the camera pans across a softball field as a game is in progress. the pitcher delivers a slow, underhand lob to a batter that isn’t even wearing a helmet, so low are the stakes. the batter makes solid contact and the ball sails lazily into shallow left field as she jogs for first. the camera continues to pan as she rounds for second, but the camera moves away from the play and turns its attention toward the dugout. there, we slowly zoom on a lone player who sits, stoic and placid, save for a rapidly jerking right leg that twitches up and down at an addicts’ pace. he is wearing a baseball cap, cleats, gym shorts—clearly dressed for the occasion, save for a bright pink shirt that reads, “titty bitch” across the chest in a tasteful sans-serif font.
*record scratch*
yup, that’s me. you’re probably wondering how i got here. well, in order to tell that story, i have to start at the beginning of the story.
it all started when my coworker kyle made the mistake that many have made in the past: assuming that, because i’m tall and skinny, that i have any athletic ability whatsoever. “hey man,” kyle said without a hint of tragic foreshadowing in his voice. “you should come play softball after work with us. it’s pretty low-key, we usually keep a few beers in the dugout for in between innings.”
“how serious are you guys?” i asked. “like, do you keep score?”
“of course we keep score, you bedlamite,” kyle spat into my face, his beady bostonian eyes narrowing beadingly.
“oh, ha ha,” i replied, reverberations of my little league 0.015 batting average screaming from the muffled void of my repressed memories. “cool cool, for sure for sure.”
i was 26, i was a gd man. surely i must have improved at baseball since little league. it’d be fine. and besides, it was slow-pitch. so, like an overly-winded monologuing shakespearean protagonist, i doth-ed my cleats and headed to the nearby baseball fields after work.
“hey,” cried out kyle upon my entry, stage right. “you made it! grab some pine, i’m writing up the batting order right now.”
as i squeezed past kyle into the dugout, i noticed a fold of pink fabric spilling out of his equipment bag. after i inquired about it, kyle put down his clipboard and pulled out a bright pink t-shirt. chekov’s titty bitch shirt. “oh this? we make players who strike out wear this until someone else strikes out too,” he explained, laughing. “but don’t worry. it’s slow-pitch softball—no one ever strikes out.”
“oh nice, ha ha,” i said. and from that split-second onward, it was inevitable.
now i won’t oversell kyle’s confidence in me by lying and saying i was batting clean-up, or even lead-off. but i was batting sixth, and let me be clear, that felt like a far cry from the 9th out of 9 that i always batted in little league. to say the pressure was on was an understatement. every hiss-click sound of a natty light being cracked in the dugout only punctuated the dread i was feeling as batter after batter on our team easily reached base.
suddenly, i was in the hole. top of the first, no outs, bases loaded—your typical slow-pitch softball scenario. then another single, a run on the board, and i’m on deck, high-fiving the scoring teammate with my damp, sweaty palms. “yugh,” said kyle, wiping his hand on his pants.
with an aluminum bonk, the batter in front of me punched a single into center right field off the first pitch. “fuck,” i shrieked internally. no outs, bases loaded. not only was i about to strike out in front of everyone, but i’d be the first out of the entire game. at this point in my life, i’d faked being ill to leave work, and i’d faked an orgasm to get out of some awful sex. how hard could it be to fake a heart attack?
“no,” i told myself. “this is slow-pitch fucking softball. you are not about to strike out.”
well at this point in the story it’s no shocking twist to reveal that i did, in fact, strike out. but not only did i strike out, i struck out looking because i missed the first two pitches by so much that i thought i should take a couple balls to get back into the count. it’s slow-pitch, everything’s a ball if you don’t swing…until it’s not, and the guy who invited you to play sucks in air through his teeth and politely asks you to leave the batter’s box.
and while you could say this is a story about hubris, about toxic masculinity’s aversion to the color pink, or about how it’s actually really hard to judge the placement of a ball when it’s thrown underhand, it’s ultimately about one man’s journey to enlightenment. for as i sat there, a titty bitch manifested, i realized…baseball’s for losers, anyway.
pete n' tony's internet adventure 