The Farewell Tour Begins

Should I hold a press conference to announce my retirement from softball?

I was looking at the schedule yesterday and saw that I've got about five games left before the season is over and I've decided that for the most part this is going to be it. I've only been able to play on about half of the Thursdays we've been scheduled, and half of those have been rained out, so basically I've played in maybe four games this year. It's not that I don't enjoy playing ball or that I'm upset that we've only won 1 game this season, it's just that when trying to fit in a Thursday night game becomes this much of a hassle, you have to rethink it.

Last night's game was a heartbreaker. We took a very good team into extra innings--though we were winning going into the 7th and blew the lead in a very Mets-like fashion--and they scored two runs at the top of the 8th, which we could not get back. I had one of my more eventful games at first and hit a high bloop single into center and scored a run so I actually contributed. And while there's no "I" in team, I've been focused on my individual performance a lot lately because I platoon at first base so I only play so many innings, and since our offense doesn't light things up the way we did last spring, I only get 1, maybe 2 at-bats each game. Part of me wants to make it a goal of hitting a home run over the fence--something I have never done, ever--but I know that if I become really focused on that, I'll just pop up and ground things back to the pitcher and then I won't contribute at all.

So, a few more weeks and then I'll retire the #23 jersey unceremoniously ... unless I feel like playing for the Jets or Vikings (wrong sport, I know, but I had to make a Favre reference somewhere).