What do you call a group of comedians who play softball?

Some nights, you simply wish to be a part of one thing — a dance social gathering, a e book membership, an orgy, a satanic coven, a gaggle of associates. I’m on a softball workforce of standup comedians. We’re referred to as the Grasp Batters.

They are saying that something value doing is value doing badly, and that’s good as a result of we’re doing badly. Montreal’s personal slo-pitch softball workforce of novice standups is 2-5. Half of these wins are by forfeit, as a result of the opposite workforce didn’t present. In a single recreation, we helped recruit gamers for the opposite workforce so that they didn’t should forfeit, then these gamers beat us. We often lose by double digits.

So, we’re losers. So what?

It’s a hell of a time to do one thing only for enjoyable for a few hours on a summer season night, with a bunch of individuals you might not even know that properly.

Within the phrases of the Cal Ripken of pretend baseball — Kevin Costner in “Bull Durham,” the sexiest and greatest baseball film — it’s onerous to not be romantic in regards to the sport. You get the pranks within the dugout, the midges in a freshly mown outfield because the solar goes down, the grit of the infield in your footwear, the wind blowing throughout the pitcher’s mound, the ding of the aluminum bat and a hovering fly ball that drops into the hole. A second of glory after years of doldrums. There’s the stillness once you look within the pitcher’s eyes earlier than they wind up, when nothing else issues: not politics, not social media, not pandemic measures, simply the subsequent 10 seconds of your at-bat, the magic second once you swing and make contact.

It’s additionally onerous to not be romantic about standup.

Like baseball, it’s for degenerates, debtors, addicts, gluttons, sinners, layabouts, class clowns, weirdos and non-athletes. Like baseball, it has its personal language (the set-up, the punchline, the tag, the inexperienced room, the nearer, the heckles, the button spot) and its rituals (the brutal open mics, the drink tickets, the “good set” from one other standup on night time, the dearth of touch upon a foul night time, the peanuts or nothing they pay you, the smokes after the present which are actually an excuse to face exterior, hoping that somebody will praise you).

You do it for the glory. You bought amusing with nothing however the joke you wrote: no costumes, no manufacturing, no ghostwriters, simply you and a room of strangers. Finally each comic bombs — or “dies on their ass,” because the English name it. And each comic will go up once more, not fairly positive of themselves, and provides it one other shot. It takes a variety of coronary heart, or a delusional ego. Like jogging out into the sector for an additional inning shortly after your facet went down on two crushing strikeouts and a pop-up. Who is aware of, one night time you may even win one.

We’re a traditional ragtag band of underdogs — which, even when there’s no last-act championship win, is a enjoyable factor to be.

When the umpire fails to indicate, considered one of our injured gamers, paralegal Amy Zacchia, calls the sport. She shouts “I’m sorry, child!” if she has to name a strikeout on her fiancée, Anne.

We’re all the time shouting stuff like “look ahead to yours!” from the dugout. Between glove bumps and cheers of “Grasp Batters!” there’s tomfoolery, hijinks and cack-handed fielding errors, that are met with groans after which encouragement. I forgot how a lot I’d missed hanging my fingers between the chain hyperlinks of the cage, feeling the massive whiff when somebody swings.

Earlier than and between video games, we might or is probably not swilling low cost beers, lighting up, chatting about one another’s units, dates, jokes, and so forth. One night time, I confirmed the early-arrivers a photograph of a plaster-cast vagina somebody had left as avenue artwork close to my bike. The retort was “I do know what they appear like, I’ve seen a type of earlier than.”

After we do load the bases, we are able to’t get sufficient of it; we virtually lose our minds.

Then on the finish of the night time, strolling away from the massive lights, you are feeling good-tired — sweaty, sore, flushed. You suppose over the laughs, the strikes you took, the runs you scored, the grounders that handed you by. We don’t do it to be the very best athletes, and we don’t do it to be well-known or the hardest rivals; we do it as a result of it’s enjoyable.

For a couple of hours, you’re working collectively to create one thing short-lived however timeless: this night time of comedy, this night time of baseball. The desires of the longer term you might need had as a child in little league are gone. We’re not going to the massive present, and even the minor leagues. We’re most likely not even going to the playoffs within the fall.

It’s like a brief, heightened lifetime. You go for the glory, however what will get you thru are the individuals round you, and whether or not you possibly can decide your self again up and go on the market once more. And in between, you might have a ball.

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