Rainey Blogs on Some Days

Here are a few good reasons why I think girls should play softball in the springtime: 1. You don't have to be in shape. Running is minimal and only in short bursts between bases. 2. You get to play in dirt and get muddy. Yesss! In fact, good players often get the dirtiest. 3. You get to use your arms! What a waste the arms are in soccer except for the goalie. In softball, girls can use their arms and hands all of the time and it's not illegal! You catch, throw, and bat and get to use those arms. 4. You get to swing a bat! This is a skill for life. I even have a bat next to our front door for security purposes. If I hadn't played the game, I would have had to buy an alarm system for my house. Think of all of the money I saved! The girls will learn to use a bat properly and it may come in handy later in life. 5. You learn to accept individual blame for mistakes. In soccer, everything is the goalie's fault. In softball, every player gets to learn to deal with the...

An Empty Station Park, Leonia, New Jersey (June 2011) I drove by Station Park the other day. She was freshly mowed but the dew did not arrive on this sweltering, late spring day. I’ve always thought the park gets lonely about this time of year, when softball season ends with a loss for every team except the champion and little girls in sparkling softball uniforms no longer come to the field because suburban life has called them on to the swim club or early soccer practices. Station Park used to get two glorious months a year of softball, but now not enough girls in Leonia sign up to have their own league. So they play their games in New Milford , and Station Park only gets a few boys’ teams’ practices or starter league games. The girls are there no more. It is the saddest thing in the world to see a field grow lonely. You expect winter’s frigid air and snow to let the field rest and renew in winter’s solitude, but when spring and summer only bring a few ball games and some...