It was a nice afternoon in the fall/spring/summer--I'm not sure which. My Uncle George and his family was in town (Lawrence, Kansas) to visit. He was a tall, gangly guy. And he was wondering why we didn't know how to play baseball. We lived right across the street from the elementary school, so my Uncle George took me and my two brothers over to the playing field. We threw back and forth for a bit, but then he wanted to see us shag fly balls. So he through the balls up pretty high (probably 30 feet tops) so we could catch them. One came right to me. I didn't even have to move. I was under it, ready to catch it and bask in the glory of a completed play. It hit me smack in the forehead, knocked me down and that was the end of my baseball career.

I was never an athletic kid. I was active. I could run fast for brief periods of time (sprinting--or running away from bigger kids). I played soccer for about four years, most of it in the backfield (fullback, defense, not the glamour position). I played one year of kid rec basketball (scored 2 points all year). But mostly I was a band geek, so being athletic in the traditional sense was out.

Back in late August, my company had a big picnic. After eating bar-b-que and burgers, a lot of the company got together to play a softball game. This was seen as a mandate by a few people in the company that we should have a company softball team. I thought it was a great idea. But before that day, I'd never been up to bat. Never pitched a softball. Never played a real game.

This was true for about 95% of the people who would eventually make up Chuck's Ducks. Chuck is the owner of our company. In our foyer is a sculpture of a duck falling on its face. We should known better.

The first (and only) practice was promising. We got a ton of people to show up for it--20-25 company people and significant others (kids, spouses, roommates). Our problem was not going to be participation. Our problem was fielding, throwing and batting. In other words, the game was against us from the beginning.

We were very enthusiastic, though. The company paid for nifty yellow and green uniform shirts and caps--everyone could see our team coming from miles away. We played scrimmages and got killed. Then we drank and said everything would get better with time.

We won our first game--because the other team didn't show up. Instead of playing a real game that night, we got a few other people who were hanging around the sportsplex (this is a regular occurrence, there are tons of guys who just want to play) and played ourselves. We won and lost. The team with the ringers won.

I was pleasantly surprised to find I could hit. I have to give the credit to playing drums for years. Hand-eye coordination and the familiar weight of a piece of wood in my hands. At one point in the season, I was batting .750 with a few runs and a couple RBIs. I ended up around .500.

I'm a better batter when there aren't any runners in scoring position. The only reason I can think of is that I try too hard and reach for pitches I should leave alone. The two times I had bases loaded, I popped up (so spectacularly high that they gave even the worst fielder time to set up underneath them). It's not a good feeling to end the inning or game on a less than triumphant at bat.

I was a horrible infielder. They either got past me or I got nailed in my legs. One game I got hit twice in nearly the same spot on my left leg within the span of four batters. I retired to the outfield after that. I can't say I'm a better outfielder, but it certainly doesn't hurt as much.

The rest of the team was about the same. We had people who couldn't field, bat or throw. We had some who could field and throw, but not bat. And we had some who could bat, but didn't know when to stop running around the bases (trying to stretch singles into triples or get home from second on a short single). In other words, we had problems.

At first there was an attitude that we would get better as time went on. And maybe we did. But the other teams got better at a faster rate, and we were still getting out of innings on the mercy rule (if a team scores 7 runs, the inning is over) rather than by making three outs.

Even the most enthusiastic members of the team could be heard saying what, for better or worse, became our mantra: Chuck's Ducks Suck.

We ended up winning two games, both from forfeits. We never legitimately won a game. But the last game, on a cold night last week, brought everyone together for the last time. We got beaten, but not incredibly badly. We shared beers and bitching and finished the season without disintegrating into complete despair.

And for a rec team that had never played together or really played softball at all, maybe that's the most we could ask for.

It would have been nice to actually win a game, though.

Matt Worley has a purty swing.