8 Types Of People You Meet While Playing Co-Ed Softball

1. The Overly Competitive Asshole

Whether he was cut from the single A team or just a guy trying to recapture his college/high school glory years, this guy plays to win. Every bad call by the ump is punctured by this guy’s guttural, rage-filled scream, as he lets everybody within a 1 mile radius know that he disagrees with the decision. He’s got a glove from 12 years ago that he loves more than his mother, and he always brings a duffel bag full of expensive composite bats and cleats that you aren’t allowed to use.

He will insist on doing the team’s lineup, and since it’s such a chore, the rest of the team lets him have it. God forbid if you screw up fielding a grounder or hit a pop fly. The Overly Competitive Asshole will take note. And he never forgets. You will definitely be batting last next game.

2. The Girl Who Wants To Get Some

Make no mistake, this girl wants it, and she wants it bad. It’s the only reason why she signed up for the league. She always makes the very first game to scout out the guys on the team. If she doesn’t find somebody she likes, she’ll be MIA for the rest of the season. But once she zeroes in on the guy she wants to bang, she will make every game that he goes to, once he confirms his attendance on the team’s weekly email chain.

3. The Guy Who Is Absolutely Terrible

This guy joined the league solely to meet new people. He’s never played sports in his life. You wonder how such an unathletic person ever existed, because his ancestral line should have been extinguished sometime after the fall of the Roman Empire.

He can’t catch a pop fly to save his life. Grounders? Guaranteed to go through his legs. He strikes out at least twice a game and the only contact he makes will be a weak ground out to the shortstop. He is the bane of the Overly Competitive Asshole’s existence, and he always bats last.

4. The Girl Who Is Absolutely Terrible

This girl joined the league to meet new people. She might be new in town or just wanted a change of pace, but she is awful at softball. Agonizingly so, but she gets a pass because she’s a girl and at least she showed up so the team wouldn’t have to take an automatic out every inning.
Every time she screws up, she looks around in a sheepish manner and giggles. Every guy wants to bone her because she is always, without fail, the hottest girl on the team.

5. The Guy Everybody Likes

Yeah, he played ball when he still went to school but it was just recreational. He never took it seriously like Overly Competitive Asshole, but he’s still pretty good. Outgoing, gregarious, and a perennial smile on his face, this guy is the life of any party.

When you go out for the obligatory postgame beers, you aren’t surprised when he tells you he’s got a job you would kill for. You aren’t surprised when you see a gorgeous girl by him in the photo he took after he reached the summit of El Cap. You want to hate this guy so much but he isn’t registering on your bullshit meter one bit.

You wouldn’t be surprised if he were elected President one day. At the very least he’ll make it to statewide office.

6. The Quiet, Reliable Guy

This guy always shows up every game without fail. He’s punctual, reliable, and while he isn’t the best player on the team, he’s solidly in the upper half. You have the feeling he’d be a great friend to have, but he’s so damn quiet and inconspicuous in a group that you forget about him as soon as the season ends.

7. Ms. Substitute

She’s not on your team. In fact, she’s not on any team. But she always plays because it’s impossible to get all the girls on your team to show. But she’s happy to play, and she’s usually the best girl that’s playing on your team, at least for that game. She played a lot of ball in high school and did intramurals in college. She tried out for the club team but didn’t make the cut, but she’s okay with it because she’s the most levelheaded girl you ever met.

Next week she might be facing off against you. As she calmly hits a single over the heads of the infield, she casually runs over to first base. She gives you a slightly apologetic look. You try to resist, but you still hold your hand out for a high five.