I had one in middle school, it was super douchey, but whatever. I was in 7th grade on the football team, I was the fucking man. Sure I got cut from basketball and baseball, but I went to a public school in the ghetto, we had black people, no way was I making the basketball team (even though I played for an AAU state champion in 6th grade...this was probably the height of my athletic ability 5'6 12 years old with a 58 mph fastball, a sick knuckleball toebash in soccer and I could hit 8/10 free throws) Anyway, I wore that Belzer Bruins Red and White with pride. Even after I transferred to St. Simon in 8th grade I still rocked that shit to put forth the image that I was the new mysterious kid with a troubled past...and amidst first kisses, sneaking out and trying to convince girls to show me their tits I snuck in 4 competitive sports in 8th grade. Clearly I was destined for greatness.
Begin high school, I play football for the Freshman team, obviously, and then I play lacrosse in the spring (because I have tremendous foresight that I will be able to put this on my bro resume come college) nope because baseball players can't go on spring break...fuck that noise. I'm a very mediocre talent at football, tennis, lacrosse throughout high school, but I still have to play, because that's what you do in high school...or you go home and are a fucking loser, or you go to theatre practice and are a fucking weirdo (I secretly wanted to be doing this the whole time.)
I never did get a letter jacket in high school, I'm fairly certain at the time I was too obsessed with new cz earrings and baggy jeans to worry about how to iron on a varsity letter. But I did walk away with a state ring, some good memories and a reasonable social relevance. Sports did me well-ish. Because that's really how your popularity is judged in high school, what team are you on, how good are you and did you get to 3rd base with a cheerleader (no one has sex at Cathedral except for like 5 people...you can probably guess who they were)
College comes and people join frats and get somewhat into intramurals but by Senior year are so over it. Flag football is a burden, soccer isn't fun anymore and some walk-on rejects will hurt you on the basketball courts so fuck it, let's drink. It's not like social relevance is influenced by your Greek League A record. What matters is relevance of your frat, money you spend, and how many top tier sorority semi-formals you go to. (At this point this article seems so so douchey, I was considering stopping here, but I promise this is not going to turn into an essay about how to be cool in college. Many of you probably hated me and accuse me of social climbing, I just "get it" and even if this seems wrong to you, this is the way college works.)
Graduation happened, that sucked. I don't care how much you love your job, you would rather be on a patio somewhere at happy hour with 0 responsibility. I don't care if you are changing the world by teaching Nigerians how to read, or volunteering for a political campaign it would be easier to sleep until noon and then go play golf...and btw, people that do the aforementioned two things and love to talk about it, fuck you.
So you're in the real world, in a big city, you get to go out on the weekends and be morally reprehensible still but then what about the other 5 days a week. The "Meh." You could just go through the motions of your life and have 2/7 of an existence. But no, that simply won't do. You could go through the denial of growing up and go out 5 nights a week...that works for a while, until everyone else gets sick of it...what you need are activities. Organized fun to break up the week, something to look forward to...like a smoker counts down the minutes to his next scheduled cigarette break. What you need is softball.
Softball is fucking great. So is beach volleyball, bowling...any semi-competitive league sport post college is the best. You hear those stories of old men tearing an ACL rounding 3rd and you think to yourself...what an asshole? Why is he taking this shit so seriously? Oh I get it...the same reason ESPN has 4 hours of programming for fantasy football. These are the little things that keep life exciting. It must be some crazy phenomenon that somehow the stupidest dykiest sport from high school becomes the life blood for 20-40something year old males. (Scratch that women's lacrosse is worse) But it happened, and I fucking love it. Some friends and I were trying to pinpoint the age at which softball becomes more fun than baseball...it must be 20. Because 20 must be the age that you stop caring about your stat line for the game and worry more about how many pitchers you are going to smash after the game.
And how great is that? Bars will pay for your league registration, your uniforms and even GIVE you alcohol to rock their logo and party at their place. It's really capitalism at its best. They know that by giving us a sense of entitlement that we run the show at their bar, we will in turn triple their investment and get all of our friends to go there all the time...the extremes people will go to for one free beer. But I fucking love it, you can use me as a pawn in the system all day. Because I can still crank it 300 feet and I wear my old softball league shirts jogging just to let people know that this scene is for me and they probably think to themselves, this dude is probably pretty sweet, he still plays sports with his friends and goes out drinking after...yep...fucking right I do.
It's kind of like the high school letter jacket in a way. A point of pride, extremely douchey (not as bad as wearing your old frat tees after you graduate) a slight reminder to the rest of the population that you are involved in an activity that you believe makes you awesome. Maybe it's not for everyone, maybe people should give up on the glory once they realize they aren't going to go pro. That said, I assure you that if I hit a home run tonight, I'm going straight to Third Stop and buying a bottle.
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