I'd give them about 10 inches of the following before I even got to the score:
So I said to myself 'Buck,' I call myself Buck on account of that's my name, Buck, I said, 'Buck, the Gazette has hired you to freelance the Murray's Bar & Grille Wombats against the Nails By Claire Yellow Menace in the city league softball championship, and by gum you had best get yourself over to the ball field.'
Now, for those of you not in the know, 'freelance' is a fancy term newspaper folk use to refer to the practice of hiring people such as yours truly at what turns out to be a below-minimum-wage hourly rate to report on things, such as recreational league softball and such.
So, having gotten this choice assignment, I headed over to Crazy Homeless People Park, where the softball fields are. It's over at West Tarnation Road and Bumblescrew Avenue. You've probably seen it, although if you are not headed to Crazy Homeless People Park, I don't reckon there's much call to be out in that section of town.
I've often wondered why they put the town's largest park, and most of its softball fields, in such an inconvenient location. I mean, you would think they would put the softball fields in a more central location, if you catch my drift. There are a lot folks who play softball around these parts, and many of them are darn fine softball players.
We've all heard the tales of Leopold Chubnick, who once hit 27 home runs for the Police Department's legendary Fascist Bullyboys team. And don't forget Dazzling Danny Wufner, who recorded 18 consecutive strikeouts, all on third-strike passed balls, over two games.
So there I was pulling into the parking lot at Crazy Homeless People Park on a perfect Friday night for softball — a hot July night with a barely perceptible wind out of the northwest at 2 mph. It was 102 degrees with 98 percent humidity. The PM10 pollution was so high you could taste the grit in your mouth, and the ozone level had choked an old man to death while he waited for a bus that afternoon.
The tens of people in attendance knew they were in for a treat because the Wombats had shown up wearing their seldom-seen green uniforms, and some of the Menace players were offering pregame pedicures at $10 a pop — doing a little freelancing of their own, I reckon.
