"Swing Team is the name of the beginner softball team that I coach. We are actually Team #3, but I thought 'Swing Team' had a better ring to it. Swing they do. You have to consider that I have a handful of 6- and 7-year-olds, most of whom have never done much in developing coordination before this sport. We play in the dirt while the game is going on because it is tough for some to hit the coach's pitching — some days are better than others and we are not placing blame on either side! Everyone plays. Outs and runs are not counted; would be too depressing from a parent standpoint. So it is true, the name comes from the swinging action that happens at the plate, Lord knows it isn't happening in the field."
Yeah, I used to play softball. Didn't you? I remember taking very seriously the coach's instruction to wear jeans not only to games, but also to all practices — in case you had to slide into a base or dive for a catch. I've lived my entire life without doing either of those things, but when I was 10 the possibility seemed very real. I played a variety of positions, just about everything but catcher, I think, though I only had to pitch once or twice before somebody caught on that my contribution as an outfielder might be more valuable. I was a fast enough base runner but not great at aiming my throws. I throw like a girl. (FYI, I've been told the same thing in an entirely different context — a judo class — where it turned out to be a compliment meaning I was using smart leverage instead of brute strength to toss my partner. Well, whaddaya know!) I don't remember being especially good at the game, but I don't remember disliking it, either.
My crowning achievement as a softball player would not occur until I was in graduate school. Members of the English department who stayed in that little Maine town, Orono, over the summer needed something to do besides watch the blackflies proliferate, so we put together a "softball team" — and I use the term loosely. If you think Amy's 7-year-olds haven't spent much time developing their coordination, you should check out a gaggle of literature scholars sometime. (What is the correct collective noun, anyway? A pomposity of pedants?) I was not only captain and catcher of this team, I seemed to be in charge of explaining the rules to everyone involved, including our opponents from the engineering department. As I recall, we only played two games, both against the engineers (whose feebleness rivaled our own and prevented them from holding ground in the competitive league), because the ROTC group on campus needed the field for marching practice a lot of the time. We were not sorry to give it up, and the following summer we pursued soccer instead . . . until a bunch of international students from computer sciences shamed us off the field. We had just one lonely Brit on our team (the guy who called me Batchick), and he experienced a lot of frustration. I don't think I've played either game since.