This week's article will dive into the wild word of sports, specifically intramural sports, and most importantly my softball team that will be competing soon. What I intend on doing here is give a brief history of my intramural softball past, a brief overview of this season, and a long-winded explanation on why Joltin' Joe Kelly will not be invited to join the team this year.
My intramural career dates back to 2002, during my freshman year. A team had been put together by whoever does these things and I was included due to my immense natural-born talent and the thousands of other slo-pitch softball skills I have acquired through hard work and dedication in my life. After skipping the first game of the season because of a trip to the dark, dark world that is Philadelphia, I fully planned to come to game two of the season and bring the team back from a crushing opening day loss that occurred in my absence.
Sadly on the walk over to the game with my teammate Roberto we found ourselves saving the lives of the thousands of people who live in Scranton. Apparently a giant fire breathing dragon lives deep in the mountains that surround Scranton and a group of drunken college students had angered the beast by spray-painting "BEER RULES GIRLS DROOL" on the entrance to the dragon's lair. While this dragon enjoys his booze as much as the next flying, fictional, fire-breathing creature, it has no patience for the utter disrespect that is the use of spray paint for insulting the female gender. Well that and these young men littered and no one likes a litterbug.
Because of all this, the dragon made up his mind that he would destroy the entire town. Luckily, both Rob and I noticed the dragon as it was nose-diving towards Scranton, prepared for doom and destruction. Even luckier was the fact that along with our gloves and bats, we also packed our mythical dragon killing swords in preparation for the game. Knowing that the dragon would act quickly, I launched my sword into the sky with such great velocity and accuracy that it hit the dragon directly in its cold, black heart. The dragon crashed to the ground in front of us; wounded but still breathing. Rob immediately went into action, he screamed "I have the power!" because he's a He-Man rip-off and decapitated the beast. Our actions saved the entire town, gave Rob a nice although obnoxiously large hood ornament, and sadly caused us to miss the beginning of the game.
Actually to say this was a game by the time we arrived would be a lie; it had become a massacre. Dan Bryan couldn't hold his own on the mound, his slow pitches weren't getting the job done and he was getting pounded, in fact I think at this point he was even crying on the mound. The massacre peaked when a member of the opposing team took such a mighty swing at one of Dan's pitches that he split his bat—a bat that was made out of titanium—in half. Needless to say, the game was lost and I think is a good summary of what happens when I miss a game because Rob Parsons and myself are forced to save the world.
I have other stories relating to my intramural softball past, but none match the epic glory of that game so the history will end there and we'll dive right into this season's overview. Right now, I would say this team looks strong and I expect big things of the team this season. I am a fearless, confident, and charismatic captain and leader with one hell of a power stroke so I'm sure I'll have quite the positive impact on the team and hopefully they will all follow my lead.
Steve Suhovsky, a life-long hater of all things baseball is making his first appearance in the intramural softball league this year, and I fear that the trickery of trying to handle the slo-pitch might be too much for him to overcome, but he will be expected to contribute nevertheless. Another big off-season acquisition is Steve Shaw, whose main concern for the team is what our name will be (post suggestions as comments) and if we're getting team shirts or not; of course, I expect big things for his on-field performance based on this information.
Female recruits for the team are my bowling partner, Mel, and (hopefully) Eileen Webster and Meg McMurdo of Lady Royals fame. Rounding out the female recruits is the creator of the Scranton Student, Stephen Mekosh. Oh snap, oh snap! The only returning veteran is pitching ace, Daniel Bryan of Ringwood, New Jersey. Bryan has spent the off-season trying to perfect his slo-pitch to become the first pitcher in slo-pitch softball history to be a dominant strikeout pitcher. I wish Dan the best, but expect him to fail... miserably. I guess this is about everyone on the team. What? Did you just ask me if I'm forgetting Joe Kelly? Oh no I did not forget Joe Kelly. Joe Kelly's name isn't listed here because Joe ain't playin' on my team, sucka's; here's why:
Some might think I'm not picking Joe to be on the 2004 Intramural Softball championship team because of personal problems that have surfaced between the two of us stemming from his completely fictional and damn near libel article from last week where he blames me for his lazy behavior in writing articles for this site. No, my reason for not picking Joe is his immense skill or should I honestly say his immense lack of skill when it comes to slo-pitch softball. You see, freshman year we almost won a game; it was oh so close, but Joe ruined it for our teammates and me. Late in the game, we were barely holding on to a lead when—with two outs and (I think) the bases loaded—Joe Kelly had himself a routine ball hit his way. If fielded correctly, it would have brought the end of the game and a victory celebration the likes of you have never seen. Joe had different plans however and let the ball roll straight through his legs buckling under the pressure and causing the loss.
I personally have a hard time getting to sleep before 4:00 AM on most nights. This game is the reason why, because every time I try to close my eyes, this play flashes through my mind repeatedly. It is a constant torture that I should not have to live with and because of it, Joe Kelly will not be a member of this team. Well, unless he's willing to pay the $10 it costs to enter a team, then I welcome Joseph with open arms.
Over this past week, as I was speaking with a few members of last year's intramural softball champions, they were so arrogant as to wear shirts showing off their great achievement. The 2004 Season will be a bitter, but refreshing wake up call for them and the other warriors who take part in slo-pitch softball. I am confident that the talent that has been brought together with this nameless team will be the athletes who will have the high honor of being able to purchase shirts proclaiming us "2004 University of Scranton Intramural Softball Champions," but we will be too cheap (humble) to even think about doing such a thing. To quote David Bowie, "Wham! Bam! Thank you ma'am!"