Ten Thousand Men and Women of Harvard. Hypothesis: adding women to the fight song (and other ventures) is A) the right thing, and B) efficacious. Results: Yes. Christian D’Andrea ’94
“Turning casual, recreational summer softball into a hyper-competitive bloodsport since 2009.”
We finished # 3 in 2013. Dang, that trophy is small.
Yalies have always quaked at our approach. Now the mid-Atlantic softball
community does, too.
We finished # 1 out of 77 teams in the hotly-contested 2014
Congressional Softball League.
Tournament highlight # 1: In the final, everyone was focused, except Ray.
Most of us came to play softball. But not Ray. It was very clear that Ray
was there for another reason -- i.e. to launch his own personal satellite
array. He seemed to be under the impression that his mission was to
send multiple objects into low-earth orbit, and he made good on that obligation by sending three meteors out of the park, making many opine that perhaps the term “moonshot” needed to be updated to “saturnshot” when it comes to Ray. The commish has respectfully requested we put gps trackers in the balls when Ray’s up next year. Side note: on the tournament’s middle Saturday, Nate added his own over-the-fence rocket, causing speculation that we were in the pay of a specialty insurance company lobbying to get the CSL to add interstate aerial missile coverage to its bulk plan.
Tournament highlight # 2: We won it.
Tournament highlight # 3: Our pitcher, the mighty Powell, felt that just winning games would not be suitably heroic, so he upped the ante by doing what he always does -- sustaining a serious injury, in this case a broken finger from a line drive, and then playing through it. At the after-party, he admitted that the disfigured purplish mass that was formerly his pinkie was in fact "completely numb," but that it hardly mattered since it was still functional enough to hoist the trophy.
Tourney highlight # 5: A gracious and very positive commissioner was not surprised that we went from # 3 in 2013 to # 1 in 2014. “A lot of us thought you would do it,” he said, “but we’re wondering what the formula is, what your secret is.” Well, I think it’s high-time we revealed the secret of our success...
There have been many theories.
Some surmise the advantage we enjoy on the field stems from our innate ability to sense nearby cameras and therefore strike suitably athletic poses at just the right, portrait-friendly moments.
Others say the advantage we enjoy on the field is a direct result of our visibly superior dental hygiene (see pic at right). Dazzling, right? It’s not entirely clear why we haven’t yet been offered endorsement deals by Crest.
But the true secret of our success is this: we after-party responsibly. In the below pic, please note that there are more glasses of water than there are bottles of beer.
Tournament highlight # 4: Crazy real team spirit. Even other teams commented about it. And forensics conducted on the pictures taken at the victory celebration (right) have identified a lead suspect in this pre-meditated, wanton, and
BACKSTORY / Team History (aka Path to Glory)
Tourney highlight # 7: There were many things scattered around us at day's end, including glory (our own) and crushed egos (of some opponents, whose egos needed a bit of healthy crushing). But amazingly, while laying waste to the field, we also managed to sow seeds of love. Our opponents in the final were fabled for being, well, not loved. So in our first encounter with this squad in the preliminary stages of the tournament, we beat them 14-0, in large measure to send a message, and also partly to mythbust their top-seeded status. But in the final game, where we encountered them again, we off-ramped from Vendetta Blvd and on-ramped to High Road. We launched a charm offensive, smart-bombing the infield with goodwill. We conducted limited conversation with their players during the game, but almost all of the words that were exchanged were surprisingly cordial (except for the pitcher who’d been responsible for his team’s 14-0 shellacking the weekend prior; he remained a tad flustered and upheld his reputation for delivering lukewarm zingers, such as “yeah I accidentally bunt a lot, but at least I got on base on one of them”). But ill-will was the exception. In general, our plays were complimented, and their hitters were given due props for a valiant effort, although when their bomber had his monster drive shortened by a tree hanging over the fence, and he asked the ump whether its trajectory should have been considered out-of-the-park, we rightfully chided him for his shameless attempts to
Tourney highlight # 6: Our superpowers were on display. You think I’m kidding? I’m not. It’s well-known that we possess the softball equivalent of the Midas Touch -- whereby everything we touch turns to victory. And that magical ability was evidenced on more than one occasion in the tournament, with a rather dramatic example being the moment when Sadow brilliantly stole third (see
pic at left), and in so doing, touched
the third baseman and transformed
him into a championship trophy.
• The ability to gain a base while simultaneously performing a Michael Jackson impersonation, as illustrated by Andrew.
Some additional much-ballyhooed superpowers of ours include:
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•The ability to play and catch while upside-down, as demonstrated by the incredibly agile Ari, at right.
• The ability to successfuly steal a base with a sweet head-first slide and then, through sheer concentration, make all infielders disappear (as performed below by Dylan).
• The ability to conduct -- and win -- heated debates from a prone position, as Christian did.
• The ability to do what people with superpowers do -- i.e. strike heroic action poses, often. Wendy and Victoria demonstrate the skill below.
• The ability to make the other team think for a moment that they had a chance to throw Ari out at first, when of course such a thing is impossible.
• The ability to channel the spirit of the Harvard Ballet Company by a) wearing their shirt and b) tip-toeing into second base delicately, which Ray did with aplomb.
impersonate Ray. Even after some hotly-contested calls, their captain (who was a gentleman) responded to proferred handshakes immediately and showed real interest in making sure the issue was settled and that all understood it was about spirited competitiveness and not about bad blood. Cordiality ran rampant, much to the delight of all assembled.
Forza Harvard.
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•The ability to employ such blazing
speed (in gaining first) that your hamstring blows out, and then still smile about it afterwards, as was deftly done by Tanner.
Photos by Jan Bohrer
reckless fostering of team spirit. See if you can detect the culprit...