Eight Years of Master-Batting

In the summer of 2003,  I got the idea in my head to form a co-ed softball team. I still don't remember why. This past week, we finally won the league championship. Here is our story...

The original team consisted of my five best friends and I, along with as many former baseball and softball players we could get our hands on. We chose an adult co-ed 14" league that played on Monday nights. Being as how it was an adult league, half of our players were under 18 (myself included) and playing illegally. I paid the $400 owed to the Bartlett Park District by handing over a sweaty roll of cash bound by a rubber band. The park district secretary looked bewildered. Nevertheless, our American currency was good and our rag-tag outfit took the field ten times that season.

We were young, athletic and energetic- there was no way we wouldn't crush our opponents. Going in with this mentality, we decided it a good idea to loosen up with a few beer bongs in the garage before our first game. When efficiently lubricated, we piled into cars belonging to the sober girls we always kept handy back then and prepared to capture our first victory as the Sam's Garage Master Batters (I also don't know how I came up with the second part of the name, but I'm sure I'm not the first to use it as the name of a softball team). Our starting shortstop at the time, Andy Soukal, asked if he could use the bathroom. I assumed he meant peeing on a bush on the side of my house (which was the style at the time). Unfortunately for Andy, he meant going inside my house to use the indoor plumbing, which also meant he would come face-to-face with my dog, Jazz. From outside I heard barking and screaming, and saw Andy finally pour out of the garage door in a fit of hysteria. Jazz, ya see, didn't (and still doesn't) like unannounced visitors. As it turns out, he takes particular offense to young male strangers that smell of beer and cigarettes with red mustaches painted on their faces.

Jazz basically mauled Andy. His leg was bleeding profusely from a few dents in his calf where flesh had once been. Regardless, we took the field that night. Andy still hasn't forgiven Jazz for the incident, and still brings it up to this day. I guess no one can blame him.

Our first game we were drunk, underage, dressed and painted in red, smoking and chewing tobacco on the field, and about to get our young pale asses handed to us by "old" people. The comedy of errors that ensued while we were on the field included Andy Soukal fielding a ball at shortstop, hurling toward home plate to catch a runner, missing the entire backstop and hitting the umpire's car. Lucky for us nothing was damaged, including Andy's pride, as he was blind drunk and bleeding out.

The rest of the season would follow in-suite, with the team winning only our tenth and final game. We rushed the field as if we had won game seven, happy to finish with at least one win. Over the eight seasons that followed, players came and went including but not limited to- Andy Soukal, Mike Coscino, Chris Echternach, Jason Foster, Ryan Monaghan, Frank Lovecchio, Derek Self, Joe Legions, Paige Blair, Cait Considine, Collen Conway, Kristin Oberg, Jamie Miller, Samantha Williams, Jenna Mallory and others... There was however a core group of players that always remained including- Myself, Jonathan Angarola, Mike LaGrasse, Brandon Monaghan and Robyn Lovecchio. The core values always remained as well- having fun being the most important.

We would later switch to a Friday night league, so as to better party and celebrate as a team in the garage afterwords (which we did adamantly) and developed a fan following of friends that would attend the games and haze opposing players while drinking Old Style and smoking Camels. As we got older, the game itself became more important, and our skills progressed. We switched back to a Monday night league, as Friday was already a great day without softball, and now in our twenties we needed something to look forward to after a Monday's work schedule. Returning to this time slot we began to excel. We consistently had winning records, and made the playoffs twice, advancing farther each time until finally winning it all this year.

Moving to Chicago, this was my last season with the team I helped create and I couldn't be more happy that I can retire a champion. Here is to everyone who ever swung a bat as a Master Batter. We might all be older, heavier and slower, but we still Master Bat.



Cait, Joe, Jonathan, Jenna, Brandon, Mike, Jessica, Robyn, Samantha, Jamie, Sam. (Circa 2006)



Mike, Cait, Robyn, Christin. (Circa 2006)

Brandon, Mike and others (First game 2003)

Sam "The Exception" (We all had ridiculous nick-names- Circa 2006)

Sam and Frank (Circa 2007)

Samantha and Jessica Born (Crica 2006)

Sam and Frank and others (Circa 2008)

Sam, Jessica, Jared, Jenna, Jonathan, Samantha, Robyn, Brandon, Mike, Kaelen, Rosas (After our first playoff  "win" by forfeit- 2010)

Jessica Bersani, Jessica Born, Kaelen, Mike
Dan O, Sam, Robyn, Alex, Brandon, Jared
Tiana, Jeri Ann, Rosas, Jonathan- 2011 Champions!

The Chicago Me

Being as how I'm moving into the city with my fiancé in August, I have begun to think about the necessary changes that I will need to undergo to fit into the Chicago twenty-something crowd. The following describes some of those changes...

I will need to buy an Apple mac book, and regularly take it to my "local" coffee shop to sit and use their Wi-Fi (even though my apartment has perfectly good internet access) where I pay $5 for a bag of Tazo tea, and cup of hot water.

I will need to start wearing the following: Scarves, tight pants, short colorful shorts, artistic tee shirts, Ray Ban wayfarers, a canvas messenger bag, dirty unkempt hair, a five-o'clock shadow, Birkenstock sandals.

I will need to sit on the El and labor through a very thick piece of literature, while periodically glancing around to be certain that the passengers have taken note of my choice in prose. Something like Ulysses, Remembrance of Things Past or Leaves of Grass will do nicely.

I will need to eat primarily organic food, and very little meat. The more obscure the fruit or vegetable, the better. Mangosteen and Goji berries are a must. Very ethnic food is also a must. Again, the more obscure the dish, the better. I will travel incredible distances to my "spot"-some hole-in-the-wall Indian or Thai food joint where the food is no better than anywhere else near where I live, but that isn't what I will tell people. It will go more like this: "Oh man, this place on fifth has the best Phu soup in the Western Hemisphere. No one knows about it though because it is so far off the beaten path. It is only like a 35 minutes El ride, with two transfers for me, but it is totally worth it."

I will need a closet-sized high rise apartment that I will decorate with rugs, a guitar that I will not learn how to play, ewually useless tennis rackets and balls, unread books scattered everywhere,horrible "artwork" and vinyl record cover art. The bathroom and kitchen will also need to be in a constant state of disaster, as I spend too much time editing my screenplay to keep them tidy. The entire dwelling with smell always of sandalwood.

I will need to live in a building that is at least fifteen floors, and serves as a nest of other twenty-somethings with similarly furnished apartments and lifestyles. I will borrow cups of jasmine rice and whole grains from these hive-mates. We will converse about whose Indian or Thai food "spot" is superior, always arguing in circles and never visiting the other's "spot" to prove or disprove one's opinion.

I will begin to listen to awful, awful music. The music must be so underground that the musicians haven't even learned to play their instruments or form an actual band yet. If someone recognizes the lyrics to some of these shit songs that I post on my facebook status to describe my feelings on the day, I will immediately recognize them as a poser, and stop listening to the shit music as, "They were good before they went all mainstream and lost their real identity as musicians."

I will only exercise in public. Anything done to better myself that cannot be witnessed publicly will not interest me anymore. All exercise will consist of beach volleyball, rowing, jogging, etc. all of which done wearing puma cross-trainers, an ipod armband and brilliantly-colored shorts.

My bar choices will be similar to my restaurant choices, in that they will be small and unfrequented by most people. I will occasionally get "roped into" going to a wildly expensive and equally loud club where I will sip a $16 dollar Old-Fashioned and ask people if they want to read my poetry, or do drugs.

Most importantly, I will disown my former self. Entirely. I may even change my name.