8 Men Out

One of the best sports movies of all time was 8 Man Out - The story of how the
Chicago White Sox fixed the 1918 World Series.

Well last night I was involved in a different kind of 8 men out - I played in a softball game where we only had 8 guys.

We were supposed to have 10, but John Castillo flaked out again (thanks John) and that got us down to nine guys. Now unless you have the right combination of pitchers and players playing a softball game with 9 guys (it's a 10 man game) is usually very difficult. My team, The Loafers, is solid and smart, but we aren't exactly the 1998 Yankees. In other words, we had our work cut out for us playing shorthanded.

But just when things were bad they got worse, our pitcher Vic during warm ups completely threw out his back. He was done. He had to lay on the artificial turf on Houston street like a beached whale for the rest of the night. Another dog down, that left us with 8 and by this leagues (Yorkville) rules we could play with eight guys (Yorkville sucks by the way).

I was expecting us to get mercied, but a funny thing happened along the way to an ass whipping- We Won!!!!!!!!

How the hell do you win a game while having only 8 guys ( I actually did it once before), well that's a top ten of course.

How to Win a game when your team was only 8 Guys

10. Luck - Softball gods have to be on your side
9. The other team sucks
8. The other teams pitcher sucks
7. If you have good hitters then an 8 man lineup gets your hitters up virtually every inning - In other words less is more - You are constantly threatening to score
6. You need a stud shortstop - Out SS Nick - won the game by himself - he played like 4 positions - SS, 2B, LF, 3B - he recorded like 85% of the outs
5. You need a good and smart pitcher - Our guy, I forget his name, threw strikes and pitched to his defense
4. The other team was so fucking stupid they never tried to exploit our missing defender - I guess honorable but stupid
3. Skill - make all the plays - and we did until a little scare in the 7th - but we hung on.
2. Medical Staff - during the game my contact lenses got all messed up b/c of the humidity and I over lubricated them with re wetting drops. In other words I couldn't see - so my team mate gave me a contact lenses blow job - He blew air into my eye so they could dry. I know this sounds weird but it worked and I played well afterwards - memorable stuff

and the Number One Wat to Win a game when your team was only 8 Guys

1. Team Work - we played unselfishly and with heart - we were running all over the place, OF 's running in to cover bases, the pitcher covering 1B and 2B, and like I said before, Nick the SS, was a one man defensive machine - he played like a stud adn carried us