The guest host for The Razor and Mr. T closed his show with that line tonight. Instead of the Razor’s “Angels fly because they take themselves lightly.” Looking it up now, it seems it’s a John Wooden line.
Seemed like the right title for my thoughts at the time. We had just been slaughtered in softball. I had a sore ankle from “not letting the ball get by me” and a horrible night with accuracy of my throws and an 0-fer outing in the batter’s box.
I was thinking then, of a conversation with Chuck from a while back. He said he’d rather get good personal stats and lose, than to win and have bad personal stats. I think I’d rather have the win and do poorly than do well myself and win.
Except, tonight, driving home, I was in the situation of bad personal stats and losing. Losing badly. Playing badly. Feeling pretty bad. But I was wondering, would good personal stats and still losing make me feel any better? I wasn’t sure. I don’t think I’m a big enough person to have great personal stats and then not look at all my chump teammates who were dragging me down and despise them. After all, I’m a salmon/soy milk snob now. Dan agreed – he felt he had a great game and blamed me for the loss (and though I cannot argue with the fact that he had a fantastic game on the field, I am reminded of my discrete logic classes and the definition of a vacuous truth). My errors were probably worth 8 runs – so I carry significant blame. Also, due to the butterfly effect, if I hadn’t created the errors when I did, who knows, we might have gotten 3 outs in those innings instead of hitting the max of 7 runs allowed per inning rule and the game could have been that much closer.
So thinking about it on the drive home, I realized I wouldn’t feel better with a good personal game and getting slaughtered. Stinking it up like I did, I know that I have plenty of room to improve on (I’m trying to learn how to throw the ball properly – kind of interesting to realize that at this age, I’ve never really thrown a ball for speed and accuracy) and that my improvements, no matter how minor, can help the team. If I did well and we lost the way we did – I’m not sure I could stand this team! I could get frustrated, thinking I can’t carry the team anymore than I already am…and next thing you know, I’m skipping out on the post game handshakes and congrats because “I’m a competitor“…
So, my softball honeymoon is over. Oh yeah, I struck out. That was a first. Bad sign. Struck out looking!
So, yeah, my honeymoon is over and I might have to start working at playing this game…
…or just let the game come to me and start drinking before the game a bit.
It’s true. I simply didn’t have nearly as many opportunities to play poorly as you did.
Sorry to hear the game didn’t go well. I have been waiting for Chuck’s recap email to highlight the games achievements, but it sounds like I won’t be getting any.