MONMOUTH -- The Monmouth First United Methodist church softball team had the third-worst record in the 10-team area church softball team.
That isn't a good enough reason for Coach Justin Sims to throw in the towel for this weekend's rescheduled opening round of the tournament, though.
"We have some people that will be coming back to play in the tournament the next couple weeks, hopefully," Sims said this week during a practice that was delayed due to thunderstorms. "What we really need is half the people here tonight to NOT show up for the tournament, for the love of winning. There's too many old people that think it's 'just for fun.' Well, it isn't. I take this extremely serious. This is CHURCH softball. If it's for God, than we should win...it shouldn't be like 'this is for you, God...here's a 18-3 loss'. No, no, no. We need to win. We need to at least compete. And we don't need old man river, his wife and his nursing home mother out here 'having fun!'"
League rules say that everyone needs to play in church softball if they are present and there is no 9-player lineup. That means on some Sunday afternoons, when around 14 people have shown up, they all bat through the lineup. And everyone usually gets an inning or two in the field, too.
However the yellow-clad FUMC team has a couple of players that should be able to play in the next couple weekends. A former college baseball player who bats left-handed and a guy who's been working for a train company, is gone most of the time that can hit and field anywhere as well.
"Those guys need to show up," Sims continued. "It's unexcusable for them to not show up. It always has been. But I'm willing to accept they have 'lives' and need to 'support their families'. It's just really frustrating when I leave messages and go to their houses in the middle of the night to plead with them to get their lazy asses to the games so we have a chance."
Sims, who recently moved from third base to shortstop after what Sims calls "some guy who doesn't know how to tie his own shoes was playing shortstop and mysteriously got hurt" went out, doesn't have all of the teams' support on his ideas of wanting to win.
"He just seems like he's really into this. He's such an angry young man when we play softball. He threatened to slash my tires and hide my medication if I kept having conversations with the other team when I got on base," 68-year-old Mildred Smith said. "I don't get it, we're out here to have fun. Not to win at all costs."
Monmouth FUMC plays Countryside for their first game of the tournament, a team FUMC beat earlier in the season. The winner of that game plays Immanuel Baptist, the defending champs.
"They beat us so hard, I had to sleep standing up last time," Sims said of Immanuel Baptist. He has other ideas on how they won though: "They certainly are well-versed on how to recruit good players and use corked bats. I mean I'm willing to bet half those assclowns don't go to their church. Then those bats they have...give little old lady Robinson from our team one of those bats and I'm sure she'll hit it 400 damn feet."
While Monmouth FUMC has a record of 3-13 in the regular season, they have had some fan support from their faithful.
"I'm looking forward to the tournament, I would love to see them win but mostly it's just fun to watch my grandkids," spectator Lois Young, 76, said about her twin grandsons playing on the team.
"I don't give a s***, if it were up to me, they'd be off the f***** team, too. If she wants to watch her f***** grandkids have fun, let her do it from their house or their damn barnyard farm or wherever the hell they live. It's absolutely ridiculous. It's not like she's out there making noise. She just sits there and f***** gossips. I can hear her from the dugout. I wish she'd just shut her mouth," Sims vented.
If the FUMC team loses early in the tournament like last season?
Sims said: "I don't know, there's this really hot girl from Immanuel Baptist I'm smitten with. Maybe we'll go out and I can 'steal the team's playbook' so to speak during the offseason...or I'll just drink more during the winter."
Subject: Monmouth FUMC Softball Readies for Tournament 
Thu Aug 23, 2007 9:49 pm
