February 27, 2001
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Softball is a funny game. So funny sometimes that you thinkthere are softball gods up there playing games with you, testing you,laughing at you. It's how you explain it when you hit the ball righton the button and the pitcher closes her eyes, sticks out her glove andsnags it in self defense. You can't get too upset because you know thatthe softball gods will repay you with a bloop single right over thesecond baseman's head the next time up to bat.
You never question the softball gods. You just go with it whenthey're smiling on you and find a way to deal with it when they'retesting you.
The important thing is to find a way to win no matter what thesoftball gods are doing. In other words, to make your own luck, notexcuses.
Usually that's done by playing good defense and scrapping onoffense. Hitting ground balls, bunting people around the bases, andthen finding a way to get them home.
Or, if that doesn't work, you can just hit homeruns.
Two weeks ago in San Diego we went for the first game plan. Wehad great pitching and defense, a lot of hard hits that went right atpeople, but just enough key hits to pull out wins.
Last weekend in Georgia, we scraped all that and just playedlongball. Nine homeruns in four complete games. Our defense wasn'tanything to write home about (more errors than I can remember) but ourpitching was still awesome and we came home with four wins and thetournament title.
At one point in the weekend, it seemed like the only way wecould score was to go yard. Like hard-hit ground balls and line-drivesweren't good enough for the softball gods. Robin (Walker) must havefive or six "at-'em" balls alone. She'd come back to the dugout andwe'd all say, "Hey, keep hitting it hard, they'll fall for you." But inthe back of our minds, we'd started to wonder when the softball godswere going to get tired of playing this little trick on her.
But like I said before, you don't question the softball gods.You just go with it when they're smiling on you and find a way to dealwith it when they're testing you.
Robin eventually got her hits. We eventually scored runswithout having to hit the ball out of the yard. And most importantly,we found a way to win all the games no matter what the softball godswere doing.