A Quick Note on Softball

Travel softball games are generally transmitted by means of a cellphone camera that’s been wedged into a chain-link fence. They look better, on the whole, than at least half the games I’ve seen on ESPN Plus [sic] this season, and quite often they give more player information.

These last two weeks have been a nightmare. The broadcasts this season are worse than ever before. Even schools like Bradley, Seattle, and Army that I’ve come in past seasons to think of as being decently reliable have taken a huge step back in terms of quality.

In the future, gradually less reliance will be placed, on my part, upon ESPN Plus [sic], until ideally its baneful influence is eliminated from my work and life altogether. This means that the schools and teams, and thus the players, covered are going to change almost entirely. It also means that very, very few of my entries from now on will be devoted to NCAA Division I programs.

This is actually an ideal time for such a change. NCAA Division I softball is itself becoming increasingly difficult to watch, even given a rare decent-quality broadcast. The silliness attendant on the obsession with coaches, which has only been exacerbated, alas, by the trickling down from MLB (Manfred League Baseball) of the odious “pitch clock,” has dictated a brand of play that often barely even qualifies as “play” and is indeed quite nearly joyless. I’ve written about this before, and I won’t rehash it here. This is just to let my readers know what’s going to be happening, and why. I am looking forward to bringing you news of a different contingent of players of the world’s greatest sport, some of whom perhaps don’t get any attention at all in such fora as mine, much less the amount they deserve. I thank you all for your patience and understanding as I effect this transition.