Countdown to Game Time

The Ponce baseball players are here in Florida, and for the next week there will charges and counter charges, trash talking, and accusations of bias and unfairness -- but that will be coming from the Republican candidates for President who are also in Florida and dominating the news.   On the other hand, good sportsmanship and fun will mark the week at Terry Park in Fort Myers as 82 baseball players from the DC area  -- with ages ranging from mid-30's to 70 -- will be having fun playing 9 games over the next 5 days.  Tonight the kick-off dinner was held at the league hotel, the Hilton Garden Inn, where team assignments were passed out.  In a typically chaotic "organizing" meeting I was assigned to Team 3 (which is also known on the schedule that was passed out as Team C.)  Coaches will be assigned tomorrow (drawing teams out of a hat.)  I have played previously with only one other person on my team (Steve Malinowski from my weekend team) and against only a couple of others that I know.  So I will get to know a bunch of new guys this week.  Team 3-C has 13 players -- ranging in age from 45 to 73 (6 of us are 62 or older - by far the oldest of the 6 teams.)

My brother Bill is with me here for the week to monitor play, get a few chuckles and make sure my blog accurately reports what happens without my usual exaggeration and self-promotion.  (So if you don't see any reports of my hitting and pitching you will know Bill has applied the truth-ometer -- no news will be bad news.)  Several folks have made suggestions for improving the blog -- including attaching some pictures.  We will see if, with Bill's help, I can get some shots and post them.  A couple of other suggestions were more far-fetched.  Mark K. suggested that I post a 5-minute video on YouTube with the highlights of the week's action -- probably not possible because it may take filming for whole week to compile even 5 minutes of "action."  Similarly Marc-boy suggested that I tweet from the field, but "keep your eye on the ball"  -- he may forget that the ball bounced off my forehead last year, so combining playing with tweeting would clearly be well beyond both my physical coordination and technical competence. 

Reports from the playing field tomorrow evening.