The Scheffleras Part 1

The Scheffleras Part 1

It was either late '81 or early '82 when I joined a group of co-workers on a company co-ed softball team. We weren't a very good team and as proof I was one of the better players on the team. I enjoyed getting to play ball again, as I hadn't played since I left Eugene in the summer of '78. I only remember playing one season and as I recall, we were a middle of the pack type team. There are three things that stick out to me about playing on that team.

The first one is we had a guy from the Operations Division named Frank. Frank could hit the ball a long way. He was older than me, maybe by 5 or so years. I was coaching 3^rd the first time he hit the ball well over the outfielder's head. He took off and as he was coming into third the ball was still in the outfield so I waved him home but he stopped at 3^rd , bent over, and put his hands on his knees. He was too winded to continue to home.  I don't think he ever hit a home run even though he hit the ball over the outfielders' heads a number of times.

The second thing I remember is I hit into a triple play. I came up to the plate with the bases loaded and no outs. I was up batting left-handed. Now, I do not generally hit the ball particularly hard, especially from the left side. I am left-handed, but I have a weak right hip and it keeps me from transferring my weight efficiently from my left side to my right (swinging a bat left-handed). As a result, my swing uses a lot of upper body but not a lot of legs where the power typically comes from. Well I don't do it great the other way either but I am much stronger shifting my weight from right to left (swinging a bat right-handed). Anyway, I swung hard at the first pitch and I hit a hard line drive right down the line. All the runners took off. The 1^st baseman, for some odd reason, was playing right on the bag, like he was holding the runner on even though there is no reason to do this in softball. He jumped up and snagged the ball for the first out. I was barely out of the batter's box. He came down and landed on first for the second out. He then threw to second. Our runner on second was still on his way to third and that was out number 3. Even worse the runner that was on third was still running home and if it had been necessary, they could have gotten yet another out. It's the one and only time I have hit into a triple play. It may have been the only triple play I have witnessed in person my entire life and I did it!

Thirdly, and most significantly, from that team another team, this time all male, was formed by a guy named Leon. He didn't exactly work for Tymshare, I think his girlfriend or wife did (don't remember if they were married at that point) but Leon had a contract for maintaining all the plants in the Tymshare building. As I remember his company name was something like “Plantco Scheffleras”.

For whatever reason, I guess Leon decided that he could use a guy who had experience hitting into a quadruple play and I was invited to play. Well, maybe invited is not quite the right word, as I think it was more a case of Leon asking if anyone was interested in joining his team and I replied “I am.” before he could say except you Dave. Lucky for me Leon was a nice guy. Leon named the team “The Scheffleras”. That's right, our team had the name of a common house plant. Not exactly the kind of macho name that would serve notice to our competitors. No, there was no “Hit-men”, “Hit Squad”, “Bashers”, “Banshees”, “Bat Intentions” , “Brew Crew”, “Intimidators”, “Ballers”, “Assassins”, or “Wrecking Crew” for us. We were the scary Scheffleras that struck fear into, well no one. Our saving grace was that it was likely no one on the other team probably knew what a Schefflera actually was. I think the plant may be toxic to cats or dogs so there was that. Unfortunately, there were no dogs or cats playing on any of the teams in our league.

The first season we had largely Tymshare people, either employees or spouses of employees. We decided to play with the intention of letting everyone play equally and the result was our number of wins failed to match our number of losses and the difference was not something we like to discuss. As I like to say, we came in second, a lot. The next season the general sentiment was “Screw that equality stuff, lets play to win.” A few more players joined the team and we became more competitive.

When I joined the team the only guy I really knew was Mike who also worked at Tymshare. Not sure what position he played. He may have played some shortstop or maybe he was a pitcher. Our fearless leader, Leon, became our pitcher or maybe he was from the very start, I don't rightly remember. Leon was a good ballplayer who was fundamentally sound. By that I mean Leon always made the right play, was in the right position, threw to the right base, etc. Those traits are not as common as you might think, especially with recreational softball players. I think Leon played small college ball – Leon you can correct me if that's not right.

I don't remember much about who was on that team in the beginning. Some of the players I do remember as we became a better team were Ron (2^nd), Kelly (3^rd and later Left Field), and Steve (Left-Center) who was the best softball player I ever played with. We had Leon of course and a guy named Jim was our catcher. Soon we added other guys like Phil, Dale, who introduced himself to me by breaking my vintage baseball glove at practice (for more on that see “My Dad and My Baseball Glove” story published in Jan of 2021), and Tim who I remember pointing out to me how key attitude and energy was to winning.

I originally played left field. I had good speed and was a pretty good fielder but I did not have much of an arm. Anytime I tried to throw the ball hard I felt a sharp pain in my shoulder so that would tend to discourage me from trying to throw too hard and let me assure you that I didn't throw that hard even when I threw hard enough to make my shoulder hurt. I tried to compensate for this by getting rid of the ball quickly.

I played left field for a few seasons. One of my last games in left, maybe my last, is sadly was one of my most memorable moments playing with the Scheffleras. I was playing left field and it was either a playoff game or a game to qualify us for the playoffs. There was a base runner, as I recall, on 2^nd. A well struck ball came out towards left center. It was very catch-able. If I had caught it, it would not have been memorable. I had to run in and to my left. I was thinking I needed to get set to throw to 3^rd after I caught it. The ball was tailing away from me so as I got there I had to reach a little to my left. I failed to reach far enough left and the ball hit off the end of my glove. Was it so far left that I was not able to catch it? No, I should have caught it. It was just a bit further to the left than where I had put my glove. My teammate to the left of me, Steve, could have caught it although it was a longer run for him. Hence he didn't call me off, probably a decision he regrets to this day. It was not a difficult play. I just plain made an error and, as I remember it, the runner scored and we pretty much lost the game on that play. As you can see I still think about it today. I have played lots of softball on numerous teams. I have made a number of catches where I was fully stretched out and running at full speed, a couple with my back to home but that dropped line drive while playing for the Scheffleras sticks with me and is one of the softball plays that I still remember most.

Shortly after that I moved from left field to right and Kelly, who had previously been playing 3^rd base, moved to left field. Kelly was a good player and had a strong arm. I tell myself it was due to my weak arm and not that missed catch, but I'm not sure I believe me. Really, it was all Steve's fault. He should have called me off – just kidding Steve... Being left handed the positions available to me are somewhat limited but I do like playing the outfield and in rec leagues there's more action in left than right but moving Kelly there was the right move for the team.

I would play left again and even some left-center on other teams I subsequently played with. The truth is I was never able to get myself to play relaxed in left field for the Scheffleras. I was always a little tight applying self-inflicted pressure to perform well. I suspect this was because I saw myself as one of the weaker players on the team. Over the years I realized that in general I relax and play best when I think I am one of the better players on a team and less so when I don't.