Talkin’ Softball
I’ve recently joined a gay softball league. I wasn’t sure if it’d be appropriate to post about it here, since gay =! nerd, at least according to popular stereotype. But considering that our team was the Clinic Day team (read: comprised of members who were not chosen for the other gay teams), has yet to achieve a single victory, and had one our players construct a team website based off of Sharepoint, I figured that would be good enough to pass.
Which is not to say we aren’t getting better. Our coach, a sweet avuncular man who drives a car with a sexually suggestive license plate, keeps telling us: “You don’t even know how much better you’ve gotten since the first day.” Softball plays a huge part of this life, as he plays with three other softball teams in addition to coaching our own. Weeks of fielding drills, scimmages, and time spent at the batting cages have resulted in marked improvement, if not an actual victory.
One thing I’ve truly appreciated is the whole feeling of being part of a team. The other time I’ve really experienced this is in a professional context, which always feels forced and leaves quite a bit to be desired. But with softball, the camraderie and support is a lot more sincere. It helps that when we’re not playing or practicing we tend to be drinking. When we were watching the other games, one of my teammates brought a bottle of Pinot Grigiot and hid it a paper bag. “It’s the ‘Gay 40,'” he said.
Like any good sports team, there’s a lot of sexual teasing and discussing who we find attractive. Another one of my teammates said, “It’s great that we can just talk about this openly here. It’s not like you can go to a Sox game and talk about who we find hot. I blinked and said, “Oh, I do that anyway.” Loudly. As anyone who has ever attended a Sox game with me can attest.