Wednesday night we had two softball games. Leaving work, the wind was howling and it was sprinkling rain. The rain stopped by the time I drove the two minutes to the field, but the wind hadn’t. We warmed up and started the game. It took a while for me to adjust to the wind (it was bad enough that it was throwing off my pitches. Seriously).
The first game didn’t go so well. We started off ok, but they had a couple innings where they scored a lot, and by the 7th inning we couldn’t win. I had some clumsy moves, and my glove wasn’t performing well at all. It’s not a new glove; I’ve had it since elementary school, and it wasn’t new then, either. The leather holding it together kept breaking. After a couple powerful line drives that I was able to stop, two fingers were disconnected.
The second game was much better. I was still having glove problems, and still felt a little clumsy, but I was playing more like myself. I was pitching well, fielding well, and made it across the plate a couple times. I can usually aim when I’m batting, and I was still spot on this night, but only in one degree. I was hitting it straight in the direction I wanted, but without the height. I was getting on top of the ball and hitting strong grounders infield. Sometimes they made it through the infielders, sometimes they didn’t. I’m definitely going to have to work on my batting and getting the ball just over the infielders but not deep enough for the outfielders.
After the games I went to the sporting goods store and got a leather repair kit, and today pulled out a lot of the leather cord and replaced it with the new one. Hopefully now my glove will hold up against the line drives.