Situation Help

(backdoorstraight - 3 miles in 11 minutes)

For those of you who don't know, Company's softball is in its second season. Our first season didn't go so well primarily because our talent pool just isn't very solid.

Prime example: our first practice session ever before our first season had a total of eight players. Five of them were late. Three of them were girls. Perfect!

That's just the beginning. Two of the girls never made it on the team but one did.

And this one is a manager's nightmare to say the least.

Before the practice session, she emails me and tells me she played softball in high school. "I have been playing softball for a long time, I am a very good player." Alright we have hope!

She shows up to the first practice session with the wrong-sided glove. Yes, she brought a left-handed glove. I asked her where she got it and she tells me she just bought it over the weekend. I told her to return it. She goes on and tells me that this is normal for her. She throws and catches with her right hand. Yes, she says she catches the ball and then takes her glove off and then throws the ball with her right hand. Wonderful. No offense to my former Angels' pitcher but I just found a successor to Jim Abbott and she's going to play on my team!

So practice ends and we return to work the next day. She emails me and asks me if she needed cleats to play in these softball games. I told her they're not mandatory but they're highly recommended and you should have them if possible. She says okay and comes to the first game of the season with tennis shoes.

So here we go.

On her very first at-bat, she swings and hits a slow-grounder to third base. The third-baseman finds a way to boot the ball and kicks it towards the fence in between the catcher, third-base, and the pitcher's mound. At this point, cool, she's going to be safe at first.

Wrong.

She trips over herself half-way to first base and hits the deck hard. She's down for a couple seconds and gets up and tries to beat the throw to first-base. OUT!

So she comes running back into the dugout, yelling at me and telling me that's it's all my fault because I told her that she doesn't need cleats. I told her I never said that. She said yes you did. I said okay. So game ends and the next day she emails me again.

She tells me she wants to play left-field or first-base, and not catcher. She wasn't joking. Neither was I when I told her that she's not good enough to play those positions. She didn't take it well. I asked Killer K to talk to her about the whole thing and next thing I know, I get a forwarded email with her calling my boy a sexist. Nice.

So game two comes rolling-around the corner. One-day right before the game, I go upstairs to talk to the CEO of the company. He's on the team also and he funded the team. He was telling me he's been in dire-wanting to play softball (he couldn't make it to the first-game of the season). It was a good-solid conversation with him telling me that we need a strong left-fielder and a good-first basemen because those positions require the most work. I agreed and assured him that we have a good left-fielder and a good first-baseman. After we finished talking, I was about to go back downstairs when I saw the CEO waiting by the elevator practicing his baseball swing. This guy was ready to play some ball! I'm all for it.

So I go back downstairs and KK informs me that he just told Left-Glove that she can play left-field tomorrow night. Excellent. Did not I just tell the CEO that our left-fielder is pretty good?!

Me: What did you do that for?
KK: I'm trying to prove a point. That's probably a bad thing huh?
Me: Yeah, hah.

So our second game comes around and we put Left-Glove in leftfield. The very first pitch of the game is hit hard to where else, left field! So she comes charging in and then when the ball nears, she slaps her glove at the ball and knocks it down. Then she boots it a good ten feet. She chases it down, then picks it up and throws with all her might. The ball went about ten feet. So the shortstop comes running out to left-field to grab the ball off the ground and throws it back in. The runner has already scored.




The inning ends and I put her at catcher the very next inning. No complaints.

Finally, her ramblings end and I think she got the point. Or did she?

A season and a half later...

This was an email dated today, Tuesday, October 9, 2007.

This is the email I sent out to the team:


Team,

Reminder: This week’s game (Thursday, October 11) is at 7:30 PM at the new park. We (1-3) are the home team versus Little Bar Lounge (1-2). Please let me know whether or not you’re coming. Thanks.

This email is how she responded:


Contrary to what you may think, I’ll be there.

Also I expect to be at the top of the lineup, thanks. I’m not catching. I’ll be at LFC.

See you Thursday


And this is how I responded (haha):

No.

No.

And NO.


This is how she responded:

Yes Vi, and I’m not playing with your ass. But you can’t stop me either way. I’ll see you on the diamond.

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