THIS HURTS

Hurts and sucks, actually.

My weekday team has struggled from the start, losing 3 of 4 games. Yesterday we faced the league's first place team, an opportunity for us to go deeper into the hole or pull off a big win and turn the season around.

And there was good reason for optimism. Our #1 pitcher, Jose, was scheduled to appear with us for the first time!

Meanwhile, our manager, perturped by our lack of hitting, sent an email to expect line up changes.

Game time arrived with ominous clouds above and, much more threatening for us, Jose not present. In his early season sabatical we'd used 3 other pitchers. NONE of them were there either. We had NO pitcher to go against the best hitting team in the league.

So I was asked to step into the vacuum. I hadn't pitched a game in years nor been a regular pitcher since 1997. But I'd do my best in what would be an almost hopeless situation.

And then the manager read the starting lineup. Remember those line up changes he promised? There was only 1. I was dropped from my customary lead off spot to the last position in the batting order.

Apparently I was the cause of our poor run production. In fact, I wasn't. I'd missed 2 games with injury and work and reached base safely in half my at bats in the contests I'd played.Nothing great, nothing terrible. So why had I been booted from a key spot to the least important? I was stunned.

Nevertheless, I went out to pitch and did reasonably well. They scored twice on hits and once on an error and that was all for 2 innings. Believe me, it could have been much worse. Our bats were silent again and mine, in the 10 hole, was unused as we hadn't even reached my spot in the order yet.

We trailed, 3-0, going into the 3rd inning when Jose arrived. It was a no brainer to put him into pitch, and it was, apparently, a no brainer for the coach to remove me from the game to make room for him though it could have been any other player.

We now had 11 guys at the field. I spent the rest of the evening watching the other 10.

Jose pitched extremely well and added 3 hits including a game turning triple and we came from behind to win. The guy in my spot had 1 hit in 4 turns...nothing special...but his single and speed on the bases helped tie the score.

It was a great team victory but I shared in none of the pleasure. I'd been told where I stood on the team...least important and most disposable of the 11. And considering that there were several others who weren't at the game who would probably play before me, my value is likely even less.

A coach's decision, a coach's evaluation. Coming off a very solid 2007 I'm not sure what I'd done to merit it.

What a drag for this to be my first post in all these months. But boy, does this hurt and embarass and anger me. I've been suddenly marginalized. This used to be my team and I used to matter.