Softball - A Fat Man's World

The Red Robin softball tournament: A mystical fire where heroes are forged. A magical occasion where one small man can accelerate from zero to awesome in just under 2.5 seconds. That man. Was me.

Known only by the name that appears on the back of his blood and grass stained shirt, "Curly" steps up to the plate in the top of the 5th inning. This is the last inning in the game, and the score is tied. There is electricity in the air as the crowd stares at the home team's last chance at glory. The only thing standing between the pitcher's mound and certain defeat is a small, hairy man holding a large metal bat. As the mighty pitch soars high in the air, one thought runs through Curly's head: "Where did I leave my beer?" Remembering the lessons he learned while watching The Last Samurai with Tom Cruise, he quickly clears his mind, focusing it so intensely that it nearly pierces his skull. As the ball comes thundering down towards the plate, it is struck with a force unparalleled by any other in the universe. As he drops the bat and sprints towards first base, watching the center fielder run back in awe with his face painted a fearful, anguished red, he knows that life will never be the same, as his and everyone's world has been changed forever by the greatness of this moment. In a matter of seconds, destiny reveals itself and a hero is born: Chris Spiker.

True story. Anyway, we went on to lose the game cause our right fielder can't catch a cold (Though I hear he's had better luck with herpes), let alone a baseball. All in all, good times were had by most, although we would have liked to win at least one game. I guess, sometimes, even heroes fall short. As a side note, "heroes" and "herpes" have curiously similar spellings (Especially on a keyboard) while, sadly, their symptoms are so radically different.

In other news, I'm slowly getting tired of serving tables that speak no English whatsoever. Speaking some English is one thing, but no English whatsoever is entirely different. When a woman tries to order her 9 year old son a 2 ounce strawberry margarita, and your attempts to obtain a legal ID from the fourth grader are met only with hand gestures and frantic nodding, something is surely amiss. I thought briefly of ordering little Johnny Chan a triple, but the morally conscious sections of my brain prevailed on this particular occasion.

One more baseball story for all those sports fans out there. Practicing for the big tournament, we were fielding ground balls and throwing them to first base for the simulated "out" (Or, as more frequently occurred, the simulated "extra base hit due to throwing error"). I caught one at shortstop, loaded the ball into the rocket launcher I like to call my right arm, and fired a nuclear missile towards first base. My coworker at first went to catch the ball, but something went terribly wrong, and the ball got through him after hitting something (I figured it was his glove). A few seconds later, he was retrieving the ball, and fiddling with his throwing hand for some reason, with his back turned to the field. To make a long gruesome story short (But no less gruesome), the following had just occurred: The ball, traveling at an estimated 300 miles per hour, struck not the catching glove, but the index finger of the throwing hand (What was that doing in front of the catching glove...?), dislocating it completely at the second knuckle. At the fence, he tried to relocate his own finger (Being a medical specialist... Not), but apparently he pushed it the wrong way and actually SPEARED the finger's BONE through his own SKIN. I think the first thing he said was "Man... Dude my finger is whack man..." When he finally came around and showed it to me, his finger could have been mistaken for a little lightning bolt, had it not been for all the blood. You could actually see the bone coming out of his skin. Nuff said. Needless to say, I threw a little lighter for the rest of the practice...

Okay, the Oilers game is about to come on TV, so I'd better get going. So far, I've been unable to decide who I'm cheering for. I would love to see the cup in Canada, but really, I have exactly two favorite teams in the NHL: 1, the Flames, and 2, whoever is playing against the Oilers. The reason? They're from EDMONTON. What?... Well anyway, I decided to simply cheer for Canada and let everyone else decide what the hell that means. So... GO CANADA! Yeah... Beer time.

Spiker

-For those interested, here's a cute picture of Kelly and I on her 21st. Happy Birthday Sweetheart! http://www.geocities.com/spiker439/P6080065.JPG