The Cool of the Evening......

[NYSSO/ASABlue]

Going for the opposite tack of the recent 'ZONE' post-how about after you've had that GREAT game or two,and that 30 mile trip home goes ZIPPING by? The best phrase I have ever heard to describe it comes from Jim Bouton [of all people..], where he calls it 'The Cool of the Evening', where you KNOW youve done a GREAT job, and you are nice and RELAXED.....Had one of those today...[Also: how much do you remind yourself not to get TOO full of it; as in: Tomorrow you might be HorseHockey again, so Concentrate Dummy!]

[Gulf Coast Blue]

Lou........

I have gone 46 games into the year without a single problem (other than the normal little ripples). Even though my strike zone kinda sucked last night.......I did not hear anything.......

It kinda has me looking over my shoulder........actually, it is SCARING me to death!

I have agreed to call in a Men's Slow Pitch National Qualifier.......I am praying that this tournament is NOT the time everything will come tumbling down!!

Joel

[IRISHMAFIA]

Yep, know the feeling and the bigger the game the better.

You come off the field with some of that adreneline still flowing, congratulate your partners for a job well done and find a place to sit down and relax.

My best experience came in 1999 ASA Men's Major Church National Championship final game. The wrong team was winning for the first 3 innings. My fellow Delawarean umpire (who was on 3rd) had an 11 inning game the night before with something like a 41-39 final score.

About the 5th inning, the hosts put some worchestershire-marinated steaks on the grill that you could smell all over Northern Mobile, Alabama. The game included a couple of bang-bangers and only a couple of head-game type of manuevers, but the game went relatively well.

When the last out occured at 1st base, I motioned to my base umpires to head toward the gate on the left side. We all shook each other's hand with a couple of high-fives in there.

After leaving the field, we had about a 100 yard walk. When we reached the umpire's room (base of water tower), we all went in, grabbed our beverage of choice and sat down. It took about 4-5 minutes to calm down, but when I did, the feeling of relief was enormous. The door was left open and we did have a summer's evening breeze blowing into our area and it was so relaxing. Even with the aroma of the grilling steaks flowing past our noses, we all just sat there and enjoyed the moment of knowing we all just worked a helluva good game which provided ASA softball with a national champion.

To top that off, the next day my traveling partner and I played tourist, sightseeing on the battleship, USS Alabama. While roaming around there, we were both recognized and thanked by players for working the tournament. The kicker was that they were from the losing team!

At times it was a blur, but I have never had such a gratifying weekend in my life.