Wow! I can't believe another season is drawing to a close, and with this issue, my second year as a columnist for Softball West! Unfortunately, it also reminds me that I’ve probably thrown my last ball outside for the year, and if you’re like me, you begin to get really jealous of the ballplayers in California, Arizona, Texas, Florida, and the other warm states where they get to play year-round.

As temperatures here in the Inland Northwest begin to plummet (it was 29 degrees last night...Brrrrr!), the leaves begin to fall, and many of us hunker down for winter, trading our spikes for snow boots and our bats first for rakes and then snow shovels, I’ve been feeling a bit reflective. I’ve been playing either softball or baseball since I was four years old, and every year at this time (except the year I had an “endless” summer by chasing the sun to Australia and another season of softball), I start to get a little sad, thinking of the season coming to an end. Of course, I also believe to be a ballplayer, you must be an eternal optimist, so I begin to dream of spring again even as the first snowflakes drift lazily down, and the basepaths are dotted with spots of whiteness.

There is something in softball that speaks of the cycles of life. There is something magical about throwing to warm-up that just reminds you of that time playing catch with dad or mom... that intimacy of it being just you and the parent. Although other people in the warm-up line might comment on what you and your warm-up partner are saying, it sometimes seems a little intrusive...like they’ve been eavesdropping. Throwing three-way is just never the same, is it? There’s also the way the dirt looks in the infield before the game... like a freshly waxed floor, untracked, or like freshly fallen snow -- a fresh start... it creates a kind of hush, a quiet reverence, a cathedral-like quality. There is the smell of freshly mowed grass, the clean bases, the white lines of chalk, that are just like life...there are boundaries, but they’re not always perfect. Playing a softball game is a little mirror of life. Not every moment of life is filled with adrenaline. There are long periods of routine. There is the pitcher taking his or her time, the conferences, the planning, the moments given to excel, the routine plays and the moments of sheer terror. There are the times when you’re down and must struggle back. There are the times when you’re sitting on top of the world. And here again, as in life, there is hope. Even down five runs in the bottom of the seventh, the home team still has a chance...there is hope! There is the long ball, the two-out rally, the miracle!

The best part of softball is that you don’t have to wrestle with questions of the afterlife. You come out tomorrow or next week, or next spring, after the snows have melted, the air is still brisk, and there it is: that field, that chance for a new life, a do-over, and you are reborn with that beautiful dirt, that imperfect chalk, that perfect circle. Your whole life lies ahead of you, and as part of a team you are part of humanity moving forward together until in defeat or victory, you are born anew for the next game, the next life. Come worship with me in our cathedrals of grass and clay and chalk, watch for the little miracles, that something “different” that happens in every game, and sit with me, last one out of the dugout, listening to the silence and watching the serenity of the field now ploughed with spikes and sown with dreams, sweat, laughter, and sometimes a little blood, fertile, waiting for new life to spring forth, and you’ll know why I play ball.

Until next Spring, train hard, ‘cuz when the season arrives again, “there ain’t nothin’ soft about it!”

I wish you all the very best of holiday wishes, thank you for the support of my column and Softball West, and for all the great e-mails this last year. As always, I welcome your comments and suggestions at gutallstop@hotmail.com.