One word - ECCCH!
You KNOW you are in trouble when:
You arrive at the field, checking bats and hats, and you hear the home coach telling his kids: "These girls will be faster than you, their pitchers will be throwing hard, and they can hit very good, don't be scared...."
Turns out the home coach, who I know a little bit, and is a nice guy, had almost his ENTIRE team promoted to varsity, so he was basically working with 8th and 9th graders. And so it went - balls thrown all over the place, pitchers throwing maybe one decent strike a batter, and the other team's batters smoking the hell out of the ball. In one of the mandated 'double' innings, it must have taken a half hour to get the first 3 outs. Meanwhile, when the other team was in the field, it was PFFT PFFT PFFT - using three different pitchers.
Did I mention my partner was old time Smitty-type, who sets up with no one on in fair territory? Made for a fairly funny situation - with a runner on , B for the visitors hits a dribbler foul - which KEEPS dribbling up a raised portion of foul ground, and makes that right turn at Albuquerque, and settles about an inch FAIR. The home coach realizes its fair, and starts screaming for his C or SOMEbody to pick it up..the visitors coach starts yelling for B1 to go the first. Home team gets B1 at 1, and throws to 2B, where the SS takes the ball, steps on the bag....and my partner CALLS R1 OUT!
It was all I could do to literally keep from screaming! All I could do was keep thinking to myself, "It WILL get better...PLEASE let it get better!" To top it off, the visiting coach asked me if the ball had hit off her batter!
Even though it was only 1:45, it might have been the longest 1:45 I can ever remember on the field!
And ya know - I ended up NOT taking a single Advil!