Unwritten Rules

Some events that occurred at my softball game last night didn't sit well with me. It comes down to the concept of etiquette and unwritten rules of sportsmanship and courtesy within the sport.

To relate this to the triathlon world, Beth and I came up with a short list of unwritten rules in triathlon competition:

- No drafting on the bike even if an official isn't around. (I think Maija had something to say about this in her blog the other day from her NYC race report)
- No stealing other people's gear (like sunglasses!!) before, during, or after a race from transition
- Don't mess up another person's transition area or hit their bike and mess up their aero bar
- No hiding of one's visor from her (okay, this probably has only happened to Beth)

Okay, so the last few just happened to Beth and were freak events, but you get the point.

Back to last night, the first game went awesome against a pretty tough team. I shut them out for the first 5 innings, ran into some trouble as I gave up 4 runs in the 6th, and then finished the game with a strikeout. I actually had 5 K's, probably a career high though I haven't really kept track (I usually don't get many swings and misses as a soft-tossing lefty). We won 6-4.

Due to some rain-outs, we had a double-header. Game 1 was a pretty big high, so we came out a little flat in the second game. Okay, A LOT FLAT. The other pitcher was late arriving, so I went back out to start game 2 against a team we should beat. In the first inning, I walked a few guys and we committed FIVE ERRORS to give up 4 runs. I went out for another inning and gave up another run so we were down 6-1 or something like that. By the 4th inning we were down something like 16-5.

Here's where the unwritten rules come in. When one team is up by a lot on the other team, there are certain things the winning team doesn't do:
- Don't bunt for a base hit
- Don't steal
- Don't take the extra base on hits

The other team violated all three REPEATEDLY in the last three innings. One one hand, you could say that if we didn't like it, then stop them from doing it. But still, it's just the courtesy of it---you don't pile on--especially in a regular season game in a church league. What did they gain from rubbing it in? Let's just say that if I was still pitching there may have been a few batters hit to let them know I didn't appreciate it.....

Anyway, after a good night's sleep it didn't bother me as much. But, I wanted to just get that off my chest.

In other news, I'm getting back in to the swing of things of running every day with the high school XC team, about 6 miles a day. The rest of the week is fairly light and then we'll get ready for the much less stressful trip to western Michigan next weekend.