Back in the day when I was a boy, video games were just starting to get into people houses, so I still played quite a bit outside, riding motocross, playing football in street and baseball.  As a kid, your going to scrap yourself up every other day and you normally just wash the blood off and keep going..

Well, now I’m a bit older.  

In the last few years I’ve been working on getting back in shape, which is a slight misnomer since I was never really in shape in the first place.  Most of my time in my 20’s and 30’s were either behind a guitar or a computer, neither one conducive to exercise.  This year I decided to start playing softball. 

Now.. for those of you who have never played baseball or softball for that matter; the infield normally is composed of a reasonably fine dirt.  Well, the ball fields in Oakland, although still pretty good, are a bit rougher.  

I’ve been playing most of this year in the very lite nylon hiking pants I wore in Costa Rica and finally decided to buy proper baseball pants.  

And it got me thinking.. Sliding in baseball.  

I mean, when you really think about it.. Your kinda asking for it in a way.  I mean, think about this way.. I’m a full grown man at around 173lbs running at full speed, and I’m the fastest guy on the team, over 90 feet towards a bag sitting in field of dirt. So at full speed (~15mph?) I’m going to voluntarily bend my right leg, put all my weight on it and slide, on this dirt, till I stop.  Just thinking about it.. you realise, this does not seem like a sane thing to do.

Now it happens that in today’s game I tried to beat a throw to second base and did slide at full speed in the dirt. You don’t think about it, or feel it at the time, but I can feel it a bit now. Nothing but a small scrape..  But still.. when you think about… and don’t get me started on head first slides.