Redemption

After the trials of a personal tragedy, the month of August has been one of Redemption, one of fulfillment and true happiness -- showing me that I am one lucky person to have a family and friends like I do.

The Last of the Great Weekends has come to a close, slightly bittersweet -- only because it's sad to see the good times come to an end, but knowing the realization that I am soon approaching the new school year and it's time to go back to work.

I went back to the Home Town last Wednesday with the expectations of going north to do a little fishing with my Dad, but the winds were just a bit too strong, so we postponed our little trip until Thursday morning. This time around, my grandpa came along on a brisk day to a lake where I had once "ripped it up" back in the old days. We focused mainly on catching sunfish -- it for a while, it was like-mad. The "sunnies" turned out to be robbers for the most part, ripping off our bait straight off the hook (we used angle worms and small leeches), but after hooking the worm two/three times, we found our luck.

By the end of the day, we figured we caught over 50 sunnies, but kept roughly half. We eventually fried them all up on Sunday, where I had my share after the softball games on Sunday night. Not bad eating, in my opinion.

On Friday, I finally got my eyes checked for the first time in 6 years. My contacts were on their last legs and it basically got to the point where I could barely see straight. Luckily for me, I got new contacts (and new glasses) in preparation for the upcoming school year and the softball tournament. What a relief -- my eyes are already thanking me.

The City League Tournament started on Saturday -- with the news of two teams in the league dropped out due to low numbers of players showing up, so that totally screwed up the brackets. Again, I was back on the mound to do some pitching, barely winning our first game 11 to 10. Later on, we lost our second game of the tournament to the eventual league tournament champion, a game in which we got "15-runned" in the 6th inning. It was pretty tough, considering we were only fielding 9 players (instead of the usual 10) and the other team hit the gaps pretty well. I didn't take that loss too lightly, fully knowing that we probably could have beaten them with a full 10-man line-up.

On Sunday, we won our first game in the consolation bracket with a come-from-behind win in the 7th innning. Again, just like the weekend before, our bats were COLD. Instead of pitching on Sunday, I played right field during a blustery day. Later on that day, we ended up losing to the 2nd place team.

Overall, my performance at the tournament was fair at best. I probably hit below the .500 mark, which in slow-pitch softball, isn't stellar. My defense was pretty good, although I muffed a lazy fly ball out to right field -- apparently I was a little too rushed to get the ball back into the infield (since the other team was tagging up). The team as a whole finished 4th in the tournament, 2nd place in the regular season. Although I didn't play much during the regular season, it was still a great time playing once again for the first time in years.

Some other highlights include:

• The Premiere: I showed the two new films from Crash Productions, Inc. at Mike and Lacey's place on Thursday night -- which were met with great praise. That's what I basically did it for, so other people could enjoy them. The first film was the events from the previous weekend's softball tournament, and the second film was "The Ultimate Party Collection, Vol. #1", a collection of digital photos that I had already saved on my computer, dating back to last fall. I was planning on creating a new movie this past weekend during the softball tournament, but my primary photographer was unavailable and I couldn't find a suitable replacement.
• Bean-Bag Dynasty: Mitch and Joe complied an 11-1 record when it came to tossing the bags last weekend. No matter who stepped up, they brought 'em down. Mike and I actually gave them their only loss during the weekend, ending their 9-win streak. But after we had all figured that we couldn't beat them, we all basically gave up.

Well, what's there to look forward to now? The Big Fair is coming, but I doubt that I will make an appearance. It'll take some convincing to come back for that, but due to everybody working during the week and my new-found responsibilities, it's tough.

The "Sod Days" are around the corner in mid-September, which usually hosts another softball tournament. I will probably not play in this one, but it's still worth making an appearance (and maybe making another "film" in the process).

But where ever there is beer, softball, and friends, you'll likely see Tony.