Thing 164 Play Softball

As you may already know, I'm slightly overweight. I'm reminded of this more or less constantly by the loving brother I have in Thorny Wire, and by my highly Christian friend God Boy. Less frequently I'm reminded by The Canuck, he finds other things to abuse me about.

As such, I object to many of the Things on the Project as being overly strenuous. Walk a mile in someone else's shoes? Fat chance (pardon the pun). Cycle the thirteen or so miles to work? I'm still living in fear of that one. As for running a marathon? What the hell was I thinking...? Honestly.

Softball counts as exercise right? Yep. I don't want to do it then...

Ever play Rounders when you were small? We did. A lot. Panda would inevitably hit a home run, but every time Thorny Wire caught him out there'd be a row. Someone would end up going home in a huff. It was excellent stuff. Quality childhood gaming.

Ever watched baseball? Great sport. If you're patient. You could be waiting for an hour at a time for something to happen. Lots of standing around and not doing much.

Take Rounders, and Baseball... combine them... Softball.

It's a bigger ball than a baseball, paradoxically, it's a much harder ball than a baseball, but it's thrown under-arm instead of over, so the ball's not flying at you quite so fast. Three strikes and you're out. Ball is caught straight off your bat, and you're out. Three outs and your team is out. Then it's the other teams turn to bat.

Easy yeah? Not really. Panda's a fine coach, but a couple of hours of playing on a Friday is not exactly the same as years of learning. The sport's become extremely competitive, and the UL team I was training with are the Irish champions. Panda himself plays for the Irish softball team - and here's the semi-fat guy puffing his way around the training yard.

Stand there. Throw it there. No no no. If the short stop moves to second base you've to go long to close the gap with the outfielders. Short stop's not going to second base. Dan... Cover second base.

One question kept popping up in my head: Which one's the short stop?

There's an awful lot more thinking in the outfield positions that I thought there would be. Batting on the other hand...
Lines it up...
Puts his shoulders into it...
Drives it hard to left field...

Now, batting is something I think I could do all day. Hit the ball, with the stick. They're not even going to make this difficult; they're just going to throw the ball toward your stick (giggle giggle).

As a way to spend an afternoon, I can honestly tell you, this one's a pretty good idea. Fresh air. Exercise (not overly strenuous, thank God). And I get to whack something with a bat. I think I'll play softball more often.