After three years of watching/coaching my son's little league teams, I got the itch to play ball again myself. I had stopped playing baseball in 7th grade in favor of year-round soccer. I tend to get deep into one thing at a time (you'll probably come to notice this personality trait) -- back then, it was playing goalie. I've always made poor position choices--my last baseball position was catcher, but I digress.
It's great if you want to play softball, but unless you can get 10+ guys together to form a team you're outa luck; or are you?
I checked with the local parks and rec folks and got the lowdown on forming my own team. I was stoked, but I asked around and couldn't get enough people to commit (the tough part about 30somethings: they don't have much free time).
Slightly dejected, I started looking for playing opportunities on the Internet. I quickly found that Craigslist was the place to be for this kind of thing. Specifically, the "Activity Partners" section. "Activity Partners" sounds a bit scary, but don't worry, it's not like "Situations Wanted" or anything ;-)
Here is a query string for my local Craigslist: http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/act?query=softball
Remember, you can watch Craigslist for posts, but you can also advertise yourself. This is how I got my first start on a team. I had posted looking for a men's team to join, and a guy contacted me to fill in on a co-ed team--good times.
There are a few other sites that are trying to fill this void, but from what I can tell, Craigslist still has a lock on this stuff. Another avenue is to talk to the parks and rec folks. I spoke with the woman who manages the local softball sign-ups, and she said surprisingly that people don't use her as a resource to fill out teams in need of players. Her suggestion was to show up at the "managers' meeting" prior to the season starting and ask around.
Another place to play is at pick-up games. I'm lucky enough to have a weekly game in my neighborhood, but I wouldn't have known about it if not for word-of-mouth. That's the thing about pick-up games--they aren't always advertised. Some will appear on Craigslist, but others will not. If you're really curious, take a drive around on Saturday and Sunday morning/afternoon. Look for softball games underway and ask the folks if they're playing in a league or just having a pick-up game. In my experience, adult leagues don't play on the weekends so much, so it's likely a pick-up game. If so, ask them if they need any additional players. If they don't have any positions open, ask if you can DH, or if you can play next week, etc. Usually these things are pretty loose, and folks are happy to have another guy who's eager to play.
Finally, you can always just show up at league games and see what happens. It's amazing to me, but a lot of people flake on game nights without calling the team manager. They just go MIA. Sometimes it's unavoidable, but it still sucks. Softball uses four outfielders, so when a team finds itself with fewer than nine people, they usually forfeit. If you can be that ninth or tenth guy, you just got on a team for a night. You don't even have to be a great player, because both teams are just happy to be able to play.
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