caches. I know one cacher who basically refuses to come to this area because all the roads are winding and such.

Their loss.

On top of the ones I’ve recently placed, I have several more to put out. I just need to find where to place them.

The hides have been fun to do. I like writing the descriptions and I like getting the notices when people find them all. It’s kind of a cool thing to know people are out finding the ones you hid and are enjoying them.

I have two caches, specifically, I need to get out. One is one I got at a cache I found and will be a “spawn” cache and the other is one I received from a fellow cacher when out in Chicago in 2011. These caches are his signature items. He gave me two, so I want to get one placed with the other remaining in my collection of sig items.

Further, I just have some other lock-n-lock containers I want to put out there!

****

As many of you know, I dig attending independent wrestling shows. One, it’s great action and usually better than what you see on television. And when it’s not better, it way worse, which makes it fun that way.

I know how hot it was for three of us to watch this card — I can’t imagine what it was like in the ring performing!

One company we watch often is 2CW, based out of Syracuse. They always put on a great show and this past Friday was no exception.

Except for one thing — it was hot!

The company returned to the Pastime Athletic Club in Syracuse for what seems like it will be the final show at this building, which is affectionately called the “2CW Arena.”

Herein lies the issue — it was hot as can be outside. Inside, which was basically a small gym, had the ring, wrestling, probably 400 fans inside and… no air conditioning.

Holy cow was it hot!

With the action going on, it got hotter as the night went on, too. It easily had to be above 100 inside.

We stayed for the whole card because we wanted to see the main event, which featured former WWE superstar John Morrison against one of the top indy stars, Sami Callihan. The match didn’t disappoint. Overall, the card as per normal, was solid. It was worth going to and watching.

I just wish it had been cooler!

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook! 

Foto Friday/30 Days of Writing: First place (15/30)

This post is written in conjunction with the 30 Days of Writing, a blog challenge devised by Nicky and Mike at “We Work For Cheese.” I’ll be participating throughout the month of June. If interested, you can see my post with the details of the challenge. 

Please note that some of these posts will be serious, some will be normal, and some will be an attempt at humor. This one is a little of everything! 

First place.

For those who compete, whether it be in sports or something else, first place is obviously the ultimate goal.

I’m a softball nut. I’ve been playing for nearly two decades and have run a team that entire time. I was still in high school when we started things, so needless to say, we weren’t the best.

Our first Oneonta championship -- 2010.

See, softball and baseball are two different worlds and it sometimes takes time to learn the difference. The swing, the ball and everything else.

We had some tough years early. Soon, however, we became a more powerful team. A contender each year. Our first title should have come in the mid-1990s, but we found a way to give it away each year.

Finally, we won the coveted Brookside championship in 2001. The Brookside title was our local league, one many of us had grown up around. The championship trophy was wood-based with a removable pewter bowl — much like the idea of the Stanley Cup.

That league, unfortunately, soon folded.

We moved to another area league and stayed strong. We made the final several times, but fell each time. We broke through in 2010 and won our first title there. We repeated in 2011.

First place is a great thing. That is for sure.

But the journey getting there and seeing what you can do is so much more of the game.

During my lifetime, I haven’t been on many winning teams. In little league, I won the first year I played and the last year I played. But our “little league” wasn’t a sanctioned league. It was basically pee-wee baseball. I still have those championship plaques though. (My father was one of the coaches on the first one — kind of funny as even he would have told you that he didn’t know much about baseball to coach it!)

In high school, I played soccer and baseball. Neither team was that good. Though the baseball team didn’t suck, we were just in a league full of awesome teams. Soccer was a new sport to our school when I played, so it was the learning experience.

Then there was softball.

Championships are often taken for granted. So when we have good teams, I like to try and do some photos with them throughout the year. Action shots, candids — whatever. The idea is that if we do win a championship, it’s nice to have some other shots from the season.

Though we strive to win, the reality is this game goes beyond wins and losses. We’re all friends who love to play and love to compete. And, in the end, we don’t get paid for it. We play it because we love to. And, on another note, it’s a good way to get out and get some exercise.

A couple of images from our 2010 championship season:

The big guy pitching.

Big swing.

End of an inning.

 

Ready to go!

To the victor go the spoils -- one of our player's wives made these for the team party. Yum!

In 2011, I didn’t take as many photos. It’s not always easy to worry about photos when you are playing and such. Even when I am playing as the designated hitter, I don’t always think to take the camera out (despite, often, me bringing it to the bench).

Our season this year has started off slow. We’re definitely getting a little older and it shows. The younger teams are starting to have their feel of things. Right now, we’re mid-pack.

Will we win the coveted third straight championship this year? Who knows. We have a lot of work to do if so. But, if we don’t, we’ll have a good run, either way. We usually play well come playoffs.

First place, after all, is the ultimate goal. Only time will tell if we keep up our run.

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!

Notes from my noodle: May 22

It turns out, there’s life beyond disc golf!

Let me clarify that. Back in March, I started a second blog. That has somewhat hurt this blog a little. Not a ton, but it’s made it so I don’t publish a new post here every day. That’s not the biggest worry in the world, but it has come to the idea that I have had some issues with said other blog.

See, that blog — which is all about disc golf — has become pretty popular. In two full months, we’ve averaged more than 12,500 page views per month. For being a blog without any advertising and revenue, that’s pretty solid. We’ve gained many readers and have several writers, all working to build a better disc golf community.

I love disc golf, but with a blog and playing and all, it had taken over a portion of my life. I needed that to change so I don't get burned out from it!

What I love about it is we’ve worked as a group to make a great little spot for disc golf news articles and such. We give things in an entertaining way and, usually, with a journalism twist to things. We’ve done some really cool things, such as a women’s week and our weekly polls and such. It’s been fun.

But, like anything else, if you are pushing out a lot of things, you get burned out. I’ve been having a tough time with it lately because I feel like it’s taking up a ton of time and I’m trying to keep fun in it. We make no money on it and we do it in our spare time, so I need to make sure it doesn’t get me. As I said, thankfully we have a few writers and a few more have indicated they want to join. It’s a good group.

Alas, it’s kind of hit me over here with creative. I’m trying to find my “thang” again over here. I want it to be as it used to be. Fun and a way to relieve stress. Being I’m still in a job hunt (which takes up much of my days), I would like to be able to mix some fun here and not just at the other blog. I need this place to write some potpourri and enjoy it again.

That means it’s back to the old — topics ranging from real life to geocaching to pro wrestling to baseball to book/movie reviews to whatever else I can come up with. Earl will be coming back soon and I have some more players to work on for the HooHaa 9.

I’m going to push to get back to some fun here. If you have some blog ideas/topics you think you’d like to read about on the blog, let me know. It’s time to hit the idea notebook and see what I can come up with!

****

So speaking of geocaching, allow me to share this story.

There’s a new cache series in my area. It’s 12 caches total, including the “final” cache. It’s in a state forest land and follows trails (though many of the caches you have to go hacking and bushwhacking off the trails to get). It was a hot, and somewhat humid, day.

I was meeting up with a fellow cachers, who was probably going to have to come and go once or twice to finish. Still, my goal was to complete the series that day. By looking at the map, it appears the caches go in a loop and would bring you back to your car.

Note this is not one of the geocaches we found, but rather just a photo to show that fun is finding these items!

As I arrived to meet the fellow cacher, he says “Why don’t you ride with me and when I have to bold, we’ll go and then when we get back, we can park at the other parking area.”

So, I agreed.

What followed was something out a Keystone Cops type situation.

We did the lower loop of caches and had to decide how to get back to the car the quickest. Caching pal says to continue up trail and there’s a cross over. Alas, nothing came after another nearly half mile. That made us turn around and go back to the roadside.

From there, he bolted the road to grab the car (and I waited as I wasn’t going to keep up with him on this one). While I waited, with an amazing full service phone, I created the spot “Lost” on Foursquare and checked in.

We headed back to his area, where we picked up his daughter and into another town to drop her off to a birthday party. Then back to his place to get his son and do Round 2 of the caches.

We started at the upper parking area, got confused, found another trail and got an idea of the cache layout. With it being hot and on another time schedule, frustration set in early as we couldn’t figure which way to go.

See, I had planned on looping. By not looping, I had no idea where I was as I don’t know this area!

But, we were on target now and we started to cross off the caches. Then we had to go pick up his daughter. And I hadn’t figured all the coords out yet… yikes! Little did I know if I had plugged them in, it wouldn’t have required the third trip.

In the end, as I noted to the fellow cacher, I should have kept my car and could have continued on the path if he needed to go back-and-forth. But, to be fair, it also gave me a fun piece to this blog!

Overall, the series was a heap of fun. We actually might have walked more by doing it the way we did it because we went back and forth to things instead of just going around everything! And, in the end, we got some good stories, had a lot of fun and really enjoyed it, which is what this game is all about, right?

****

Do you ever get into a text conversation with a friend and it takes an odd turn?

It seems to happen to me too often.

Anyway, a conversation that started about bike racing to other sports to sports camps. Out of the blue, I decided to change it up a bit.

Me: I race turtles.

Friend: I thought you like crawfish?

Me: Turtle racing is big money.

Friend: On or out of water.

Me: Road racing.

Me: I once held the record for the 100 meters with a turtle I trained. Crossed in 14.3.

Friend: Is that hours?

Me: Days.

Me: Most people leave. I stay. Even if my turtle loses, I win.

Friend: That’s determination!

Random, I know. But it gave me one heck of a good laugh, that’s for sure!

****

I think it’s time for a Facebook purge.

Every once in a while, it’s worth going through my Facebook contacts and deleting some people. Let’s be honest, there are people on everybody’s Facebook that probably can be purged.

I noticed several people who have disabled or gotten rid of their Facebook, but they still remain “friends.” I have also noticed people I probably haven’t talked to in years. It just seems silly to keep so many. To be fair, I actually do stay in contact with many of the people on my Facebook. Still, I’d like to trim the numbers. I’ll have to see what I can do to bring the numbers down a little.

****

Softball is supposed to start today.

The weather forecast doesn’t look perfect, but we have hope. There is a chance of showers in the morning and then thunderstorms in the afternoon/evening. So, it’s going to be shaky, but hopefully we can get it in and get the season underway.

Another year of softball starts tonight!

We won our second straight league championship last year and this year is going to likely be even harder as a few teams beefed up a little. And that’s what softball should be about. Several good teams battling it out. That makes it fun. I look forward to a strong season.

We’re 35-4 over the past couple of years with, for the most part, the same guys. Other teams are getting better and younger teams (thankfully) are joining the league. So, if we have a few more losses this year, it happens. Hopefully in the end, we’ll have earned our third straight title. But you can never guarantee that to happen.

I’m stoked that we’ve won two straight. Because in this game, teams can win at any point. Figure this — in some 20-plus years of playing softball, I’ve been on teams that have won championships four times. Once in a league I only played part time back in the mid 90s. We won one title in the old Delhi league, which I’m thankful we actually won. Then these past two. We’ve been to finals many times, but finishing it off isn’t easy.

So, the season starts today (hopefully). We’ll see how it goes and check back in at the end of the year!

****

NOTE TO FELLOW BLOGGERS: I am trying to finish a survey I started a few months ago. It’s basically about the male/female blogging tendencies etc. I need a handful of bloggers for each sex to fill things out as I want to try and have an even number of each.

I will be taking some comments and using them in a blog post and everyone who participates will get a link back to their blog.

Please comment here or e-mail me if interested in participating. The survey shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes or so to fill out.

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com. Also, please “Like” HooHaa Blog on Facebook!