Is there anything worse (in the sporting realm) than 2nd place? You’ve sent out 47 texts… “We made it to the Championship game – it starts at 4, I’ll send updates when I can!”
Here’s an update – we got ourselves a 2nd fucking place trophy.
The worst is: you’ve got just as much time invested as the winners. Every other team has cleared out – those rat bastards are home napping (a select few with LOADS more sense of duty are actually taking care of their lawn – we simply replace the ‘crime scene – do not cross’ tape every now and again to freshen up the place).
You got up on Saturday at 5:30ish am, just like the people with the 1st place trophy. Ya know… Alex used to always be on the team drawing the 1st game of the day, which meant getting up as early as 4am on occasion; this season her team seems to be the “we drew the 2nd game and the last game” type. (incidentally… friends of ours drew the 1st game and last game Saturday… poor bastards.) Anyway – this early game/last game scenario guarantees you at least 14 hours not taking care of your home. At least when she had the 1st game curse – we were often home by 5 or so, with this 2nd/last shit we don’t get home ’til almost 10.
And has any parent enjoyed a day of games in 65 degree weather, 0% humidity, 4mph breeze with lazy clouds? Fuuuuuck.NOOOOOO. We have 38 degrees with hurricane winds, 97 degrees with 114% humidity or torrential downpours – at no time are these girls solely battling pony-tailed opponents (although I swear our opponents never face the elements like we do…).
This weekend was an anomaly. From a “I can go in and out at will” standpoint, the weather seemed perfect; from a “I’m going to sit here for 14 hours today” standpoint it sucked – or blew, as it were. The wind at our tournament was obnoxious – 15(?), 20(?)mph constantfuckingly blowing. There were no less than 11 tornadoes over home plate. And the sun… the sun obviously had a keen interest in these games as it decided to pull up a fucking seat right next to my forehead. I don’t know which is worse – the underlying 2nd degree burns or the wind burn on top of the blistering. The wind was so biting it required a thick zip-up hoodie, at one point my pacing in the final game drew me out of the shade and into the sun – my metal zipper melted. I looked like an MLB pitcher between innings – the arm in the shade pushed through my hoodie sleeve, the arm in the sun pushing the sunscreen past it’s limits.
Why’s it seem like every single game has me staring into the sun? We were at 3 different fields and almost without fail, I sat facing the sun… I went through 7 gallons of sunscreen, the opposing moms walked away with sun-kissed tresses. Not only that… this weekend I ate more dirt than I have since my grade school years. I swear the umps decided home v. away teams based on my appearance at the field; “oh, it’s that lady… we like to have her facing the sun with the dirt blowing into her mouth. Winning Edge you are the home team….”
Generally speaking, we don’t do well in the seeding games; we’ve been cursed with bad 1st day outings. For those of you not in the know – Saturday usually consists of 4 games which dictate seeding, you come back on Sunday per your seed and play until you lose. Usually Alex & Co. (no matter which girls make up the Co. part) bomb Saturday – which means we are most often a mid to low seed. Unfailingly, her team finds their groove on Sunday so we spend the whole day fighting our way through the teams who had it together on Saturday. We’ve played as many as 6 games on a Sunday (having to beat the same team twice in one tournament). It should be noted: while I sit there in 98 degree heat, soaked like a person with a sweating disorder doing hot yoga, my girl is crouched behind home plate, covered in gear, involved in nearly every pitch…
eh screw ‘er, she’s young – it’s worse for me.
This weekend our girls actually got the 1st seed – we were looking forward to sleeping in… only… not so much. Being inexperienced at this 1st seed stuff we always assumed the bracket favored these girls. We’ve never been last seed either – we always assumed being last seed was also agreeable in that you were pitted against the 1st seed people who got to sleep in. This is not so. First seed teams get hosed. You wanna fall in somewhere like 4th/5th seed. I’m not saying blow any games, but had I known… I mighta been a little less enthusiastic about our winning pace on Saturday.
But… there I was on Sunday – exhausted, hungry (I do NOT eat concession stand food – done my fair share of concession stand duty… I refuse to eat that stuff), one side of my body oozing from the sun poisoning, the other side goose bumps, my face wind burnt, down $319 in lunches, dinners, gas and a pick-me-up trip to Dunhams after a nasty foul tip off my girl’s mask (and to celebrate her walk-off pick-off), another $203.45 in gatorade, my weekend shot after 25 hours already spent chewing sand crystals.. but I was ready. This was what it’s all about… bringing home the trophy.
Only… our girls clearly felt a 2nd place trophy was ok. There wasn’t a bunch of terrible play – there just wasn’t a whole lot of play… ‘Lackluster’ is the best word I can think of – and Alex Iseminger led the pack.
I knew early on we were coming home with 2nd place. It was all I could do to not walk away. I can tolerate being outmatched – what I cannot stand is being out “hearted” and that’s what happened. If you’re going to go into the top game with no desire to be there – have enough respect for my time to lose in the 1st game of the day so I can get to my couch. (Please note: this is directed at my kid only… for all of those parents I spend a tremendous amount of time with – I judge only MY child’s lack of heart).
As I said… I knew early on we were headed for obscurity. I had 5 innings to practice my “Hey 2nd place ain’t bad, you should be proud of yourself” speech. At the end of the game parents lined up to take pictures – I was not one of them… I stood back rolling my eyes, disgusted (if you’ve ever seen Pee Wee’s Big Adventure… think Pee Wee barely tolerating the tour of the Alamo). Alex came over with a smile on her face , I asked how she was (she took a couple off the mask) – now out of the fold of her beloved teammates, she dropped the smile and grunted. I put on MY fake smile, did my best impersonation of a liar and said, “well…. 2nd place is ok, nothin’ to sneeze at…” Alex looked up from her bag like she was gonna cut me, “yeah…” then tossed her dumbass 2nd place trophy in her bag. Didn’t talk to us for 2 hours.
Schwew…. for a while there I was afraid she was ok with 2nd place….