My First Double of the Season

So, for those astutely keen observers to this blog (out of the maybe five people who have read this blog at some point), one may take the title to mean:

"That blogger who is a punching-judy (a.k.a. weak-hitting) softball player got his first extra base hit of the season."

You would be WRONG as I had a whopping two doubles and two triples over the 11 games I played in for the regular season. I'm a power machine!! (Not really)

The "Double" I'm referring to is the first XC Double practice of the season. It's that time of year for cross country to start ramping up the miles before school starts. I put in 7 miles this morning and another 5 in the afternoon. Tomorrow morning's practice involves a 4 mile "time trial" over on Corrigan Drive in South Park. I'll have to see how I stack up against these young whipper-snappers half my age.....okay, so that's just the freshmen & some sophomores who are half my age, but that sure does make me feel old!

Speaking of softball, facing an elimination game, we stepped up last night and won 8-2. Somehow, with some good defense behind me, I only gave up two runs and both were unearned. There were a couple of guys on base with two outs and a ground ball was hit to the second baseman. But he was (legally) screened by the runner and it got past him and the two runs scored. Other than that, no runs. I sure didn't feel like I pitched that good, but as long as we scored more than we gave up, it works for me! Now we play Friday. If we win that game, we're into the finals.

Also, a big congrats to Pirates pitcher Jeff Karstens who had a perfect game (nobody reaching base) going with two outs in the 8th inning! He ended up with a 2-hit shutout, so pretty impressive for a guy who was regarded as the fourth best (out of FOUR) of the pitchers the Pirates got from the Yankees in the Nady & Marte deal. We'll see if he can keep it up. And, on top of everything else, he had TWO HITS off of RANDY JOHNSON!

Along those lines, I really like Andy LaRoche and Moss from the Bay trade. I haven't seen Hansen yet, but I've heard and read that he's got a live arm. And, on top of that, most people say that Bryan Morris (down in A-ball) may have the biggest upside of them all. Maybe reloading the system with the Bay trade wasn't a bad idea.

Time for me to go check out Facebook, as Beth as an account on it now.