NMSU Aggies vs UTEP Softball 2-14-16

I had planned on writing about the Aggie Baseball Alumni game last week.  What happened was me and a few other people (including a nice attractive couple that looked like they walked off of a sitcom) showed up at the stadium at the listed time and found the gates locked.  We waited around for a while before everyone eventually wandered off, including myself.  I walked over to bookstore and got a new crimson NMSU shirt.  (Annoyingly, I also saw more-or-less the style of hat that I’d looked for in vain last year, before setting for the one I got.)  Grasping at straws, I asked the checkout clerk about the Alumni game.  He said the Athletics Department and Communications/Marketing don’t speak to each other and are a bunch of idiots.  Enlightening, but not helpful.

Back at the field, which I’d had to return to because I’d parked there, I ran into some players.  They told me the event was going on at the football field up the road and even gave me a ride there (was that nice or what?).  At the football field, I met a couple more players and was finally told that there wasn’t going to be a game that day.  The new baseball field surface apparently needed some repairs before the start of the season.  I couldn’t help but notice that the player I was talking to was hobbling.  He hoped to be ready to play for the first game.  Your Alumni game has been cancelled for the second year in a row, your field isn’t ready, and your Second baseman can’t run?  This year in Aggie Baseball is picking right up where it left off last year.

So the upshot of this is that I had new team shirt to wear and needed an event to attend.  Well, the Aggie Softball team was starting their season this weekend.  I had heard the Softball team playing in the WAC tournament last year on the radio, so I knew they were good.  (I also remember that the university president had volunteered as their batboy for the game.)  Work obligations kept me attending the very reasonable 3:00 pm double-header on Saturday.  The pizza we all ate there nearly incapacitated the data processing department.  I had to settle for the unreasonable 10:30 am Sunday, Valentine’s Day game.  Unreasonable, because digestive issues had kept me awake all night.  Also, I had to wonder if I was going to be the only person in the stands for a morning game on a faux holiday weekend who wasn’t related to any of the players.

My first indication of the crowd came when I had trouble finding a parking spot.  I think most of the cars may have been there for dorm parking, but I did not feel lonely inside.  The intimate grandstand of the softball complex has a capacity of 1,050, according to the media guide.  I’m not sure what the count was for the game, but there’d been any more people there, it would have actually been unpleasantly packed. 

It was $7 for the game.  The baseball and the basketball were $5.  The ticket said “Single Day Pass” and it was for an “Invitational Tournament.”  If I’d gone Saturday, I could have seen four games with that pass, two games on Friday.  Here, I was just getting one.  I’d arrived late, and they were just finishing introducing the players as I got inside.  No time for concessions, so no food report.  Didn’t have the stomach for it anyway.   

Unlike the nearby baseball stadium, it’s metal bench seating for softball.  There’s also no canopy overhead, which has two effects on watching the game.  One, though it was 70 degrees out, it felt like 90, especially with no breeze to speak of.  I was using my scorecard to shade my face from a scorching.  I may have sweated more sitting than exercising that morning.  Two, any balls that get fouled off over the backstop can go right into the stands, and we’re talking about a large yellow softball that you’re not going to try to catch unless you brought a big mitt.  And you don’t get to keep it either.  Stay alert. 

Speaking of foul balls, I saw the hardest working people at the stadium.  No, the Cheerleaders weren’t there.  (I’ve singled them out at the football and basketball games).  At the baseball stadium, foul balls were chased down by a rambunctious herd of little kids.  Here, two guys, one in a frat shirt, were responsible for balls going out of the stadium.  They were stationed at the top of the grandstand and had to walk down the steps and out towards the wayward ball.  And then, they went back up the grandstand.  The ball hawks got plenty of exercise.  Just keeping track of the number of foul balls in the game would have been too much work for me.  It must have been a pledge thing.

Meanwhile, I could tell one reason why there was a crowd, about a third of it was wearing orange and rooting loudly for the Aggies’s opponents, the UTEP Miners.  NMSU is somewhat fortunate to have an in-state rival (UNM at Albuquerque) and a 30-minute down the road rival in El Paso.  At least the various NMSU sports teams are guaranteed a good crowd for a couple of games.  They mostly sat near the opposing dugout, except for the lady behind me, who was cheering loudly for the whole game.  Given how the game went, she was a real fan.  In front of me was a young couple making out, just like at that Chihuahuas game last year.  I think the girl’s parents were there.  Honestly, she could have done better for a boyfriend.  There was also a little girl next to me that had a homemade sign with, I think, a player’s name on it.  She took it up to the scorer’s table behind home plate, but returned to her seat with it.  I have no idea what that was about.  And I stepped in somebody’s gum at my seat. 

On the field, that pitcher’s circle is menacingly close to the batter’s box.  Combined with the violent, wild pitching motion, it must be thrilling to take an at bat.  I can’t even duplicate the pitching motion, but it must be murder on the rotator cuff.  During pitches, you’d hear a slap sound before the ball would hit the mitt.  It was the hand hitting the leg as the ball was being released.  I pity the ump’s job in determining balls and strikes.  While I could usually see pitches in a ballpark, here, I could only guess.  Some Miner fan (I’m presuming, if it had been a coach, there would have been an ejection), made a crack about the strike zone loud enough for everyone to hear him.  I didn’t see anything egregious.  For the most part, batters either made contact or swung and missed anyway. 

Of course, the rest of the infield is also proportionally smaller, so that big yellow ball comes bouncing by pretty quick.  The defensive play of the game was by the Aggie Shortstop.  (I’m sorry I didn’t get anybody’s position written down.  Like I said, I arrived late.)  In the third, a grounder jumped up and appeared to smack her right on the chin.  She managed to pick it up and still throw out the runner for the final out of the inning.  The crowd gasped, but she trotted right off the field, seemingly unharmed.  Either it didn’t hit her where it looked like, or she’s got one tough game-face. 

While I’ve read the Baseball Rulebook, I admit that I’m fairly ignorant about the particulars of softball.  The Designated Player is equivalent to the Designated Hitter?  I think?  I’m really confused about substitutions.  I couldn’t believe I was seeing a Pinch Hitter taking a Walk, being replaced by a Pinch Runner, and then the original player returning to the field the next inning.  Runners also can’t take a lead off of base.  I think I learned this when an Aggie was called out after stealing a base.  Fashion-wise (which is part of the rules), I couldn’t help but notice that the girls weren’t wearing hats.  Some had visors, but not even all of them.  And most of them had long hair in a ponytail or braided.  You’d think short hair would be more practical.  (The Women’s basketball team mostly had the same style.)   

What made this sport different than a baseball game was what the players were doing when they weren’t playing.  The Miner girls spent the entire game yelling and chanting.  The Aggie girls may have been as well, but I was screened from them where I was sitting (and I wasn’t going to sit on the Miner side of the stadium).  If I had been the only fan in the stands, it still would have been loud there.  The girls were their own cheering section.  Who needs cheerleaders?  (I still missed them, especially Anna and the Sundancers.)  You could hardly hear the crowd over them, and it wasn’t a small crowd.  Perhaps we were all embarrassed by our lack of syncopation and rhythm by comparison.  The Aggie girls also had little infield meetings in between every out and every inning.  At the end of each Aggie at bat, the Miner girls in the field went to the dugout, and all girls who had been on the bench got up and ran a sprint to the outfield and back. 

For the game itself, the Aggies dominated.  Looking at my scorecard and notes, I did a terrible job of recording the game.  Forgive my errors.  I didn’t even get a scorecard to track UTEP at bats, so it’s a good thing the Aggies won.  The Aggies scored three runs in the first, including a run off a double steal and a dropped ball in the outfield that was oddly scored as a double.  I noticed the first two Aggie batters had an Ichiro-style, left-handed swinging bunt.  Given the size of the diamond, it was unorthodox, but generally worked.  While the defenders are closer, first base is also closer.  In the second, the Aggies scored two more runs.  This time I disagreed with the scoring of a dropped infield ground ball being scored a single.  I noticed calls like this with the Aggie baseball team.  Maybe college scoring is more forgiving than the pros. 

Meanwhile after four innings, Aggie pitcher #21 Karysta Donisthrope had shutout the Miners.  In the Aggie half, after the bases were walked full, #24 Corrin Green pinch hit a grand slam to center with two outs.  The team met her at home plate for congratulations and a quick party.  This is something that would not go over well in a baseball game while the game was still in progress.  The pressbox playing the Mighty Mouse theme (“Here I come to save the day!”) for next UTEP reliever, likely rubbed it in a bit.  Indeed, the next inning, leading 9 to 0, UTEP made a comeback off the Aggie reliever, scoring four runs. 

In the bottom of the fifth, the Aggies managed to clog the bases and score, mostly without getting a hit.  The game then ended abruptly on an RBI double by #3 Victoria Castro.  The Mercy Rule came into effect with the Aggies up by 8.  I had to figure that out by myself.  An announcement would have been nice.  The game had gone over two hours for five innings, so that was okay I guess.  The scoreboard read 13 to 4 and with the confusion of the last play, I wasn’t sure about the final score until reading it in the paper and seeing the score on TV. 

Players of the game.  Definitely, #21 Karysta Donisthrope for throwing four shutout innings with five strikeouts.  Offensively, Pinch Hitter #24 Corrin Green had one at bat and four RBI’s, and she was pinch-hitting for Castro, who went 3 for 3.  Controversially, my favorite player of the game was reliever #14 Kayla Green.  Kayla didn’t have a good outing, giving up four runs in 2/3 of an inning, but she’s a freshman and clearly laboring by the end of her appearance.  Hopefully, she’ll take in some experience from this.   But what can I say?  Kayla had a nice smile and seemed pleasant, which set her apart from what everyone else had displayed on the field.  Those promotional pictures of Aggie pitchers grimacing with a profound frown are not selling the sport to anybody.  In the process of the learning the position, please keep smiling. 

Las Cruces Sun-New picture

I ran into traffic and a roadblock coming out of the game.  The nearby Pan-Am Center was about to have a game.  I wondered if it was the Women’s Basketball team, and I might have stopped if I hadn’t been heading home to watch the end of NASCAR Daytona qualifying and a hockey game.  Good thing I didn’t.  It was actually a Globetrotters game, which wouldn’t have been fun by myself.     

Overall, it’s baseball, but with enough tweaks to where it’s a separate entity.  Unlike Women’s and Men’s basketball, there’s no direct comparison.  I will say that the girls on both teams displayed an espirit de corps that was unique to them, that I’d never seen in a baseball game, and I liked it.  I feel like I’ve complained all the way through this, but I really enjoyed the game and the sport for my first viewing.  It really helps selling Women’s sports to guys when the team is good like the US Women’s Soccer team (and some sex appeal, ahem, Alex Morgan), NMSU’s Women’s Basketball team, and the Softball team.  (The Volleyball team is also good, but really under-promoted.)  I will make every effort to see another softball game this season.