Tired & Tied: Teachers and Students Share Softball Generational Battle Glory

by Matt Bailey

Yesterday, as the planes and beautiful birdies soared, at just the right moment, overhead, the players in the Softball Battle of the Generations lined up and were treated to a delightful rendition of the Taiwanese and American national anthems. Goosebumps were popping. Tears were potentially streaming and chills were going up spines as Audrey Tsai sang so beautifully.

The players then took to the field. Who would emerge victorious with eternal bragging rights was TBD. But in the end, however, the baseball deities had ordained that neither side would earn this illustrious prize. After six innings, the game ended in an 8-8 tie.

Pitching for the “olds” first was Mr. Jitesh Pattni. The “youngsters” couldn’t handle his slider, and he three-up, three-downed his opponents for the first couple of innings.

The Teachers took an early lead in the first inning by smashing the ball way outta there with their rotation number one (me) and number two (Mr. Justin Pilon). "Get that .... outta here"

However, an over-zealous and accurate umpire disallowed my homer because apparently, I didn’t step on first base. Life can be so cruel sometimes, and baseball is no exception.

The momentum shifted toward the students in the third inning, where they scored half their total runs. Avery Tang, Ben Liang, and Rey Jang bashed that thing way out to center field and took advantage of lackluster fielding by Ms. Chelsea Armstrong.

The tit-for-tat back and forth continued in the remaining innings with relief pitcher, Mr. Vincent Pan, keeping a lid on the growing-in-confidence young bucks. Adam Chu, Jonathan Chen and Ben Liang all stepped onto the mound for the student team and threw solid and consistent pitches.

But that was not enough to prevent the teacher team from adding to their score to tie late in the sixth, with big efforts and hits from Mr. Sam Osborne, Mr. Malcolm Lamprecht and Mr. Brian Meehan.

We could have had some extra innings, but we’re old and tired and called it a day before the sun went down, like it did on MLB dreams.

When all was said and done and the final pics were snapped, the real victor of the day was camaraderie and baseball. Long may it reign.