Softball is a fickle sport

Softball tournaments seem to take over ball diamonds all over Wisconsin during summer. They bring communities together for fellowship and fun during weekends. One thing it can also bring is frustration.

I have been playing softball for 10 years now but never have I seen a tournament that has had so many home runs hit in my life. The wind was blowing out to all portions of the outfield at the Atwood ball field, located about three miles southwest of Curtiss. The wind, combined with a fence that is only 260 feet away from home plate to begin with, made for ideal home run conditions.

On a normal day, a home run isn’t a miracle but this weekend, it seemed like swings that would normally be a pop up to an outfielder were leaving the yard and clearing it by a good bit. Because it’s so easy to hit home runs, most tournaments enact a home run limit. This prevents teams from smashing balls over the fence without an afterthought. In this tournament, teams were able to hit six home runs before they began to count as outs.

The team I played for struggled mightily with this concept. We had a team made up of home run hitters but only one or two could hit them consistently. Most teams will look to get two or three runners on base before they allow their hitter to try for a home run. We hit our home runs with one or no one on base which was a gut punch. Side note: as a baseball guy, it’s quite awkward to be disappointed that someone hit a ball over the fence.

Saturday afternoon, we hit our six home run limit during the second inning of one of our games. After that, we recorded multiple outs because we couldn’t keep from hitting the ball in the air and watching the wind take it over the fence. For that reason, and some others, we lost two games and were forced from the tournament on Saturday evening.

I went back to Atwood on Sunday to watch the championship games and again, teams were having issues with the wind. The team that eventually won the championship ran out of home runs in the fifth inning. Luckily, the team they were playing against had run out of home runs around the same time. Both teams were forced to battle it out with base hits and line drives the rest of the game.

My newfound respect for the art that is softball came from the strategy and home run hitting ability that can either help or hurt you based on what the situation is.

SPEEDING

THROUGH

L

IFE

NEAL H OGDEN EDITOR