For eight months, I told myself I wouldn’t come back.
But at 6:15 p.m. Thursday, June 2, I’ll be back at Posse Grounds Park with the Sedona Red Rock News team for a second season of adult softball, presented by the Sedona Parks and Recreation department.
Last season, the first in the league for the Paperboys, was rough. We won two games, losing our first-round playoff in the final at-bat.
Our shortstop won’t return this season and our third baseman can no longer throw after they both sustained shoulder injuries during last year’s games. By the end of our season, I could barely shuffle off the field after re-aggravating an old back injury.
We couldn’t even come close to challenging A Day in the West — the Sedona equivalent of Harris Garage Door, in the Camp Verde Parks and Recreation department’s coed league, or Mike’s 12-Pack in the Cottonwood Parks and Recreation department’s wooden bat league for men.
Those teams may occasionally lose a game at Butler and Riverfront parks. But, by the end of the summer, their names are usually on the league’s championship trophies.
The frustration got to Cemex, whose players literally took their ball and went home from the July 22 title game.
“For the tournament, we are definitely going to have our own scorekeeper,” said Harris pitcher Lizbeth Fullbright after a 22-21 win over Cemex in extra innings the week before. “We feel like we won that game three times.
“There’s just not a whole lot of control you have over calls made that you know are not correct.”
Fans and players who were there would tell me later that Cemex did not take kindly to those comments by Fullbright, a month after she won her second straight Cottonwood women’s league title as head coach of the Baby Mamas.
In fact, the comments rankled Cemex to the point that, after more than three innings of on-field jawing, the team walked off the field at Butler Park, awarding Harris its third straight title by default.
Umpires have had to eject players from games at Posse Grounds — and be escorted out of them by police. In short, anything can happen and has happened in these leagues.
So why did I, nobody’s idea of an athlete, come back?
Why are there players in both the Cottonwood and Sedona leagues who have played in both for more than three decades?
Why did the inner-city high school teacher smoke? We’re all crazy.
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