A Softball Experience
       The summer after my sophomore year of high school, I found myself on
the Nuggets 16 and Under team.  Until then I had always played softball
for fun.  We were not a big-time team with many years of experience
playing high class softball.  On the contrary, we were a fairly
inexperienced team who had never played softball any place further than
Stockton.  But that summer our small-time team did something which some
established and stronger teams were unable to do; we made it to
Nationals.  In many respects, we became one of those well-known teams:
we had nice bats which we got from ex-Cal players, we had car washes to
raise money for shiny new helmets and new bat bags, and we had team
politics.
       There were two halves of the team – the San Leandro side, and the
other side.  The San Leandro girls treated those of us who were not
from San Leandro as inferiors.  They laughed at us, they ignored us,
they made fun of our high schools, and they scoffed at anything that
wasn’t from San Leandro.  If our coaches had been the normal sort of
coaches, they would have broken up the clique as soon as it had formed,
but instead our coaches widened the gap between the San Leandro girls
and the other girls by becoming the San Leandro high school coaches.
This extra season they had together formed a tighter bond between them,
so much so that the players would go over to the coaches’ houses to
watch baseball games on TV or to babysit their children.  It was not a
huge surprise to us non-San Leandro kids that we were the ones who sat
the bench.
       As we were warming up for a game during a tournament in Lodi, one of
the San Leandro girls, Shelby, challenged Barbara, a non-San Leandro
girl, to a race.  Barbara accepted the challenge without hesitation.
       “Alright, let’s go right now.  How ‘bout we start at that pole over
there and run to this line?”
       “Naw.  I not gonna race you right now.  I don’t have my running shoes
on.”  Shelby complained.
       “Well you challenged her,” Laura, a girl from Albany, said.  “Besides,
you’ll run faster in cleats because they grip the ground better.”
       “So.  I can beat her in any shoes.  She’s way to slow to beat ‘The
Shelby’.”  said Shelby.
       “You can’t beat me.” claimed Barbara.
“Well, then why can’t you race her right now?” questioned Joan, Laura’s
twin sister.
       “’Cause I don’t want to!  Alright?” yelled Shelby.  At that point
there was no more time to argue because the game before ours ended and
we had to take the field.
       “I’ll race you at practice on Tuesday, okay?” said Shelby.
       “Okay.” shrugged Barbara.  We all went into that game silently excited
to see who would win the race.
       Shelby showed up to practice in her running shoes and a T-shirt that
said “Team Shelby” on the front.  We all laughed at her competitiveness
and Barbara’s seeming lack of it.  We thought the situation was
hilarious and eagerly awaited the end of practice – the time the race
was scheduled.  Shelby lined up on second base and Barbara lined up on
home plate.  Our coach, Ben, laid out the rules: “You guys leave when I
say ‘go’ and the first person to make it all the way around the base
path wins.  Okay?  Alright, on your marks, get set, go!”  Shelby and
Barbara leaped at the sound of his voice and sprinted around the bases,
the entire team’s laughter and cheering trailing behind them.  But when
Barbara reached home plate a few steps before Shelby reached second
base the merriment stoped.
       “Aww, she cheated!  She left the base before you said go.” complained
Shelby.  “You were also standing closer to her so she could hear you
say ‘go’ first.”
       “Yeah, she cheated.  She can’t beat Shelby,”  declared Kayla.
       “She sucks!”  The San Leandro girls chimed in.  To Barbara they said,
“You’re the slowest person I’ve ever met.”
       While they hurled insults at Barbara, the coaches were laughing their
heads off.  They never bothered to think that Barbara might not like
their comments.  I sat there silent, with the rest of my non-San
Leandro teammates.  They had no right to say those things to Barbara.
They were being poor sports and acting half their age.  I wanted to
yell right back at them.  I wanted the coaches to do something about
this, but the coaches were only encouraging their behavior.  I was
furious, but I was too timid to stand up to the coaches and to the San
Leandro girls, so I just sat there and did nothing.  But, if Barbara
felt the same way I did, she wasn’t showing it.  She was holding her
head up high, and had a smile on her face.  These comments were
bouncing off of her like hail on the ground.
A few weeks later we arrived at Nationals.  Just the thought of
Nationals made my skin tingle.  This was a new experience.  I was about
to get my first real exposure to playing in front of college coaches.
I was competing against 136 other teams for the title of “National
Champion.”  The thrill of being there was almost too much to handle.
These feelings were the strongest at the opening ceremony with all the
other teams.  We carried on the tradition of trading pins bearing our
team logos before the ceremony.  I was too shy at first to go up to
girls and ask to trade pins, but after my friend, Joanne, asked a few
people for me, I readily joined in the fun.
“May I have your pin?”  “You already have mine?  Well is there someone
else on your team who doesn’t have my pin?”  “Don’t ask that team for a
pin, they’re really ugly.”  “That team doesn’t have pins, but they have
huge rainbow lollipops the size of your head.”  “That umpire over there
is trying to collect pins too.  You might want to give him one.”  And
last but not least, “Thank you.  Good luck in your games.”
No Nationals could ever be more perfectly suited for a team from the
San Francisco Bay Area.  It was in Seattle, so we were in the same time
zone, and the weather was very much like that of the Bay Area, unlike
most softball tournaments where the temperature is at least 105º and
there is no shade or wind.  The fields were perfect because they had
been chosen two years before and groomed until they were in quality
condition.  And if there wasn’t a game going on, one could always
explore the city.  This was the most wonderful experience of my life
until the San Leandro conflict reared its ugly head.
We were playing our first game of Nationals, and --big surprise-- I was
sitting on the bench.  There were no San Leandro girls on the bench, so
I had to share my slab of concrete with Megan, Sammy, Kathy, and
Barbara (although she got to be the designated hitter).  We were in the
top of the third inning and the score was still 0-0.
The first girl on the other team got up to bat.  After fouling off a
few pitches, she hit a ground ball to the shortstop, Laura.  Laura
fielded the ball cleanly and threw it over to Shelby at first for an
easy out.  We had one out and a big, power-hitting girl came up to bat.
 She had hit a ball into the outfield in the first inning, but it was
caught.  She saw the first pitch, swung her bat, and maked contact.
 From my spot on the bench I had a perfect view of the ball as it sailed
over the fence in left-center field.  My coaches started swearing under
their breaths when she rounded the bases.  I looked over at them and
asked,
“Do you want me to start warming up?”
“No.  Wait a little while.  Let’s see what happens.”  Well, the next
batter steped up to the plate and swung at the first pitch.  It was a
nice ball up the middle of the field, but our second baseman got there
in time.  She turned and made a straight throw to first base, but
Shelby missed it.  The ball went flying into the opposing team’s
dugout.  The umpires called “dead ball” and gave the runner an extra
base.
“Ughh!  I could have caught that.” complained Sammy.  Although no one
said anything, we all agreed.  The next batter came up.  She took the
first pitch.  Ball.  She took the second, the third, the fourth.  Ball.
 Ball.  Ball.
“Take your base,” yelled the umpire.  Now there were runners on first
and second with one out.  It’s not so bad.  I mean, we could get a
force out at either first, second, or third, right?  The next pitch
went wild and ended up in the backstop.  The runners advanced to second
and third.  I looked at my coaches.  They were not looking at me, so I
turned back to the game.  Mary walked the next girl.  My coach, Ben,
turns to me,
“Go warm up.  If she walks this next batter you’re going in.”  I had
already warmed up before the game, so I only needed a few pitches to
warm my arm up again.
       The next batter fouled off many pitches, but never put the ball in
fair territory.  So, in the end, Mary walked the girl and let in a run.
 Ben swears and calls “time.”  He walked out to the mound, and I waited
in the dugout for my cue to go onto the field.  But it never came.  Ben
came back to the dugout without saying a word to me.  I stood there
confused for a minute before realizing that he didn’t actually want to
put me in.  My teammates gave me sympathetic looks, but said nothing
because we all knew why I wasn’t going in.  The next girl hit a pop fly
into the outfield.  Although one run scored, we now had two outs.  The
next girl hit a weak ground ball to Shelby, who picked it up and steped
on first for the third out.
Fortunately for us, our team could hit the ball. We made tons of errors
in the field, but we could make it up by getting on base.  So, we were
able to win that game, despite having given up three runs in one
inning.  After the game, instead of doing team-like activities, we all
went our separate ways.
I was stuck in the middle of the San Leandro vs. everybody else
conflict because my mom was friends with the San Leandro parents.  So,
this time I got dragged along with the San Leandoro girls to an Italian
restaurant.  The parents all sat at one table, the girls at the other.
“Where’s my food?  I’m hungry!” complained Juliet.
“Ha ha!  They don’t like you,” said Karen.
“Well, you guys all have your food,” whined Juliet.
“I told you, they don’t like you,” said Karen.
“Hey did you guys see Kelly last week at Daemon’s party?” Kayla
interrupted.  “She had on this cute dress.  Oh, and Alex.  My god, he
looked hella fine.”  I had no idea what she was talking about.  So far
they had not acknowledged my presence.
“Why you lookin’ at Alex?  You know he doesn’t want you,” said Brittany.
“So, I can still-” Kayla started to say.
“Finally, my food’s here!  God that took forever.” butted in Juliet.
“Oh, so I’m gonna stay at the beach next week.  I was wondering if you
guys wanted to come?”  said Mary.  By “you guys” she did not mean me.
She didn’t even look at me.  While they went on jabbering about
someone’s math teacher or somebody else’s party or car or boyfriend, I
sat there silently, just eating my lunch, trying not to look as awkward
as I felt.  The fact that they didn’t even notice me made me mad.  This
wasn’t the caste system, and I was not an untouchable.
When we got back to the hotel, the San Leandro girls went over and
started talking and joking with the coaches.  I went back to my side
and sat down with Laura and Joan, the twins from Albany.  Although the
San Leandro girls were my teammates, and I was supposed to get along
with them, I breathed a sigh of relief when I rejoined my side.
Because of our ability to make up for the runs we gave up due to
fielding errors, we made it to the third-to-last day of Nationals
without losing a game.  The tournament was double elimination, so if we
lost one game, we were given another chance.  But if we lost again, we
would be out of the tournament.  Thus, we woke up at 5:30 Friday
morning to play the Killer Bees.  Unfortunately for us, they were the
team that would win second place at Nationals.
The Killer Bees had an incredible pitcher.  She was fast and she had
spin.  So, unlike before, we were unable to make up for our fielding
mistakes by hitting the ball because we did not hit the ball well.
What balls we were able to hit, the Killer bees’ strong defense was
able to stop.  Needless to say, we lost the game.  Our next game was to
be at 9:00 pm that day.
We got to the field early and warmed up for what was to be our last
game.  As I went through my warm up, I felt pretty good about this
game.  The coaches had told me that I was going to pitch and everyone
on the team seemed to be more serious about the game.  We were going to
play the loser of the game next to where we were warming up.  The
scoreboard showed us that one team was losing by a lot, and by watching
that team more closely, we could see that they stunk.  They made so
many errors in the field that I wondered how they got into Nationals.
I guess the coaches noted how badly this team played because they
changed their line-up.
I was sitting on the bench, trying to look cheerful despite the fact
that I was pissed at my coaches for putting me on the bench for the
third game in a row.  I was sick of having to cheer on players that I
thought should not be on the field, and I was tired from having to get
up early and having to go to bed late because of early morning and late
night games.  I had spent too much time in hotels those past three
months and I longed for my own bed, homemade dinner, and the leisure
that is supposed to be associated with summer.  As I was cheering on my
team, I thought I was doing a good job of hiding my emotions, but it
turned out to be otherwise.
“Sarah, come over here.” my coach, Mike, said in a sort of sympathetic
way.  Oh God.  I walked over to him on the other side of the dugout,
where no one else was.
“Are you okay?”  He asked.
“I’m fine,”  I replied.  Look, I really don’t want to talk to you.
“I know you’re upset ‘cause we put in Mary.”  Would you please shut up.
 I said nothing.
“I know how you feel.”  No you don’t.
“You can talk to me.”  I really hate people who think I want to pour my
heart out to them.  They really have no clue who I am.  I always keep
myself to myself.  I don’t even pour my heart out to my closest friends
and family.  I remained silent while he looked inquiringly at me for a
few moments.
“Look, I know this was supposed to be your game, and it’s totally
understandable for you to feel angry.”  He paused, waiting for me to
say something.  When I didn’t, he said, “You’re going to get to pitch
next game.”  Yeah right.
“Well, if you don’t want to talk to me right now… You know you can
always come and talk to me if you need to.”
“Okay,”  I said only to please him, not because I actually wanted to
say anything to him.
       I went back to my part of the dugout just as mad as I had been before.
 This time I did not pretend to cheer on my teammates.  I knew my
coaches would not put me in even if we did make it to Saturday.
Although they claimed to want to win, they never took out Mary, despite
the fact that she was tired and she complained about her arm hurting.
They played their favorites, and everyone else was left on the bench.
I was sick of this team: sick of the conflicts, sick of the players,
sick of the coaches.  I was ready for the summer to be over.
       We started the game by scoring four runs in the first inning.  We were
unable to score more, but we didn’t let the other team get farther than
first base, so we thought we had the game in the bag.  We should have
remembered the saying, “It isn’t over ‘till the fat lady sings.”  In
the last inning, we started to play sloppy.  The girls in the field
dropped fly balls, missed tags, let balls go under their gloves, and
overthrew balls.  We gave up five runs in that last inning.  FIVE RUNS!
 It was ridiculous!  That team was horrible.  They did not deserve the
right to make it to Saturday.  That terrible team made it to the top 32
teams in the nation when they shouldn’t have even made it into the
tournament in the first place.  I kept my anger to myself as I sat on
the cold, hard, cement bench.
       After the game, the coaches gave us our end of the season talk.  The
head coach, Marvin, addressed the parents and players.
       “I thought we could have won that game.  But we stunk it up.  We know
what we have to work on next year; we need to eliminate the errors.  We
can’t let the ball play us, we have to play the ball.  That means being
aggressive, going to the ball, knowing where the plays are, using our
heads.  That said, we had a great tournament.  I mean, we placed 33rd
in the nation.  At the beginning of the season, who thought we would
even make it to Nationals?  I certainly didn’t.  But you guys surprised
me.  You played your hearts out and you did well.”  Except for the
errors we kept making.  “I’m very proud of you.  We’ve had a long
season.  We’ve been playing together since February and it’s now
August.”
My head shot up when he said this.  No, actually, you held tryouts in
the fall of last year.  Last February we weren’t playing together as a
team.  We took a break during February and March because that was when
high school season started.  You’ve been playing with the San Leandro
girls since February, but not with me.
       “You guys are just tired.  I can’t say enough how proud I am of you.”
I looked around the group.  A number of my teammates and their parents
were crying.  I felt no sadness.  There were no tears welling up in my
eyes.  I was glad the season was over.  I wanted to laugh and to smile.
 I was done with the team politics.
       Tryouts for the Nuggets were held two weeks later.  I didn’t go.  I
decided that I wanted to take the fall off because I needed a break
from softball.  I still pitched once a week with my dad, but I devoted
my time to high school field hockey, club soccer, and my homework.  By
the time December rolled around, I felt refreshed and full of
adventure.
       I tried out for a team in Salinas, the Wildcats, and made it.  The
girls were nicer, and from all over the place, so there would be no
discrimination based on where people lived.  I made new softball
friends and learned what it was like to be on a team where everyone was
passionate about playing softball and about winning.
       I grew a tremendous amount during that summer with the Nuggets.  I
learned what qualities to look for in people that I would be spending a
lot of time with.  Because I was treated with such distaste, I know not
to treat others that way.  When I travel down to Los Angeles to play in
front of college recruiting coaches I see how fortunate I am to be
playing on a team where everyone respects each other.  And that
respect, I have discovered, is the key ingredient in creating an
excellent team.