Softball in November?

Yes, I played softball this weekend. Yes, for most of the day the temperature was at or below 44 degrees, mostly below. We were out there for batting practice at 1:30 and we finished up around 9:30. It was an hour plus away, in Waukegan, so I was gone from noon until almost 11 pm. Mr. Heater was out in force to help us warm up a bit in between innings and save the people on the bench from frostbite. It was indeed the last tournament of the year for us, the world series for a new organization called GSL, Global Softball League. Different rules than other organizations of course, but the only thing that really impacts me is the pitch height: 5'-10'. Pitchers generally pitch to the lower end of the height limit which I like, but most hitters don't. When the pitches come in higher and slow, I tend to get my weight going forward too soon and am just swinging with my arms. I know it happens, but it's tough to correct. The tournament before Halloween when I hit so poorly was a 6'-12' tournament which really threw me off and led to a 5-18 hitting performance. Ugh.

Saturday's games started off similarly with me going 1-3 in the first game and only hitting the ball hard once. Not good. The second game I was 1-2 before being pinch hit for in a game we lost. So when the third game came around, I needed to show some improvement. The game was tight and the 7th and final inning rolled around with us trailing 14-13.  Up to that point I was 1-3 and had hit the ball hard once and walked. We tied the game up and then had runners on first and second with two outs and I was on deck. The batter before me walked to load the bases. Dramatic huh? Since the pitcher walked that last batter, I was taking a strike before I would swing. We start with a 1-1 count and he threw ball two first. Then strike two. Now I was swinging if it was a good pitch, and it was. I laced a single to right field and knocked in two runs. That's all we would score, but we held them in the 7th to win 16-14. Felt good to end the season with a game winning hit!! Or almost end the season as we played another game and got shellacked. Still, it was a good memory after some not so good hitting.