Turf War! (Kind of!)

By: Sean | March 30th, 2009

As the weather improves, more and more people in the Pacific Northwest start to migrate out of doors and try to shake off the winter doldrums. You see more bicycles on the roads, more hikers on the trail in the Columbia Gorge, and more joggers braving the early morning darkness for a run. However, you know once and for all that spring has arrived when you show up at your local park soccer pitch and find it overrun with…softball players.

Let me first state that I have nothing against softball or baseball in principle…except that it is kind of boring and it isn’t soccer. I saw my first major league baseball game last summer and had a pretty good time. I saw a lot of standing around, a couple of hits and learned that Safeco Field makes these tasty yogurt covered strawberry kebobs. I even got to cheer once when the ball got hit in the air…until it got caught. It was a fine evening and I’ll do it again this summer, especially if I can see a game the day before or after an MLS match in the same city. So I have nothing against sports that involve a diamond and standing and occasional hitting.

Until they start taking up my pitch.

Yes, I know good weather is right around the corner when I go to my local pick-up scrimmage and find the far touch line occupied by outfielders and shortstops. The familiar sound of pre-scrimmage juggling–that comforting smack of ball on boot that precedes every footy match I have ever played–is replaced by the metal clink! of ball on aluminum bat, followed by some yell to “cover second!” or something like that. Like the swallows at San Juan Capistrano, there comes a Sunday in late March or April when the softballers come back to my park and roost in the infield for the next several months. Boys, girls, older men, younger women…it doesn’t matter what shape these new interlopers take. The result is the pitch we play on gets a little narrower, the cone goals get shifted closer to the tree line, and occasionally a good counter attack is thwarted as we duck to avoid a stitched projectile flying at our heads. Usually, our new neighbors will extend us the courtesy of yelling “watch out!” (and we appreciate it, don’t get me wrong) when a home run blast lands in the midfield, but inevitably we get this look of annoyance/agitation/disdain because the left fielder has to navigate our 4-4-2. Ironically, we footballers should be the ones who are annoyed/agitated/disdainful…because the weekend before, we were here playing when it was too rainy for them to practice. And the weekend before that when it was hailing? 8 v. 8, baby. Back in January when there was two inches of snow we were here, too, just not running quite as fast. Barring locust plagues or league matches someplace else, we’ll always be here playing the game we love. Boys, girls, older men, younger women, Mexicans, Serbians, Scots, professionals, blue collar workers…our scrimmage is a multi-generational, multi-cultural, multi-everything for anybody and everybody. (Regardless of the weather!) That’s soccer.

Thinking back, the closest incident I can recall to there being a turf war at the Sunday scrimmage was really a non-incident that probably nobody noticed but me. It didn’t even involve softball. Maybe two years ago we showed up at our pitch and a group of young twenty-something guys were tossing the old pigskin around, American rules flag football style. They numbered ten, maybe twelve. As our soccer group started showing up–mostly older gentlemen at first–you could see the unspoken cocky social dynamic start: They were not going to give us soccer guys space to play. We would have been happy to share the field, but we got the impression the feeling wasn’t mutual. The flag footballers continued to run their pass plays over to where we kicked around, occasionally going through our area. There were no real apologies when their ball bounced into our guys. Still, the soccer players continued to kick around on our end, slowly growing in number. Six became eight, then twelve, then sixteen. As our group swelled, there was a moment when the critical mass shifted and suddenly, the Hail Mary pattern quietly became an out play and stopped shy of us. There were no words, no remonstrations, no conflict. The flag footballers began to shift their runs to the side and the occasional errant ball into our turf got a “sorry, dude.” Soon we had about forty guys and with a 3:1 advantage we assimilated the rest of the pitch, even plunking down a portable goal beside their quarterback. The flag footballers huddled up, briefly considered calling it quits, then moved quietly away for another ten minutes of play before going home. There was no cursing, no hooliganism, not even an Eric Cantona karate kick. We are all adults and this is real life. Just a lot of guys wanting to play footy and a dozen guys walking off, flags fluttering behind them like tails between their legs…