1-2-3 knee replacements, you're out, at the old ball game

TOP: Softball at it's finest, as the "Knoxville Knee Replacements" take on the "Pittsburgh Enlarged Prostates" in major league softball action.

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2nd: Warmups. A hitter sends line drives into the groin area of the infielders to insure that they stay awake for the entire inning.

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3rd: Jane, Kathy, and Sid enjoying the action. Sid is basically just waiting for the sausage shack to open up in the 3rd inning. You Yankee fans, please take note of Kathy's "World Champion Boston Red Sox" ballcap. In case you haven't seen one before...

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We spent our last morning at a softball game...it was great fun. The league adds in a bunch of "older player" rules which make the game still playable for the guys. Rules included:

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- anyone can use a designated runner, even from the batters box, and still remain in the game

- there were 2 home plates, so that there was never a "catcher on runner" play at the plate. The catcher played towards the "real" plate, the runner ran to the secondary plate

- pitchers wear a catchers mask, catchers wear no mask. I think this was because the pitchers cannot react fast enough anymore to line shots up the middle. The catcher is usually choosen as he's closest to death, so they don't care if he gets hit by a foul ball or not. He's probably not going to survive the afternoon anyways.

- You must wear one supportive device. Most players wore at least one knee brace (18/20 players had at least one on). Some players wore elbow braces. Some work ankle braces. Some wore cups on the outside..that was interesting, but very fashionable. It looked like Iraq veterans returning from the front.

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What I found most interesting from a baseball fan standpoint, was that many of the guys had not lost their hitting power. There were still a number of home runs hit, on a pretty good size field, and many hard shots through the infield. So, you had hard balls hit, but infielders couldn't move or react quick enough to field many of them, and outfielders couldn't run enough to get to pop flys. I think I found me a game!!!! Now, if I can just keep hitting the batting cages weekly for the next 30 years, I'm FINALLY going to make a team!

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All-in-all, a great experience. I can only hope I have that much energy left when I make 60, much less 80.

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Swingin' for the Fences Lumpy out