The Alfredo Griffins

Oh yeah. Take a long hard look at that. That is the look of a championship team, if I ever saw one. Well, actually, it's the look of a team that emerged victorious from the consolation round, culminating in a resounding chant of "WE'RE NUMBER 5!!!!" after Skeeter hauled in the final fly ball to the deepest part of Moss Park (better known as "CITY", for its incessant screaming sirens, escaped Section 8's drinking in the stands while oggling the girls on our team, and general bustling community feel reminiscent of Rucker Park circa 1979).

Our fearless leader, coach Cito, pretty well summed up the year in his season ending address:

"There are very few things in this world that bring me more joy than a warm summer's evening of co-ed non-competitive softball, so I wanted to say thanks for a fantastic season. There was certainly our fair share of highlights and lowlights (I'm a little ashamed of yelling at a woman, but if I ever see her again, I may just punch that bitch), but at the end of the day, that title on Monday night 5th place champs wasn't just handed to us. I know my mom is proud. I'm sure yours is too."

I choose to leave my fellow Griffs with the words of the late A. Barltett Giamatti who, for better or worse, was the Commissioner of our fair game for 154 days, and in that brief time managed to banish the great Charlie Hustle for having too much faith in his own team. In any event, the Commissioner, as former President of Yale University, certainly could wax poetic, and on the subject of baseball, perhaps there is no one better:


"It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops."


My Monday nights will be empty, and never the same again... until next spring...