I was going to put something clever here, but I decided against it. Instead I'm going to recount the story of why I quit playing baseball.
It was a hot summer in Texas, and I had signed up to be in the Jewlympics. Okay, they were actually called the Maccabi Games (their slogan is "Building Jewish Pride Through Sports"), and I hear a lot of people had positive experiences with it. I mostly just wanted to play sports and meet people. Okay, I mostly wanted to play sports and meet girls. I was fourteen, what can I say?
The summer started out pretty well. I went to camp and had fun there. I got back and started going to baseball practices. I played a lot of first base during practice - I felt like I was really consistent about making plays and I'd occasionally make a really good snag. There was one other first baseman who made the plays less consistently, but also made more of the impressive snags. I figured we would probably trade off innings or whatever. I'll admit, I wasn't the best batter on the team, but I also wasn't the worst. I figured I would be towards the bottom of the line-up most of the time, and not bat sometimes. I made some friends on the team. We weren't great friends, but I figured I could hang out with them for the duration of the week that made up the actual games.
Then that week came. Things started out fine. I got a couple of cool guys from Miami Beach rooming with me - they were tennis players. At the opening ceremony, all the cities got different get-ups to wear. Since it was the Dallas games, and I was on the Dallas team, we went extravagantly Texan - Mavericks green tear-off warm-ups, white hoodies that said Dallas on the front, and a straw cowboy hat. My hat didn't last five minutes - my teammates decided to snatch it off my head and rip it to pieces. Fuck those guys.
I figured it would be okay though, because I would be playing baseball and meeting girls.
Then came the first game. It was August in Dallas - which means that it was over 100 degrees every day that week. It wasn't that bad though - I was in the shade. Riding the bench. I played a total of 4 half-innings in the field that week, and only one of those was at first base (and it didn't come to me). The others were in right field. Fuck right field. I got to bat exactly twice. Both times the game was already more-or-less decided. The first time was against the best pitcher we saw the whole time (I could barely see his fastball. I was told later it clocked around 80 mph coming from a close mound). I struck out in four. The second time, I got a double. They didn't let me bat again.
And then the coach had the nerve to scold me for trying to fall asleep on the bench. - "You should be rooting for your teammates." Fuck him.
Oh, but the good news is that my bench-riding really paid off for the team. We got fucking third of six.
Still, I was optimistic that I would be meeting nice and attractive Jewish girls. No such luck. The parties were in huge, intimidating venues, full of thousands of people I didn't know, most of whom were older than me. And the only people I did know were two kids from Miami Beach who had a lot of friends that didn't know me and didn't particularly need a dork from Dallas hanging around and my fucking teammates. I had hoped that I would be able to break out of my shell. Instead, I sat in various corners eating barbecue and wishing I was at home reading a book.
Lest I forget, I did meet two attractive girls. They came up to me at a go-kart place and asked me if I was okay, out of pity because I looked like a lost puppy. I don't remember anything about them except that I thought they were attractive at the time and that I was resentful that they were talking to me out of pity.
And now playing baseball is irreversibly associated with all of that in my mind. Maybe I'll take up softball when I settle down somewhere.
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