ARRGGH

Huge competitive-emotional swing in the second half of tonight's softball doubleheader.

The "Hoosier News" team lost 13-5 in our first game, after giving up 7 or 8 in the first inning.

But in the second game, we went into the final inning down 9-8. Fielding in the top half of the inning, we loaded the bases with nobody out; I was playing left center field, and a humpback linedrive was hit to short-center field.

I sprinted to it and slid, juggling it but finally coming up with the catch; the other team's base coaches thought I'd dropped it and sent all their runners, so I threw it back in for an 8-4-3 triple play. Huge brouhaha followed, and they thought that I had said I dropped it. Not so, opposing squad, not so. The person on third tagged up, so it's 10-8.

So of course, in the bottom of the inning, we push a run across and load the bases with two out, bringing to the plate ... me. It being a coed league, I have to bat opposite-handed.

And since I'm hyped out of my skull at this point, imagining a game-winning or at least game-tying line drive up the middle or even a dumpy line drive over the first baseman, I do the only reasonable thing: I pop out to first base to end the game. 10-9 the final, and I want to bite clean through my softball glove. And like a jackass, I wish in part of my brain that I hadn't made the catch so that I wouldn't have had the chance to strand the winning run in scoring position. I got over that idea quickly, but how disappointing is it that someone would think that way?

But it was a great evening. We played the class of the league last week, and they spanked us 22-9 and it could have been much, much worse (they let the guys bat strong-handed once it was 20-0). It turns out we've really gotten better and we can definitely beat both of the teams we played tonight.

The other two teams in the league? Weeell, they could always get a teamwide debilitating-but-nonlethal virus, but other than that, I think we're screwed. We play 7 more games in the regular season, and everyone plays in the playoffs, so it'll be really fun.