I am retiring from Team Mullet softball. It is time to end since getting 10 guys out there every week has really been a struggle. I am not going to miss one moment dealing with Sportsmonter and the burning sensation in my shoulder every time I throw the ball. Team Mullet has been playing for 6 years and we have seen some crazy stuff. I put together 10 memories that stand out. I am sure there are more that I missed but these popped in my head.

1. I remember going to Joe's for what seemed to be 100 times and singing live band karaoke. The band was called the Dirty Lounge Lizards They loved us there. Those were fun nights.

2. We were in the middle of a game and behind the backstop a large group of kids began to congregate. I remember seeing two girls with large pairs of scissors and they were yelling out, "I am going to kill that bitch."

3. One night, there were about 3 kids playing with a baseball in the area next to our field and their ball accidentally came on to our field. Our left-fielder, "Buck," took their ball and through it on the roof of a school that was right next to the field. About 5 minutes later the kids threw a rock at his head and he walked off the field with blood gushing out of his head and said he was going to go to the Emergency Room.

4. I have a vivid memory of Boy Toy Roy walking up to the field for a playoff game, combing his hair, McDonalds food is stuffed in his mouth and he was wearing four different shades of green. I guess he forgot to bring his softball clothes to work so he went to Sportmart and bought some clothes and each item he bought was a different shade of green. He looked like a messed up Jolly Green Giant.

5. There are some basketball courts near the field and often there are tournaments played there. One evening, police cars drove through our field as we played. A basketball player must have pulled a gun or something and the police swarmed the area. Basketball players fled in every direction.

6. It was just another night at softball but Ed went back from shortstop to catch a pop-up. He caught the ball and quickly turned to throw the ball back in and he said he heard a pop. He blew out his knee including his ACL. We called an ambulance. They drove right on the field and took him away. I remember a scared look on his face but he kind of held his hand up like giving us the thumbs up. I don't think he played again for another 1.5 years.

7. Jlo hit a weak grounder to the infield and he never got out of the box. I think he just fell down. He hurt his knee real bad. We carried him off of the field and put him in back of Brian Mehta's SUV. Brian took him the the Emergency Room. He ended up not needing surgery.

8. One of my only memory of playing co-ed softball was a game I played with the Focal team. Our opponent had a girl playing 1st base. I hit a grounder and there was a normal play at 1st but she was standing directly on the base. Sadly my baseball instincts took over and I plowed her over and then kept running around the bases. Her male teammates yelled at me like they wanted to fight. I got scared.

9. One game, Nate showed up and he seemed to be real jolly. It turned out that he was at a Cubs game or something drinking all day. He was extremely intoxicated. I think the 3 times he batted he swung and missed every pitch by a few feet. The next day I emailed him about it and he said he didn't remember being at softball.

10. One night, Jason Mysliwiec got in an argument with the ump and got kicked out of game. This is not much of a story. The weird part for me was escorting him off of the field. I thought he was going to hit me. He was upset, and rightfully so, I think the ump kicked him out for pretty much nothing.