Well, good news. I survived my first softball game! Actually, I even HIT every pitch that I swung at and got on base once. Would have made it around to Home, but there’s a 6-run-per-inning rule and mine would have been the 7th. Woo-hoo!

It was the windiest (is that a word? it looks funny) event I’ve ever been at and the wind was blowing straight at Home Plate, so when you were batting, you undoubtedly got a facefull of dust. From Right Field, it was like watching a dust storm rise up again and again. When I cleaned my ears this morning, the Q-tip was brown. Yuck.

We lost, but only by one run. And they put me in Right Field (where nothing ever happens) so I didn’t screw up any fielding. Yay! Actually, for all I was dreading, it was a lot of fun and I’m looking forward to the next game.

The vending machine in our office building is the loudest coin-processor I have ever heard. I might as well just get a megaphone and just go up and down the hallway proclaiming “ATTENTION EVERYBODY! I’M THE GIRL FROM SUITE 105 WITH NO SELF CONTROL.”

Actually, I’m justifying the chocolate I just purchased because I’m going to play softball tonight. It’s a co-ed league and the only way J could play (which I know he loves doing) is if I sign up too. So I thought, hey, it might be fun to give it a shot even though I have never possessed any kind of athletic ability whatsoever and will probably be asked to be the “dugout sitter” within the first inning.

I do have a strategy though. I’m going to bring Little Button all decked out in her Baseball outfit, complete with Texas Rangers visor and HOPE that everyone is so busy ogling over her and saying how adorable she is, that they won’t notice my total and complete suckiness.

Wish me luck.

Well, Bud Selig is off the hook for the time being…at least until next year. He should be having his neck wrung today for completely ruining the Home Run Derby by attempting to turn it into the International Equality Derby and therefore completely destroying the whole POINT of the game - being to see the best of the best sluggers duke it out.

By all means, the fans should have been severly disappointed in last night’s Derby episode, and I don’t think anybody really had high hopes for it…

AND THEN ALONG CAME BOBBY ABREU.

First up to bat, he single-handedly broke all kinds of home run records, gave the crowd an amazing show, and consequently saved Bud Selig’s neck.

Even David Ortiz’ 17 homeruns in the first round, which broke the previous record of 16, was completely shadowed out by Abreu’s 24. A bit of baseball history was made, and it was a beautiful site on our new plasma TV.

Bud, you had better buy the guy a gormet dinner for that. Or send his family on vacation for two weeks.

Other festivity highlights included Johnny Damon singing with the band, Pudge’s kid getting totally pumped about his dad in the finals, and the kids falling all over each other in the field trying to catch the “outs”.