The Senior-Faculty Softball Game

For a very long time, Seneca had a senior-faculty softball game, open to males and females near the end of each year.  Eventually, that duty fell to me to run it.  It was an opportunity to send them off with the memories of a good time and comradery with their former teachers.  It sounds all touchy-feely but it was always very serious on both sides.  I was always a bit taken aback by how much the teachers really wanted to win.  As it turned out, until the day that I transferred to Manual, the teachers never lost while I was organizing it.

Knowing that the students were younger, faster and with better reflexes, this seems, at least superficially, to be a strange thing.  But after analysis, maybe not.  Although the teachers are slower and maybe without all the athletic skills of their past, they are still stronger and many are coaches in some capacity.  We could for the most part hit the ball farther.  The other issues that favored the teachers is that we understood our handicaps and played smarter for that reason.  We always threw to the cutoff player, we did not play to be heroes but to win.  Three, we always played on the softball field with it's shorter fences.  and, four, Not all teacher wanted to play.  Those who did were usually former athletes and many of them softball and baseball player, some, including me, still playing in softball leagues around the city.

The seniors, on the other hand had 30-40 people sign up laboring under the illusion that they were ten feet tall and bulletproof.  They thought they could beat the world all in one softball game.  Consequently, the teachers were always had 15-16 competent players and the teams was passably good at all times.  We also had many large, strong men who could easily hit the ball over the fences, only two hundred feet away.  I placed them in the batting order every two or three hitters.  That way, we never had to run full out very often. There were a number of boys on the senior team that could do the same, but most were baseball player who had not played softball much.  There is a big difference in hitting a baseball and a softball pitched underhanded and with an arch of up to 12 feet.

There were a number of funny things happen in these games. but the two that comes to mind was a collision at home plate  and one that made a big splash.  We had a catcher who was a frequent substitute and thus considered by all to be a faculty member.  A dynamically sensuous and beautiful girl with adult female proportions was  on base and in an attempt to score she ran over the catcher and land on top of him.  After that he seemed to be in a daze the rest of the game and was not quite as good as he was before.

One year, we were playing on the "back" softball field that sat next to a branch of Beargrass Creek.  There was a young man at Seneca, who was considered a suave young man, always beautifully dressed with the best clothes he could buy.  His hair was always perfect and his manners always the best.  He was watching the game from behind the backstop when a ball was Fouled over the backstop heading for the creek.  The young man of note ran backwards and jumped to catch the ball.  The creek level was about 7-8 feet below the playing surface  From the third base position all I saw was him disappear over the edge and then a huge splash of water appeared.  He climbed out unhurt but very embarrassed and not looking quite so neat.

Even though the seniors never won, they were always good sports and each year the next class came in with the hope of defeating the always successful faculty.  I had a great job.