Hobbling Across the Finish Line

In my final game of the 2016 softball season I stood on third base with two outs. At the plate, a teammate laced a clutch line drive single to right field. As I jogged down the third base line and then planted my foot on home plate, the umpire raised both hands above his head and yelled, "Ballgame!" Taco Johns run-ruled its opponent to the tune of a 19-7 victory.

It was a good season. Check that, it was a great season with a great group of guys. Unfortunately, we dropped our last two games of the regular season and fell out of first place. But for the first time ever, I felt like I was physically hobbling across the finish line.

During batting practice the final day of the season, I took an innocent-looking ground ball just above my right ankle. It wasn't hit very hard (and yeah, I should've not let it under my glove) but it hit in the exact same bruised spot as a harder ground ball during a game earlier in the week. It hurt like a big dawg! I guess it was a fitting way to end the season. My pains began during our first practice of the year when I lost a stinger-of-a-line-drive in the setting sun. It tattooed me squarely in the right shin. I hobbled around like someone had just shot me. The next day it swelled up to the size of my right knee. It was so tender that I could almost feel it with each beat of my heart. The tenderness of it all knocked me out of my first two games of the season.

As the season continued, other pains both new and old kicked in. My left ankle (from an basketball injury 16 months earlier--see photo on left) was an off-again, on-again gimpy situation. My right groin (which never seems to loosen up from eight years of climbing over the boards while playing hockey) was also an on-again, off-again situation. Luckily, the old right shoulder impingement from softball seasons gone by did not manifest itself but a new pain did--in my right hamstring. On some nights it felt like I had a couple of bricks attached to it as I lumbered around the bases. It also especially worried me after watching a teammate totally blow out his hamstring and crumple to the ground after sprinting to first base.

Weider home gym

So I'm 53 years old and the oldest guy on my team by eight years. I have friends about the same age who say now (or sooner) is the time of our lives when knees, shoulders and other muscles and joints start to give out. So given the past season of aches and pains I really have two main options:

A) Decide that "I'm old," give up the active sporting lifestyle, spend more time in the recliner and look back on my days in the field and on the court.

B) Heal, have a great fall hiking in the mountains during hunting season and then turn my attention to  Mr. Weider in the basement to get stronger and seek to defy my age by being a 54-year-old who performs more like a 44-year-old on the diamond next summer.

I choose B.
#bringit