McAlister & Friends Softball Season Finale

Trafton B.

May 22, 2011 - 5:42 PM

Well, it's all over. Our last season of intramural softball has come to an end and once again we leave empty handed. The Real McAlister & Friends took an early exit from the postseason today with a loss in the quarterfinals against Team Roid Rage. I know what you're thinking, how could we possibly expect to beat a team with that name, right? Well, it was actually a pretty fair game. We played well, and they just played better. In the words of the best announcers in major league baseball, Mike Krukow and Duane Kuiper, "sometimes you just have to tip your cap to ‘em and say good game."

Our problem today was that we couldn't string together any consecutive hits. Our bats were conspicuously silent all day. It also didn't help that we had eighteen players on our team, and everyone has to bat. We actually have twenty players signed up on our roster, but we generally assume that only half of the team will show up on game day. Everyone wanted to be there for playoffs, I guess. Unfortunately that meant that a few of us, myself included, only got one at-bat. We have eleven girls on the team and each of them had exactly one at-bat

On any other I wouldn't be too distraught over a loss. Believe me, between our coed and mens softball teams, we've had plenty of them. Only today not only marks the end of our softball season but also the end of my intramural sports career at the University of Oregon. It was one of my goals to win an intramural champion t-shirt during my tenure at the UO, and sadly that goal will remain incomplete. My last chance is finding one at Goodwill or St. Vincent de Paul's somewhere around town. It wouldn't quite have the same meaning, obviously, but it'd still be worth the story. As you can see from the photograph above, we made our own t-shirts this year, and those are just as good.

I actually checked my "player card" on the University's intramural sports website (imleagues.com) earlier today. With today's loss my career record for three years of intramural softball, dodgeball, and flag football is 13 wins, 13 losses, and 1 tie...a superbly average mark. I found that fairly amusing.

Oh well, can't do anything about it now. Thank you, McAlister & Friends, for another great season. It's been a pleasure playing with you all, and I'm sure that our playing days are far from over. There's a pretty good change we'll be playing whiffleball at Washington Park before the year is over.