Afterglow 2008 - Day 3 Monday

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Afterglow baseball is unique for a few reasons. First off, we use Burt's Rules, which allows everyone on the team to bat once per half inning (negating the 3 outs per inning), kids never get out, there are no strikeouts and there are more than 9 players on the field at a time. There's a lot more that makes Burt's Rules Afterglow softball different than any other incarnation of them game, but it would take too long to pick out all of the other differences. I've simply highlighted the biggest ones so that you could see how leisurely we take this game. It's like we decided to take an already slow paced game and reduced it to a snail's crawl. That's the only way booze filled rotund people like me can get out on the field and enjoy the game. I'm not even cut out for bar league softball, so this is my 1 time a year to play the game I love.

The kids are given a little leeway when it comes to playing ball, but honestly I don't think Faith needed it. She was able to make contact with the ball, and might have made it to 1st base even if the adults didn't abide by Burt's Rules and allowed her to reach uncontested.

James actually plays in for several softball teams in the Milwaukee area, so he's the closest thing that we have to an actual athlete at Afterglow. So he's always a 1st round pick when we are choosing teams. And naturally his team always ends up winning the game.

After softball we always go swimming right away to wipe away all of the sweat and grime from our bodies. Sure, a shower would be a little more hygienic, but who wouldn't rather cleanse themselves in the refreshing waters of Lake Afterglow? The post softball swim was a little short lived, because it was Monday evening, and that meant the glorious Pot Luck dinner. It's the perfect time of the week to catch up with old friends, stuff our selves silly, and find out how long Greg Kurutz has been coming up to Afterglow (going on 30-some years now.) We rock a pretty mean kids table, which always makes for some interesting times and pictures. But before eating, Pete made us stand on the steps and take a family picture. No family picture is complete without the Reck Family Uniform (the retro Brewers t-shirt), plus it gave us a chance to show our true colors in front of the Afterglow crowd, which sadly has some people from the state of Illinois. We can't all be perfect.

We always take a group shot at the end of the game, and Gail always makes us jump in the air. As you can tell by the picture, only like 3 people are foolish enough to fall for her cheap ploy. It's got to take something spectacular like a gasoline fire or a bunch of spiders to make me separate my heavy ass from the ground. Definitely more than someone yelling at the count of 3 - jump! Some of the kids may be gullible enough to fall for that, but I'm too old to be fooled. Now if she would have promised me a beer had  I jumped, I would've been airborne.