Well, I said I was hanging them up a few weeks back, but like any good aging player, I reserve the right to un-retire. Thankfully the doc said nothing was torn, but rather just fluid on the knee and said rest and ibuprofin. My first week of "retirement" last week saw me missing the beginning of the playoffs (our team was a last place team last season). The Avatars managed to win both games and advanced to the finals to be played tonight. An email went out yesterday indicating that our regular 1st baseman would be out and the team would only have 9 players. Having gone out with a 1-5 night hitting on the last regular season game, and with my knee feeling not too bad, I decided to give one last hurrah. Playing 1st base would be a little easier on my body, and I'd use a pinch runner when I was hitting.
And so it began. The story was if we won the first game we won the playoffs. If we lost, we'd have to play again, with the winner of that game being the champion. We got in a hole quickly, but as things went along the tide turned. In the end I was comfortable at 1st base (although I can't jump high enough), and only had to run hard on one at-bat (grounding to the pitcher with bases loaded means you better haul ass not to get into a double play). Other than that, all solid singles, 4-5 at the plate (more like it). In the top of the 7th we were up by a few and added a significant number of insurance runs. Then came the bottom of the 7th and we needed to hold them. A few runs crossed the plate, but we got the 3rd out and that was it.
We shook hands with the other team except for the one jerk-off who was an incredible poor sport. He got pissed off about me calling time when he was on 3rd base, then when he got intentionally walked...although *he* walked me intentionally 3 weeks ago when we last played. What goes around :-p
I walked gingerly to the bench, took off the cleats, and packed up my stuff. After the obligatory team photo, I headed to the car and back home to a hot shower and some meds. The knee is tender and crunching, but 1st base certainly isn't as bad as SS. All of that is moot for now...no better way to go out than on top. So I'll just sit with that for awhile.
