The Underdogs
by wxrt - 08/06/09
From the beginning, Team XRT has always kinda sat on the back burner. It seems we are always so close to a victory to only have it pulled out from underneath us. It’s our own fault, we let things slide that other teams might argue in order to win. I’ve said it before, winning isn’t everything, but with the possibility of taking the lead on the W chart for the Sacony Originals office summer league games, something fueled the fire within us …plus our team caption said we had to win or he would fire us. (Okay, he really didn’t say that, but I could tell it was what he was thinking.)
I’ve never been good at softball. I played tee-ball in kindergarten; I was the kid in deep, deep right, which is really the parking lot, doing kart wheels and picking daisies for the duration of the game. Not only was I an awful player, but to this day I’m terrified of the ball. But wiffle ball seemed harmless, right? Wrong. Although the game is much safer with the ball weighing about the same as a stick of gum, we now had to be cautious of the shards of glass covering the ground in Humboldt Park.
Team XRT had a rough start as the girls (and one guy) from Venus took an early two to nothing lead. As the innings went on, the sun started to set making the sky a pretty purple color as the breeze softly made the trees…oh wait we are in the middle of a game (I guess not much has changed since kindergarten). The wiffle ball became increasingly harder as it got darker and darker, and members of the other teams who had finished their game in half the time of our game grew cranky.
This crankiness only provoked team XRT to finish our game. We wanted our fair shot to win this time around and although the other teams wanted us to quit, we were determined to finish the game for we still had hope…plus it is so fun to do the opposite of what everyone else wants you to.
Bottom of the fifth and we are still down by two. Really, I don’t know what happened. We just decided to be good all the sudden. I even pulled off a bunt…okay I didn’t mean to bunt, I just swung the bat and the ball didn’t go very far, but with a double by Zack, hits from Emily, Nicole, and Kristin, and an amazing defensive play by Analise that had her diving into the dirt, we waved our “W” flag tall and proud….that’s just said for imagery, we didn’t really have a flag (I don’t like lying), but it woulda been cool if we did.
We were the underdogs. And if you have no fear of the underdog, you will not survive. (Okay, for plagiarisms sake, I stole that from a song from Spoon. What do you expect, we are XRT after all.)
