I played in my first softball game yesterday. They take these games pretty serious, especially our pitcher lol. The field is really nice. The clay infield is raked everyday and the back fence is 280 to left field. Fence is about 35′ tall. The field sits over looking a river. It definitely bring back some child hood memories. Any how, they pick teams. I was the new guy so I got picked towards the end, or maybe my belly didnt exactly exhuberate confidence in them. (Im as big as ive ever been right now). Nobody wants to play down the left field line so third and short stop are hard for them to find someone to play. I ended up playing shortstop. I took a couple balls in the first inning and held my own. They like to talk alot and so do the other inmates. The other team kept telling their batter to test the shortstop LOL. Pressure from inamtes is interesting to say the least. I made some good plays so they laid off me for awhile. About 5 or 6 innings in I took a slow ground ball so I rushed the throw, when i went to release the ball was moving around in my hand. When I let go of the ball it literally went about 50′ higher than the first baseman, over the first base fence and hit a building about 30 yards on the other side. Damnit! Im pretty sure i heard the inmate bleacher section tryin to come up with a good nickname for me after that. I hit good enough to hold my own. A couple deep shots and then a couple pop flys. I need to get use to slow pitch softball, waiting for it is the key. All the guys were pretty cool, everyone was picking each other up. Saying good job and fist bumping. I havent done anything like that in a long time. The comradiere in prison was awesome to see. We ended up playing 2 games. Our pitcher is about 5’4″ at best. Very competitive, over the top. Every time our second baseman would make mistake our pitcher would kick dirt and saying something under his breath. At the end of the second game the other team was beating us and he gave up another big hit in the 5 inning. He got so mad he threw his glove on the ground and started kicking dirt, he quit and walked off. Then our third baseman told him to settle down. Well we are in prison with some tough guys so some words were exchanged. Our third basemen is 6’4″ and jacked. The little man and him were bumping chest for a few minutes. The fans were now real excited and trying to encourage them to put on a show. Eventually the big guy walked off and did the right thing. Anyways, it was a good night and Im super sore. Just thought I would share.
