Softball: Causing disagreements since 1887

I had another Iowa vs. Missouri discussion with one of my best friends last night. No, it wasn't about how she needs to go to graduate school closer to me, which I think she should, or how pointless it is for her to sporadically bring up the 1985 World Series again because neither one of us was even thought of in 1985.

Instead, the discussion revolved around something both of us wish we had more time to dedicate to.

Softball.

You see, I believe Iowa does softball the right way and Missouri has a completely backwards way of handling softball. In Iowa, softball is played in the hottest months of the year by seemingly every high school in the state, regardless of the school's size. Softball players in Iowa play several games during the week, travel to tournaments on the weekends and some play on AAU or ASA teams on the side.

Down south, in Missouri, softball doesn't start until late August, when school starts again, and is over by October. And, even worse, a lot of schools don't have a softball program.

My freshman year of college I asked someone who would become one of my non-biological sisters if she had played softball in high school. Leasa said no, Tarkio didn't have a program. Actually, none of the small area schools she played basketball and volleyball against had softball ? 20 minutes north, across the border in Iowa, had a ton of teams, she said.

I nearly fainted.

Luckily for Cassie, her small northwest Missouri high school had softball and she also played on an ASA team for years, allowing her to have shoddy knees, ankles and wrists by age 22. We enjoy bemoaning old softball injuries from time to time when we run out of other sports-related discussion topics.

Last night's discussion with Cassie started when I told her I had just caved in and spent some money on new batting gloves and a cheap but very functional fast pitch bat. Cassie responded by sending me a link to show me the bat her dad had bought for her and her younger sister to use at softball clinics they help with.

After talking with other softball players over the years, there must be some subconscious, psychological thinking which turns on when buying a new bat. It's almost as if having a shiny new bat with bright colors, highly detailed graphics and a name such as "The Reaper" automatically improves your batting average.

If only it worked that way.

I haven't really swung a proper softball bat, nor thought about my swinging technique in a while. What is a while? Well, probably nearly 10 years, since I stopped playing high school softball. The same can be said for even throwing a ball or knowing where my well broken in glove ended up at my parents house.

I knew I wouldn't play softball forever, which caused me to one day in middle school tell my mom during softball season, "I've adopted the Brett Favre way of playing ? I'm done when playing softball quits being fun."

At least that attitude worked out for one of us.

But then, a few weeks ago, one of my co-workers mentioned that her daughter loves softball. It was as if I'd been given explicit permission to start spending money on softball equipment and to start thinking about softball again.

I said I would be more than happy to work with her daughter before her Little League season starts in May, barring the daughter doesn't mind practicing with a washed-up player who is sure to end up with a shoulder injury after four swings of a bat.

Cassie told me that softball is a spring and summer sport. I said it's predominately summer, she replied "not where I'm from."

I replied "Where I'm from it is. You get drenched in sweat in 95º weather in July, have a wicked farmers' tan by the end of the season and love every moment of it."