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We had our first practice for our fledgling Stanford intramural softball team yesterday. I ran out between my afternoon meetings to Big 5 to buy a new glove. I knew something was amiss when during warmups, consisting solely of playing catch, i was getting seriously winded. Luckily my catching abilities had survived from my childhood, and after a few errant test tries my throws stabilized as well. My gym buddy and taskmaster Fred ran some fielding drills, during which i found i significantly misjudge fly balls these days. I was doing okay at shortstop though. The afternoon wore on and i decided to head home to feed Tara. Fred wanted me to get in some batting, which to be honest was the least of my worries getting back into softball. I agreed to hit a few, so i took a bat and stood at the plate to receive a few lazy underhand pitches. Pitch one .... *whiff*! Hmm, what happened there? Dunno. Must've been daydreaming. Pitch two ... *whiff*! What the hell is going on? And on and on. Somehow in the ten years since i last swung a bat i've completely lost my hitting skills. A few comments from ad hoc coaches Fred and Julie improved matters a bit ... i wasn't following the ball with my head, and was moving my feet as i swung. I got in a few good line drives before heading home. But that didn't remove that pathetic feeling that ... gasp ... i've lost it! Where were the towering drives i used to hit when i was 12? I guess that was almost twenty years ago. What do you GET rather than LOSE as you get older? Knowledge? What a crock.
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