Redneck Softball

I went to New Hampshire this past weekend to play in a Co-Ed Softball tournament that my brother-in-law signed us up for. The tournament was cancelled, but my wife and I got to play in a men's tournament that was being put on in Rumney, NH. Never heard of Rumney? If you asked me last week I would have told you it was northwest of Laconia, but now that I've been there I am pretty sure it's right outside of Corbin, Kentucky.

As we were following one of our teammates to the field, we noticed that he had a homemade license plate. Now, I don’t know the registration laws of New Hampshire, but I’m pretty sure that is illegal. Another thing that is illegal in northern New Hampshire is tooth brushes. (But we’ll get back to that topic in a minute). The license plate was made out of cardboard and the numbers seemed to be written in pen. You would think that if you WERE going to make a homemade license plate that you would use some sort of dark permanent magic marker, but I guess not. Under the license plate number there was a date written, 7-31-07. Wait a second, isn’t it August? I’m not even lying, the homemade license plate had EXPIRED. I didn’t look at his inspection sticker, but I suspect that it was made out of construction paper taped to the windshield with a bold number 13 smack in the middle of it.

We finally got to the field after passing an airport with a grass runway (just thought I’d throw that in there). In the distance I saw yellow police caution tape, so naturally I thought that Lindsay Lohan had somehow train-wrecked her way into town. Nope, it was the outfield fence. Apparently, that’s what they call a break away fence...because once you break it, you have to throw it away and tape up some more!

As we walked over to the field and the back stop that was made out of wood and chicken wire caught my eye, I thought maybe it wasn’t such a good idea for us girls to be playing on a men’s team in this here town. We watched the game that was before ours from the side lines and most of the other people there just stared at us. I thought that maybe they were staring at us because we were girls, but I soon figured out they were staring at us because we were girls that had a full set of teeth.

The umpire was 212 years old and was wearing a flannel shirt, jeans and boots. I believe he is also the sheriff, fire chief and town mason.

Unfortunately we lost the first game (we’ll just blame it on the hangovers). As we were eating redneck burgers to re-fuel for our second game, we heard a gun shot. I noticed that our team was the only team that raised concern about this. We were also the only team that was concerned about the pick-up truck with horns on the front and two official sized confederate flags mounted on the back, blowing in the wind. Do these people NOT realize that they are YANKEES! I swear I heard the driver humming the tune, Dixieland. YOU LIVE IN NEW HAMPSHIRE!

Well, we kicked ass in the second game and the other team was getting mad because the three girls on our team were getting hit after hit and making plays in the field. They were also getting mad because we were the only team who didn’t have to eat steak through a straw.

Have you ever seen the movie The Deliverance? I haven’t either, but I heard people from my team mention it a few times. I think I will rent and watch it before venturing out beyond the suburbs again.