Past and Present

There was next to no reason to stay in the present tense at Benedictine University yesterday.  The opposition conducted yet another clinic, including—wait for it—a walk-off win in extra innings; better yet, we were ahead by a run, with two out and nobody on.  Clare collected one hit on the day.  She also took a pitch off her front thigh, payback, I think, for our pitcher hitting one of their players.

God bless my daughter for the way she’s handling adversity.  As captain, she told the team after their second loss, “We have eight games left.  It’ll either go hard or easy, depending on us.”  She was particularly upset because of all the energy that went to waste in game two.  Clare told me before heading to the team bus, “Winning is what keeps the energy up.”  If she in fact does turn to coaching, these past few weeks will serve as a great lesson in how not to do things.

What kills me is the infield defense.  Things are going so bad right now we’re disproving the idea that good defense wins ballgames.  Last season, we had more errors at the corners than rbi’s; that’s totally changed.  Yesterday, I watched two different players at third base combine for fifteen chances all day without an error, and still we lose.  The best overall defense I’ve seen in four years, and still we lose.  Two years ago when we went to the CCIW tournament, we committed a whopping 71 errors.  Going into yesterday's game, we had 25.

No, better to drift off to 2006 and the first time we visited Benedictine’s home field in the boondocks of Lisle, Illinois; this was when Jennie Finch and the Chicago Bandits called the field home.  The grandstands were packed with fathers and daughters, the one pointing out things to copy, the other watching and dreaming.  We stayed for autographs after the game.  Clare was so happy, unlike now.

And I remember corn growing the other side of Maple Avenue.  That’s gone now, too.