This was a bad idea. And my old friend Sweetness agrees. We have no right playing in a co-ed softball league. We haven’t swung a bat for 30 years. Neither of us has sprinted toward anything, let alone out of a batter’s box, in two decades. And though we’re both blessed with nearly hairless legs, the idea of sliding into a base on dirt and gravel is just not going to happen.

But now, as things often go, Sweetness is on the mound, I’m behind the plate catching. Like most of the bad ideas we’ve shared over the years, this one has started out as a really good time.

First, we needed to gather a team – people we know or had just met, maybe a real baller or two or simply good company, like The Thin Man, once seen as a breakout star on the intramural softball circuit during the early 1990s at Plymouth State College. We picked him up off the wire from the Suncook Rod and Gun and hoped his bat would strike gold as it did back in the day.

Then we locked down a real stud, a semi-pro gunslinger who goes by “Big Al.” He’s from Connecticut and moved into the Village over the winter and wanted in. Big Al covers all fields, all angles of the game. His throws hurt to catch. Even the under-handed ones.

Youth was needed, and with Sweetness comes luck. We landed a local legend of sorts, Hannah Ketcham (Seidner), former star athlete at Pembroke Academy and college player at Plymouth State University. Sweetness needed a shortstop. We got him a shortstop. And one of the best bartenders in the Village.

So, there we were. Every position filled with 80% of the players in their 50s, a ragged bunch wearing compression stockings and only a handful – maybe less – of them possessing any real talent.

Many of the men last played together when responsibility was just something you heard about rather than carried out.

Now it’s game one and the bad idea has broadened …. We are in the Concord co-ed softball league playing our first game at Memorial Field in Pembroke, our home court, with our sponsor, Pembroke City Limits, splashed across our chests.

It’s grim outside, major drip sesh with a strong chill rising at dusk. Warming up the shoulders feel good. Loose-ish. My legs are trash, hips unusable. Sweetness is stretching, named the game’s starting pitcher. Thin Man is rubbing Bengay on his thighs in the dugout. Game on!

From behind the plate, I can’t shut up. “Two outs!” “Play to third!” “Back up!” Sweetness holds steady, pitching a solid game. The young members are carrying us with each unwrinkled stride. We finish with a victory on a walk-off hit – The Thin Man scores the winning run, speed-walking his way across home plate.

Game two is much the same. Sweetness is getting a little overconfident though, refusing to be pulled from the mound in the fourth when things were getting dicey. Another close win, but some cracks in the idea of us all playing are starting to show.

Game three, and fun town is officially over. When someone from the other team came charging onto the field wearing Batman eye black, I can tell things have turned. A hard shot to center field ends up with Big Al throwing a bullet to third base, nearly decapitating the overzealous opponent stretching a double into a triple. Safe! We lose by over 10 runs, with The Thin Man home sick and Sweetness demoted.

I’m currently batting .178. This is not 1990. This is a bad idea waking up.

Game four and the season looks lost. Hellish heat, no water, no beer, just a thin breeze at third base from the runners turning the corner, heading home, again, and again, and again.

A dejected team elbows up to the bar back at Pembroke City Limits, picking shrapnel from their cheekbones, wondering how they got caught up in this windstorm.

“Should have just joined a run club,” I hear someone on the team say under their breath.

Turning to Sweetness for some moral support, I find him just looking. He says, “Told you this was a bad idea, guy.”

Rob Azevedo can be reached at onemanmanch@gmail.com. He can also be found mopping the floors at Pembroke City Limits.