From The Storyteller

October 9, 2017, Pain
It was a Tuesday, and I was 34 years old. My 40 year old neighbor knocks on the door. He was captain of a softball team. He was in a real bind. There was a tournament the coming weekend, and 3 of 11 team mates had the flu – he had 8 players (all his age) and needed one more. Would I please be number nine? Thinking myself to be in fairly good shape, I agreed.

First game - Friday night. Win there, and on Saturday play at least two games. Keep winning and you will play five games that weekend. One on Friday, two on Saturday, and two on Sunday. Lose two games, and you go home
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This, as it turned out, was not a "drink beer and tell jokes" kind of tournament. These 40 year old guys came to win. My commitment was to not let these old guys down. At this point in my life I had not yet learned an important life lesson - exercise is good, however if you are going to do it for a whole weekend, there will be less pain if you are in really good shape.

The problem - we kept winning. I figured five softball games in a weekend with some old guys - a snap. Let me simply say those old guys hustled. At no time in five games did they slack off. On Friday I hustled with them. First game on Saturday it was work to staying with them. Second game Saturday, I’m hoping we would lose.

Sunday afternoon when my neighbor brought me home, I stood and waived as he drove away. Then I turned and slowly crawled up my three steps

Moral – Beware of old guys in sports, they will destroy your ego.