The Wobbly Knees

What a name for a slow pitch tournament! I’m not sure if it refers to how tired you will be after playing many games in a weekend or how you will be after frequenting the beer tent too much. Whatever the meaning, our team was one of the entries my first year of playing softball in St. Marys.

Leading up to the tournament, the players were pretty excited, but about the wrong thing. They kept on mentioning that event would be pretty great because there would be a beer tent.

I was new to the team. I was over 50 and the next oldest player was 28. Still, I had to say something. My speech went like this.

“I’m over 50 years old, yet I will be trying my hardest to win this tournament. I really believe we have a chance. At the end of the weekend I will be very sore, though. However, if the object of entering is to drink beer, let me know and I will stay home. Anyway, you need to learn that the beer will taste better if we win.”

I went on to explain how I had been in an Alberta final a few years ago and our best hitter was drunk on the field. We lost the game in extra innings. I vowed never to let that happen again.

They looked at me as if I was suddenly painted with polka dots. Who was this guy? Didn’t he know that a St. Marys team had never won this tournament? My response was that only one beer between games was fine, but if the team wasn’t trying to win, then count me out. They saw that I was serious.

Our first game was relatively easy, but the second was against a team called Pond Scum. I don’t know why they came up with this name, but they had been the finalists the year before and had won a tournament or two this year. Our team responded with a win. Personally, I rapped a triple that scored two runs late in the game.

The players heeded my advice. I saw few of them in the beer tent and if they did sit down, they only had one.

This story has a happy ending. Our team, the Marauders, became the first team from St. Marys to win The Wobbly Knees tournament, beating Pond Scum once again 8-0. More important, the players found that by placing a vision of our winning in front of them and working towards it increased our chances of winning. The focus became the games and not the beer tent.

They learned that keeping your eye on the prize and not letting anything divert your attention from it is what is needed for success.

Oh, and even though I don’t personally drink beer, every player came up to me after the final game and told me that the beer, indeed, tasted better after winning.