Soft balls and hard fought victories: ROAST begin with a win
It was bitterly cold. The type of cold that made brave men want to weep and brave women layer up. The wind whipped across pitch 17 as if it had something to prove. But there was only one thing in Regents Park that had something to prove last night. The ROAST softball team. Were they as good at softball as we had all been led to believe? We were about to find out.
Long story short, yes, we were. I never thought I’d feel safe seeing Haider with a baseball bat in his hands. Anyone that was at the ROAST dodgeball tournament will agree. But in fact I felt very comfortable, safe in the knowledge he’d be smashing the ball miles. Enthusiasm is infectious, so take your vitamins and carry a box of tissues when you’re around Jess Hollingbery at a softball game because you just might catch a massive dose of ENERGY and POSITIVITY. And Ollie Pollard may have looked like a roadie from a 90s Oasis tour in those shorts, but you don’t win a game with fashion, you win it with solid outfield work and tidy batting. And that’s why Oasis are shit these days. They never understood that.
Then there’s Matt Payne. A softball obviously did something bad to him once, because every time someone threw one at him he’d smash it as far away from him as he could. 4 home runs in 4 innings was a tidy return, but he’s let himself down by posting a video of himself hitting a home run on his Instagram. Shameless.
Shout out to Zooey’s shins for taking a battering, Holly for progressively wearing more and more clothes as the game wore on (if it had gone seven innings I’m not sure she’d have been able to move), Steff for tanning a whole bottle of wine after the game before a 4am start today (the after-game is still the game), Marina for only having one ball to field in the entire game (the game on the next pitch hit it near her), Bish for taking the catch of the game (there was me thinking jeans and shirt would hinder his flexibility) and Annie for scoring the whole game and silently wishing she was a part of such a slick (Matt’s chest), well-oiled (Matt’s hair) softball machine.
We won and I think the score was either 17-12 or 19-12. One of the two. A winning start. Long may it continue.