Softball Szn: My Quest for .750

For a long time, I have described myself as an everyday man: I run half-marathons, I tweet at mascots and occasionally watch the latest Maroon 5 music video because it’s powerful and a banger. But adding to that list of everyday things is my recent signing to the “We Got Runs” - an intramural softball team in Chicago.

I retired from softball back in 2012, after the Two Dog Specials lost in the Championship game at the infamous Sports Complex in Elgin, Illinois. Now, contrary to what you may have heard, my retirement had nothing to do with the fact that the winning team brought in a ringer who hit a walk-off homerun in the title game. That is just not true. I walked away because I felt it was time to hang up the jersey and walk away.

That itch never goes away though. After becoming a big city boy last year, I vowed to start my journey back into softball. A long, hard journey that included signing up on website and sending my friend money has finally concluded. Am I worried about the press that I will be getting walking up to the plate for the first time in six years? No. I am more worried about my rust affecting the team.

I have a few goals for myself this year: I want to be a good teammate and a leader; I want to have fewer then 5 errors this season; I want to not get caught taking steroids (if my career goes that route); and MOST IMPORTANTLY, I want to get on base all the time.

You may have heard through the grapevines that I have run a half-marathon in, what some would call, and incredibly fast pace. Running, though, is an individual sport. Softball is more focused on the team. The team needs my speed on the bases if we want to get runs. Since runs is in our name, I feel that they are important to winning,

Baseball nerds created a statistics to track how often someone gets on base, calling it On-Base Percentage. According to the old Google machine, it is approximately equal to Times on Base/Plate appearances. The full formula is OBP = (Hits + Walks + Hit by Pitch) / (At Bats + Walks + Hit by Pitch + Sacrifice Flies). I feel I can get on base 75 percent of the time, so .750 base percentage for all you math geniuses out there. Let me remind you no major league baseball player has ever done this. That is a tough feat to reach, but, by golly, I think I can do it.  In fact, I think I will do it.

But this isn’t for me, remember. It’s for the team.

Game one: tonight 6pm.