By Michael Elliott ~
Tempe, Arizona- Greetings from temperate Tempe Sports Shorts fans. The hope here is that both of you are faring well! Doing the desert this week as the 28th Annual Men’s Senior Baseball World Series is once again being held at the various Major League Baseball spring training facilities in Arizona. The Los Angeles Angels’ Tempe Diablo Stadium is the yearly hosting venue as more than 350 teams from around the United States congregate to do battle in their age-appropriate divisions. It’s crazy-good.
The tournament is held over a one-month period and divisions are created in various age brackets.
The brackets are doled out in five-year increments i.e., teams play in the 30-34 year-old bracket, 35-39 bracket, etc. Youngest bracket starts at 19-years-old, with the oldest bracket topping out at 70 years and counting.
Each team is guaranteed six games in the first four days and those with the best records move into the playoffs. Eventual champions and runner-ups will have played nine games in six days. And we’re talking regular nine-inning games with two sanctioned umpires per game. No wusses allowed!
Enough of that formal stuff. I am blessed to play with a team out of Los Angeles called the Hollywood Stars. This is my 27th straight year in attendance as I was not cognizant of the inaugural tourney. In 1988, on a fluke, I answered an ad in the Los Angeles Herald Examiner regarding some players putting together a team to tour Australia and play local teams at each city on the itinerary. It was on that trip that I met a gentleman who asked me if I wanted to join the Hollywood Stars in Arizona. Well, sure!
Now, this is competitive baseball y’all. You’ve traveled far, and perhaps wide, to engage your opponents and the competitive juices are flowing. It is an actual war of attrition and nutrition, as twisted ankles, pulled hamstrings, wrenched backs, fatigue, etc. deplete rosters.
And there’s nothing quite like the sanctuary known as the dugout. What happens in the dugout stays in the dugout. Lots of spitting, sunflower seed shells everywhere, the pervasive smell of Tiger Balm ointment, a curse word or one hundred, ragging on each other, Jumpin’ Jack Flash passin’ gas, gas, gas. So cool!
Results- So-o-o-o-o, how did the Stars fare? Well, we played six and lost six and now have an illustrious 13 game losing streak dating back to 2013. Disappointing? For sure. But, alas, the fact that we all are able to time-travel back to our youths for one week of each year is really the gist of it all. The life-long friendships attained are immeasurable and having garnered World Series rings back in 2007 certainly takes the string out of the current abyss we are in.
I’d be remiss if I did not reveal the age bracket the Hollywood Stars played in this year…so I’ll be remiss!! You know, sabermetrics are all the rage in Major League Baseball nowadays as they are used for team and player evaluations. In that vein, divide pie by the square root of infinity and throw in an isosceles triangle and you may be able to ascertain our age bracket.
“Strawberry Feels Forever”- The best memory one takes home from the eventful week is that strawberry on the arse acquired by sliding into a base. Here’s how it metes out: Get strawberry, cry like a baby that night in the shower while scrubbing the dried blood and dirt pebbles out of the wound, sit extra gently for the first four days as it scabs over, glowingly look and pick at that sucker for the next three weeks and admire it as the awesome badge of courage that it represents! Cue John Cougar Mellencamp from the 80’s: “Hurts So Good.”
Michael swears he has never chewed on any scab he has ever picked off his body. Let him know if you have at [email protected].
