softball update

2nd round of the Tuesday night tournament....

We won 23-2. Not a lot of suspense.

In the 6 innings the game lasted, we scored 3, 3, 3, 0, 3, and 11 runs. Those numbers illustrate a key to our season; as opposed to last year, we're scoring consistently.

Last year, we lost a lot of close games in which we had a seven- or -eight run inning but only totaled 10 or 11 runs.

This season we're doing a much better job of getting runs home after they're on base.

As an aside, and I hate to bring down the euphoria caused by a Yogi victory, I heard tonight that Steve McCormick, whom Ron, Jim, and I graduated with from St. X., died from a heart attack.

We weren't great friends, but I always liked him. He was a really nice guy- he and Ron were best friends as young kids, and he played softball at St. Martha (for St. Martha's team) for several years.

He was a heavy drinker and I'm sure (well, obviously) not in the best of health, but he was young and pretty athletic and didn't look like the heart attack type, at least not yet.

We were by no means close. Not at all. I hadn't even run into him in over a year. But I was a little surprised by how much the news affected me. I think it's a combination of his relative youth and the fact that I really did like him. He was just one of those super-nice guys that always seemed glad to see me and was always genuinely interested in how I was doing.

I'm not an emotional wreck or anything. Overall, this very sad news doesn't rate incredibly highly on my personal Richter scale, but it does pretty much stink.

I don't know a lot of people as friendly as Steve. And that's a quality that I hold in great esteem, especially because I don't have it.

I'm a pretty nice guy, but I admit my interest is too often faked. I'm often friendly as a by-product of courtesy; I certainly do wish the best for most people, most of the time, but I've come to realize that a genuine and consistent interest in others' well-being is fairly rare, and I'm sad to know there's one less person around who has it.