What's the craziest play you've ever seen on a softball field?
Here's mine. It happened close to the end of the season last Spring.
The setting: We, the Thunder Bunnies, were fighting for 2nd place and were playing the team, The Booming Blue Ninjas, who was in 3rd place and a half a game behind us. It was a back-and-forth game and now, in the bottom of the last inning (time had already expired), the score was tied with the Ninjas already having scored a run. We'd already lost twice to them earlier in the season.
The bases were loaded and there was one out. If the Ninjas score, they break our 5 game winning streak and move into second place. I brought my infield in and outfield to the edge of the grass and told everybody that the play was at home.
Keep in mind that, though we were a 14U team, we were still a Rec league team and we coaches constantly had to go over the basics with the players.
What happened:
So the bases are loaded, and did I mention that the Ninja's have their best hitter, McKenzie, up? The pucker factor was quite high.
Mo, our catcher, shows what kind of guts she has and calls for a low-outside change-up. Cassie, our pitcher, throws her best change-up. McKenzie is completely fooled, gets all her weight forward, weakly swings at the ball and hits a soft pop-fly to our second baseman, Kayla.
Pandemonium erupts!
These are rec league girls, right? So every Ninja on base immediately starts running as soon as the ball is hit even though it's a pop fly. The Ninja coaches and parents are yelling for the runners to "Go back!!!!!!!!! BACK!!!!!!!!" Kayla catches the ball for the 2nd out as the runner on 3rd touches home and now all the Bunny coaches and parents are screaming either "Throw it to Third!!" or "Second!!" or "First!!" because there is a force out at every base. Over 50 adults are yelling at the top of their lungs, which means that only thing the players can hear on the field is a primal bellow that must sound like a mutant motorcycle gang is bearing down on the fields. So Kayla does the logical thing�
She throws it to home, �cause that�s the last intelligible thing she heard. Mo catches the ball and touches home because that's the last intelligible thing *she* heard also, but now we�re all screaming �Third!!� in unison now. However, by the time Mo figures out that the runner�s not near her and instead running like her life depended on it back to third and she throws it there, the runner is already safe. However the runner that started at second is still trying to get back there and true to form our parents are yelling �Second!!� while I, feeling a heart attack coming on, am screaming at the top of my lungs in my very best loud voice �HOLD THE BALL!!!!!� to no avail. Our third baseman, Kyra, throws to Kayla at second, but the runner has beaten the throw back.
That�s OK, because now the runner on third belatedly tries to run home with our throw to second. Now, all the Ninja and Bunny parents are yelling �Home!!! Home!!� together, so Kayla throws it to Mo, who calmly tags the runner out.
A 4-2-5-4-2 double play�just like we drew it up!!
While my girls were going crazy celebrating, I had to put my hands on my knees until my vision returned and my knees stopped shaking. It was the craziest play I�d ever seen, and somehow we pulled it off. The Ninja coach, Mic, and I were friendly before, but now we�re good friends because we just laugh about that play together whenever we see each other.
So, what�s your crazy play?
