Indoor Softball

Maia and Becca came to cheer me on last week.

Yeah, you read that right: indoor softball. I managed to get onto one of the teams in the league run by Anchor Town Sports, having missed only one game. In reality, they're begging for playing at this point. One team (the "Bearded Clams") dropped out at the last minute, and they threw my team together at the last minute to maintain the schedule they'd put together. And in reality, we're not even a full team. Every week, we have to beg other people to play with us. It's often from the team that played before, but last week we had the first game of the night so we stole players from our opponents. And as far as I can tell, that wasn't a forfeit.

Who has a dome large enough for indoor softball? Why ChangePoint Church, of course! My favorite blurb from their website: Come early. Give yourself time to park, take children to their programs, grab a cup of Kaladi's coffee (it's free!), browse our bookstore, and find a seat. The church itself looks like a convention center (no steeple). They just recently built the SportsDome; apparently, Anchor Town played the first softball ever there, and it only opened a week before that. Eventually they will lay down a running track and pave the parking lot (hopefully), but right now they're just concrete and rock, respectively. It looks like the walls/ceiling are actually inflated, and they have to maintain a certain pressure inside the dome to keep it up. (The front doors are revolving, and the wheelchair entry is like an airlock!) It's big enough for two softball diamonds in there! But we have to play with a "softie" ball, which doesn't fly as far. But it's not Chicago-style 16-inch softball! I couldn't bring myself to play that, even if it was the only game in town.

Playing softball inside a dome is weird. First of all, everything between the foul lines is in-play, even if it bounces off the ceiling or the net. And there's no home-run line, so balls that are crushed so they hit high up on the outfield net are still in play... you have to camp yourself at the bottom of the net and try to snag it as it rolls down the net. You can still wear cleats b/c the floor is a soil-like pile of tiny rubber fragments, topped with some descendant of Easter-basket grass. However, that playing surface has been hell on my knees/ankles (or maybe the fact that it's been years since I've played or really even exercised is part of it, too). The "softie" balls are yellow, and the ceiling is white, so it can be hard to pick up the ball sometimes. Watching the ball fly against the backdrop of the dome is also off-putting; I've misjudged my fair share of balls b/c I can't tell where they are. And the first bounce off the floor can be a doozy.

It's also been a while since I played in a league with balls and strikes. For those of you who don't know the rules of the league I played in at Chicago (the self-proclaimed World's Dorkiest Softball League): there were no balls & strikes; if the pitcher was throwing you garbage, your captain could ask for a replacement pitcher. But, three foul balls and you were out. This was supposed to make the game more accessible and fun for folks who hadn't played before, but the games could also drag on forever. Not that I minded! Anyway, at the moment I have NO idea what my strike zone is, and my first time at the plate I stepped out of the batter's box during my swing and was called out (on a good hit, too). We also play time-limited games, restricted to 7 innings or 55 minutes, whichever comes first. And the time slots we have at the SportsDome are a killer: 8:30, 9:30, and 10:30pm! And it takes me about 30 minutes to drive to the dome, so if I've got the late game like I do tonight, I'm not home until after midnight.

So I'm still getting used to some weird aspects of the game, but I'm really enjoying getting to play. Unfortunately, there's no real "team spirit" (half the time, half of our players aren't even on our team), but that means that when we're losing I don't feel a lot of pressure to produce offensively. I'm just out there to have a good time. I've gotten to play outfield every game, so I get to make a lot of running catches, which is probably my favorite part of the game. And there's no bench-time, so it's go-go-go for an hour. We're halfway through a 6-week season (twice a week), and I'll be sad for it to end. But now I know about Anchor Town... I'm looking forward to more softball in the future.

Go Residential Mortgage! (Yes, we got a sponsorship; but no jerseys, sadly.)