In the playoff's!

Sunday morning I had to get up and get ready for my oral board. I had to scour my house to find all the pieces I needed for my suit. I found all the pieces and headed to Pullman. I had the oral boards for the fire department. The Pullman fire department only tests every two years or so, so when you get the chance to get on the list you don't want to miss out. Last time I ended up number five over all. That is not good considering to get an interview you have to be in the top three. It is even worse when you consider that turn over is so small we only hired one person off the list in the last two years. I was going into the testing in the top ten, but I needed to end up better than that.

I got into the room and Carl, Assistant Fire Chief Colfax Fire, was there. I was expecting that since I had heard he was going to be on the oral board. Since I am a Colfax Fireman as well, he knew me. I was worried that would actually hurt me a little bit. We should hear by next week where we ended up on the list. Hopefully I do well. They asked the typical question's. Things like seeing someone drinking, seeing someone playing golf who had called in sick. After it was done, I went home and got out of my suit. I was going to be helping Jason move some heavy stuff from his house.

I had some time so I went to Colfax fire and chatted with Ken. At about one o'clock pm I headed back to Pullman to help Jason. I got there and within a few minutes all the others showed up. We moved the items and then it was off to Zeppoz to have some beer. Our payment for helping. We were not at Zeppoz for ever when we had to go to the softball fields for softball.

I got there first and everyone else started to filter in. The co-ed team was already in the play offs. It was a matter of having fun. In game two I was able to play short stop the whole game. It was fun to do, I really did not get any plays out there. However near the end of the game Michele tried to field a ball that was bounced to her on the throw. Her thumb got in the way. She was sure she broke it. So, her and her husband went to the hospital. We finished out the game, and instead of going to Zeppoz with everyone else, Ryan and I went to the hospital to show support. We hung out there until game time. Michele was still being taken care of so I did not get to see her, but we hung out with Dan.

Ryan and I got some water and headed to the field. We had two games to play. The first game was terrible. Neither team was hitting the ball, I had a perfect game going for a while so did the other pitcher. Finally we both started to hit the ball. We were done with a full six innings in less than thirty minutes. It was amazing. It ended up a tie game. So, now we either had to win or tie in our last game to make it to the play offs. We get home team and they go to work against us. They hit the crap out of the ball. They scored eight runs in the first inning. The run rule was invoked. They did not have three outs, but since they scored eight runs their half of the inning was over. I could feel some of the enthusiasm bleed from the team. The first game everyone was joking around and having a lot of fun. But after we held them to one run in the second inning and we scored six, the attitude changed. Everyone lightened up and started to have a lot of fun.

Soon we took the lead. We would not give up the lead and went on to win the game. During one point in the game I was at third base with less than two out. The ball was a medium length fly ball to center field. They caught it. I tagged up and knew I would be out if I tried to score. The problem was the fact of the "commitment line". It was a point of no return so to speak. Once you cross it, the catcher only has to posses the ball and touch the home plate. It is a force out. In fact if the catcher tags the runner past the commitment line the runner is safe and the run scores. On the other hand if the runner touches home plate, he is out, no matter what, even on a homerun. I could tell the catcher was more or less clueless. So, I ran up to the commitment line and waited. Sure enough he bit. He came up the line to tag me. I waited until he was close to the commitment line. I then crossed it which meant the only way to get me out was to touch home plate. He on the other hand tagged me. That immediately made me safe. My team rejoiced. The loved it. We did win. We were excited since we were hitting the play offs for the first time in a few seasons!

I dropped Ryan off at the Roto and went home.