Cascade (AD 16) - Naval Cruise Book

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Softball Tournament HARDBALL is a game played with leather mitts, gusto, and a hard ball. Softball is like hardball only it is played with gusto and a soft ball. You play it on a diamond with a pitcher ' s box and regular bases made of canvas. Otherwise you use a Seaman Second for home plate and skivy shirts for bases. A run is scored when the man on third comes home after the ball is hit with a contrivance known as the bat. If the ball is knocked over the fence that is a home run. and if you are keeping score you can either jot down home run then or wait until the fisticufiuig ' s over. In any case when a home run has been committed it is considered good form to pound the man on the back when he goes over to get a drink after crossing the home platter or plate. When you have a number of teams on the field you do not usually let more than two teams play at a time on the same diamond. Otherwise, it is confusing. A tournament is a good idea. For the U.S.S. CASCADE we arranged a tournament. With eleven teams entered, we started out on an ambitious round-robin sched- ule which called for each team to play every other team — the games to be played at Richardson Center. However, when the schedule was about half completed, the admirals had a meeting and decided the CASCADE should anchor farther south and nearer Tokyo. I guess they didn ' t know we still had some games left to play. The place to which they sent us had never even heard of baseball, apparently, although we might have gotten up a brisk game of cricket if the coconut trees hadn ' t been so thick. As a matter of fact the palm trees were so close together the mosquitoes carrying dengue fever had to break formation and fly single file to get through. And the island was so small that the catcher would have had to carry a life preserver to chase foul balls. Rather than let the trophies lose their polish we decided to call the tournament on the basis of the games then played, and make the awards. This was done on a night when the band played topside. Well, now, to get down to the facts. These were the teams entered : ► ' — M Team Entered by Acey-Deuceys First Division Sloppy Shods Second Division Otto ' s All Stars. ...Third Division Dah Dits Fourth Division PowERHOUSERS Fifth Division Commandos Team Entered by War Heads Sixth Division Naturals Seventh Division Hot Shots Eighth Division Four B ' s Ninth Division Blood Hounds Tenth Division ...Eleventh Division We will not go further into statistics than this. Statistics make dull reading. Don ' t you think so, too? (The fact that the writer ' s Division ended the season with a straight 000 percentage has absolutely nothing to do with it.) Suffice it to say, gentle reader, that the winning team was the Eleventh Division ' s Commandos. This team won all its encounters. The runner-up was the Ninth Division ' s entry — winning the toss-up from the Fifth Division, which had tied for second place. If the teams had all seen the trophies before the season started, they might have tried harder. These were exceedingly handsome, as the illustration printed else- where in this volume amply proves. The first place plaque was silver solder on wood. The plaque awarded the runner-up was polished aluminum on wood. They were tossed off by the foundry in an odd moment, Mr. Erhardt pouring. The plaques now adorn the respective Division headquarters. You might stop in at the Supply Office or the Carpenter Shop and see them some time when you have a yen to play this game which is played with gusto and a regulation, out- seam, horsehide-covered. triple-stitched, sojt ball. Page Th irieen

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