The Long Winter Ahead: Filling the Void Softball Leaves Behind

My softball season appears to be just about over for good.

I mentioned a week or so ago that my fall ball team—the Face Melters—had been eliminated from the playoffs.

Despite my initial state of utter disappointment with the loss (I’ve since coped and moved on), I was still able to hold onto the fact that I could play softball on Sundays for at least a few more weeks, heck, maybe even a good month.

Every Sunday for the better part of the past three months, I’ve trundled my way up to North Cambridge to play a game of pickup softball with one of the more eclectic crowds of softballers I’ve ever encountered.

There are guys who are in the 60s (or older) and guys who may or may not still be in high school. There are guys with physical disabilities and guys with mental disabilities (read: they’re really just hypercompetitive asshats, but I’d consider it a mental disability).

It’s a crazy mix of people, but it’s usually a pretty good time. Not the most fun pickup league I play in—that honor goes to Ronnie Broadfoot’s Saturday Morning Softball—but still a pretty good time if you love playing ball.

Unfortunately, last Sunday it was cold and rainy, two conditions which do not lend themselves to good softball and I stayed home. I don’t know if anyone else showed up, but I can’t imagine why they would when it was rainy and in the low-40s.

The forecast for this week has the weather clocked in at roughly 43 degrees for game time. For anyone who has never played softball in the cold weather, let me make this short and sweet by saying that it’s no fun to hit a ball with a metal bat in the cold.

In fact, it downright sucks.

It stings your hands like a sumbitch and if you’re smart you don’t want to use any sort of “nice” or “pricey” bat in the cold, because there’s a really good chance you’ll destroy it.

With the weather beginning its autumn plummet it is entirely possible that I have played my last game of softball for the year. That disappoints me a whole bunch. Obviously I love playing softball and I was blessed to stumble into so many games this year.

In previous years, my season has come to an end in late July or early August when my summer team, the Bibliotechs, finally call it a year. Last year, we formed the Face Melters. This year I found two pickup games for most of the summer and into the fall and subbed for a couple of other teams throughout the summer and fall.

It was awesome.

The question I have now is…what the hell do I do with all this free time?!

Sure, sure…I could use it to start writing again or something else that’s constructive, but I need something physical to pass the time. I feel like playing softball two or three days a week for the better part of the last four or five months has played a big part in helping me get back into pretty good shape.

I’d really rather not lose that and start all over again in the spring, so I’ve started coming up with some options.

The first option is a simple one. I’ll go in and get a gym membership again. I figure a six-month membership should carry me through into the spring when softball starts up again, so that’s pretty much perfect.

The problem is finding some sort of real motivation to get me to actually go to the gym. I did great for awhile in my last tenure with the gym, but fell apart and eventually quit going altogether.

One thing I’m contemplating is signing up for the Tough Mudder. I realize it’s a little—um—“bat-shit crazy” and whatnot and there’s a pretty hefty chance that I’ll die somewhere in the obstacle course, but it’d sure as hell give me motivation to get my ass to the gym all winter long.

I mean seriously, there’s no way I wanna show up to the Tough Mudder outta shape and basically asking for death, right?!

I’ve been contemplating it for awhile now and I know of at least a couple of peeps who would be willing to sign up on a team with me. So I’m tossing this one out there to you, my Faithful Readers…should I compete in the Tough Mudder?! Why or why not?!

Let’s hear it in the comments…