Why Winning Isn't Everything, But What We Should Do In Order To Maybe Do It Anyway

The following is an extension of my previous rant.

Kids, let me tell you a story.

A few years back, I had to decide what I wanted to do with my life.  The basic decision came down to this: did I want to work for love or for money?  If I had wanted to make a lot of cash, I could have followed in my father's well established footsteps and done gay porn: trust me, I have a gift.  But I chose to be an educator (I'm laughing as I read this statement juxtaposed with the rest of this blog) because I enjoy it.  I do it cause it's fun.

Now, most of the team is made up of educators as well, so I'm going to appeal to your common understanding of where I'm coming from for this metaphor to work.  I'm sure most of us were faced with a similar decision at some point or another.  We all probably have an occupational skill set we could use to provide us with a more comfortable life (except the gym teachers, I mean, come on), but we choose this because we love it.  Saying that we work in this school of all places for the money would make absolutely no sense.  Yes, the fact that it pays the bills is nice.  But when you get to the heart of it, we actually do it because we like it.

In a similar fashion, saying that we are playing D Division Slowpitch Softball for any reason other than "to have fun" is ludicrous.  Yes, of course we all want to win games, because winning games is more fun.  But at the core of it, we need to be on that field because we enjoy playing the game and we enjoy the people around us (except Steve, I thought we agreed to stop calling him for games, guys what's up with that?)  The second it stops being fun, we ought to just stop showing up entirely.  What constitutes fun?  The obvious answer (besides winning) is playing time. Still, I think we need to acknowledge that, at present, we've had more than enough guys showing up for games, so as a result people are going to have to sit.  I think it's smart to keep a rotating stock of sitters, have no one sit more than one game a week, give everyone their time on the field, etc. Not rocket surgery here.  I would like to think everyone is on board with this.

Now that we're playing the game and having fun, what can we do to win?  Just some opinions here:

First of all, everyone except for Zang needs to hit better - honestly he's come through in just about every big spot I can think of.  Yeah everyone's been getting a few hits, and I think Vella and Avi have been doing good enough to be worth mentioning as well, but as a whole I don't think our bats are doing what they should.

The field looks ok to me.  There are a few errors, but that will happen.  The only major switch that I feel should be made in the field is moving Avi to infield and Vella to outfield (I have not yet asked either of these fine gentlemen their opinions on the matter).  The way I see it, they're both doing good jobs where they are, but their strengths could be more emphasized if switched.

For example, I have two main criticisms of Vella at short stop.  First, just because it's called "short stop" doesn't mean you have to be vertically challenged.  Having a bigger cut off target wouldn't hurt.  But speaking of cut offs, one thing he could improve upon - and I have spoken to Vella about this - is calling plays better to the outfielders.  Speaking only for myself here, I know that there are times when the ball is hit to me and I have that split second hesitation as I am about to throw, because I am just not certain as to what the best tactical throw would be to make.  I rely on the shortstop to call the base.  Now who do I know on the team who has a loud voice and would always want his opinion to be heard?  Hmm...maybe Avi wants to play short?  I think his personality would be a commanding positive presence in the infield.

And moving Vella out would be a safe move as well.  While Avi does possess excellent hand eye coordination and has the skills to make flashy catches, I honestly just think Vella would have run to the ball faster and caught it normally.  I believe that the force generated by his powerful calves would allow him to cover significant ground out there, enabling the outfield to spread out a little bit or even experiment in different formations.

In summary, let's remember that we decided to do this because we like each other, so let's kick Steve off the team and have some fun.  Cause if we aren't gonna do this to have fun, we might as well be doing gay porn.