Strike... 17?!

The title is a joke, i know there are only three strikes in a ball game. Or is it only two in softball?

I can be such a foreigner-wannabe sometimes. Yesterday i headed out with our work staff team to play softball at expat town, also known as Victoria ball pitch in Maadi. Our team players really are team players and they spent a lot of time explaining the one million rules I'm expected to remember on the field. We had two games last night. Let's start with the first one.

I struck out. That was pretty much all i understood. The rest of it was a lot of running and watching and me catching the ball when i was told to; sometimes succeeding, but most of the time just trying really hard. Some people are naturally good at all sports, I'm definitely not one of them. Im humble enough to admit that it takes me practice to become good, sometimes a lot of practice. It's just a bit sad when you're playing for the fun of it and others are taking it very seriously. I would be frustrated if the tables were turned.

After we lost terribly, we found out our opponents were American military. WTF?! They were flown in from their base in Bahrain for this tournament. WTF?! They were trained even in the post-game handshake, going around doing a fancy up/down slap with each other. WTF?! After the game i was messaging several friends who knew i was playing, and surprisingly many had the same question after finding out about the military face-off, "Who won?!" It killed a part of my ailing pride every time i had to wittily answer that.