charlie-brownGreetings, my fellow port swillers!

(Who? Go here.)

Teh youngest gel’s softball practices are on Tuesdays this spring.  Ol’ Robbo serves as a kind of utility back-up coach this season, not having any official position but making himself useful where needed, both during practices and in games.

Anyhoo, this past Tuesday evening, we had as usual an intra-squad scrimmage.   Because only nine or ten gels showed up for practice, this necessitated some coaches playing in the outfield.  (At teh gel’s AAA level, the teaching emphasis is on infield execution, as the majority of hits among the 9-11 y.o. crowd tend not to travel far into the outfield.)

Playing center field, ol’ Robbo found himself squaring up against teh gel.   She has really blossomed this spring on many different fronts,  and in recent weeks has started to bear down much harder on her softball skills, which heretofore have been held hostage to what one might call the “Look – Squirrel!” frame of mind.

So, on a coach-pitched lob, teh gel smacked a long, hard shot into the left-center gap.

Ol’ Robbo is almost 50.  He’s very much out of shape and is considerably out of practice when it comes to softball.  Plus, he was still dressed in his work clothes.  Nonetheless, because the ball hung up just enough, I managed to get a good jump and executed a nifty back-handed spear at full stretch as it came down.

Lord God forgive me, but I couldn’t help juuuuuust a little bit of taunting after I robbed teh gel of her hit.

I’m paying for it now with a set of lower back pains, but it was worth it. Right?