Following four weeks of rainouts, I finally had my first spring at-bat for the Bell Plaza Bums of Sunnyvale (yeah, Sunnyvale, ha ha), California. And struck out. Oh, sure, I can rationalize it. Technically, it was a foul out - one too many balls on the wrong side of the right field line with two strikes. It wasn’t one of those flailing Charlie Brown swing-and-misses - the ones where most of his clothes come flying off. But I did strike out.

Fortunately, I was doing much better at short. A mere half-hour before game time, I had purchased a brand new pair of blindingly white pinstripe pants - a flagrantly hubristic taunt to the gods of softball. On the second play of the game, I dove over the middle and managed to besmirch them with two of the three basic softball substances: blood and soil. But hey, I made the play, so the heck with laundry. For a true artist, white pants are merely a canvas.

DIGRESSION ALERT! The third substance is grass, which I obtained whilst fetching a ball that I had ricocheted into shallow left - and which brings up one of my favorite infielder tricks. Let’s say, for instance, someone hits a grounder past third, and it stops down the left-field line, much closer to you than to your outfielder. Do this: race like crazy to the spot, then, go into a pop-up slide, during which you pick up the wayward ball. This puts you into an excellent position to pivot and throw to second, where you very well may nab a lollygagging runner. (And is there anyone more deserving of punishment than a lollygagging runner?)

But now, we return to the first play of the game. Our opponents’ leadoff man grounded to Nelson at third, and Nelson threw the ball to first. Our first baseman bobbled the throw, then nabbed it with his bare hand just in time (in the umpire’s estimation) to record the out. Triggering a full-out protest from our opponents. On the first play of the season! (Oh, this is a great start, thinks I.)

The next batter, after depositing a single into right and rounding first, turns to the umpire and says, mockingly, "And_he’s out!"

"Ah, there’s a good strategy," I say from short (I’m a gabby little shortstop.) "Tick off the umpire for the rest of the season."

Not that mister mocking second batter had anything to worry about, game-wise. We were without our old dependable pitcher, Joe, and our poor substitute, Dave, who’s not really a pitcher, was demonstrating exactly why he’s not really a pitcher. As in, he can’t throw a strike to save his life. As in, ten walks for the game. What’s extra painful is that we were actually playing pretty good defense, but every time someone got a hit, the bases were loaded. Which really messes with your odds of winning.

TIME WARP! To the fifth inning, when we’re behind by thirteen, fourteen runs - and our opponents are still working the count. One of them mentioned something about reading Moneyball, that book about how the Oakland A’s always go after guys with good on-base percentages. But come on, it’s a meaningless softball game in a meaningless league. Have some hacks, dude! After two walks, I began working up the invective from short (I’m a gabby little shortstop), letting these guys know exactly what I thought of their respective manhood’s, when their second baseman quite nobly took a 3-0 pitch and knocked it into center field for a single. Now there’s karma.

TIME REWARP! Back to the second inning, as our sixth batter, Nelson, takes a mighty cut - and completely disconnects one of his bicep muscles. I mean his bicep was bulging up because this particular muscle was no longer attached at the elbow. You want me to gross you out some more? Well, sorry, that’s all I got. So our manager, Tommy Lasorda-Madruga, stands in on Nelson’s 0-2 count and slaps a single into center (more good karma). Then he drives Nelson to the hospital, where he underwent some surgery, and is now doing much better, thank you. So, let’s recap. Our first two innings of the season, we’ve got a controversial call, a weak-butt strikeout and one of our players in the hospital. I’m sorry - why is it we love this game so much?

Meanwhile, we had to pull poor Victor - who had just showed up to root on one of his friends - out of the stands and make a right fielder of him. Victor had apparently never seen a fly ball in his life, and it certainly showed. A third-inning drive sent him into a Dancing with the Stars triple spin as he tango’d his way deeper and deeper into the outfield in order to get a better view of the ball dropping ten feet behind him, anyway.

It was an inauspicious beginning, friends. But at least it wasn’t another Wednesday night spent at the windowsill, watching those dastardly raindrops keep us, yet again, from our one true love.

Making Contact. Standing around pre-game in my sprightly new pants, I wondered aloud if other players had the same "wear points" that I did - the right buttock and the right knee, which are the precise landing points of my slide. (The infield dives seem to extract their punishment mostly from my upper arms, producing a series of ant-size scabs I call "shortstop’s rash.")

My infield-pal Doug tells me his uniform wears out at the left knee, which is the knee that he folds under when he slides.

"But you’re right-handed, right?" I ask.

"Yeah."

"So, when you slide, you extend your right leg, whereas I, who am also right-handed, extend my left leg."

"Weird!"

"And, if either one of us actually gave thought to this, mid-slide, we’d probably break something."

"Probably."

So what’s your thought on this, kind readers? Who’s the freak here, Doug or me? How does your leg extension coordinate with your throwing hand? We desperately need to know!