Softball is a Pi Day Potluck

Softball is many things. Today, softball is a Pi Day potluck.

Everyone is in a single file line, scanning every entree option, actively thinking what the best combination of food is to pile onto their plates. Their stomachs growl as the coffee is finally digesting and wearing off from the morning.  Every ounce of frustration from the morning will be quelled by the comfort food that is about to console them. Many question how much food they are able to serve themselves while still walking away with dignity. They think to themselves, As long as I get a vegetable I can eat whatever else I want. Or maybe that’s just my reasoning.

Needless to say, everyone is famished, and this is the best part of what everyone knows is the start of a VERY long day.

Softball is many things. It exists in the littlest of traditions. Standing in that line, looking at the spread of food, I was brought back to every double header I ever played at Loyola.

Our families would collaborate about who was in charge of feeding the 16 ravenous players between games.

They would try so hard to maintain a healthy diet for us, ensuring that there was a well-balanced spread of veggies and proteins. However, being the swollen-hearted mothers that they are, they couldn’t fight the urge to spoil our palates by bringing sugary sweet snacks and belly fattening carbs. After all, the way to an athlete’s heart is through her stomach.

We would all stand in line, the topic of gossip being whose angelic mother was in charge of this heavenly spread, and where is she so that I can hug her right now, and OH MY GOD is that a nutella smore brownie? We’d whisper and laugh about how much food we would try to combine (and fit) on that ridiculously tiny plate. It has to be the dessert plate, right? Because I’m going to need 5 of those.

Then we’d grab our meal, sit on the turf by our parents to talk softball as long as we could stand it, or sneak in as much time with them before we were quarantined in the dugout for game time. We’d soak in that 20 minutes of carefree, easy-going energy between games where our switch was turned off, where we weren’t division I athletes, where we didn’t have to focus, where we didn’t have to get the hit, or make the perfect throw, or run, or dive, or push ourselves to our mental limits. We could sit there and just be. For 20 minutes.

Finally, our coaches would signal for us, and we’d rally together as a team, pinching the newly formed fat on our bellies and trudging slightly more slowly during the pregame warm-up.

We’d head back to the dugout, and turn on our switch.

See, softball does not just exist between the lines of the field. It exists in the every day. True, my softball switch may be in the “off” position currently, but every now and again, I see that light flicker. Sometimes, in the form of a Pi Day potluck.

Softball is many things. Today, softball is a Pi Day potluck.