Today, Thursday, June 10, weather permitting since our fine State is under a flash flood warning, Stumpy and his Texans return to Dallas for a try at a three-peat for our State’s, Senior Softball, Championship. State championships in any sport are a big deal in Texas! Winning “State” would qualify The Texans for “bragging Rights” and their third go at The Tournament Of Champions in Florida, next February.

Our main competition will be the Texas Greyhounds, who we have handled very well this year. But, you never know what will happen when you play on a square field, with a round ball and a round bat!

But, Stumpy says, “We’ll bring home the bacon this year too!”

The accommodations were nice and the sea food was excellent, but the softball left much to be desired. Stumpy, managing the team last week, and his Texans left too many men on base, committed several very, key errors, hence the results weren’t good in Pensacola. Finishing third behind the Southeastern 70’s, who beat the Georgia Classics 9-7 to win the tournament, Georgia coming in second, The Texans didn’t get the opportune hits, loosing to Georgia 11-10 twice and Southeastern once, 16-11. Errors were our bane and caused over half the runs we gave up to be unearned!

Georgia and Southeast are two very good teams, so are we, but eliminate the miscues, or we get a couple of hits at the right time, the story would be much different! But last week’s games are history and we have to look ahead to our next tournament either in Dallas or Baton Rouge, however, who knows how these games will turn out, since we play with a round bat, a round ball, on a square field! We’re just blessed to still be playing at our age!

Stumpy and his Texans are off to Pensacola for another Senior Softball tournament. Stumpy will be managing the team for this one so let’s wish him and the team the best of luck!

There is a little place, right on the water, between our hotel and the ball park, that has the best fried, mullet in the world! If stumpy can get the team out of there, maybe they’ll do OK in the tournament?

This past weekend Layla and I held a Senior Softball tournament in Baytown, Texas, a suburb on the east side of Houston. On Saturday, Stumpy and his Texans won their age division, defeating both the Texas Greyhounds and the 75year old, Texas Classics. Both of these teams are rated as super major, Senior Softball teams and The Texans, rated only as majors, played their best to win their part of the tournament.

Later, on Saturday afternoon while Stumpy was presenting awards to the San Antonio them that won their age division, he made a blunder. He mentioned that the Battleship, U.S.S. Texas was permanently moored right next to the San Jacinto Monument. Both monuments commemorate General Sam Houston’s victory on April 21, 1836 over Santa Anna, the Dictator of Mexico.

Stumpy, in a “historical” moment, mentioned the fact that not ten miles from where we were standing, in 1836 General Houston whipped Santa Anna’s butt. Wouldn’t you know it, the first team member to be honored with all-tournament honors was named Gonzales.

Stumpy ate his words!

Today, Stumpy and The Texans are heading to Baytown, Texas for their third Senior Softball tournament of the year. New teams, new fields, a new year and all of this will take place within ten miles of where the Battle of San Jacinto, the birthplace of Texas liberty, took place. The battle was on April 21, 1836 and our tournament starts on, Friday, April 23rd.

Texans feel very strongly about this victory. General Sam Houston literally caught Emperor Santa Anna with his pants down, his being involved with “The Yellow Rose of Texas” during the Mexican’s siesta. The Texans charged and caught the entire Mexican force at rest and routed them. This earned our freedom from Mexico and established our Republic.

The battlefield is commemorated with a beautiful park on Independence Parkway, the U. S. Battleship, U.S.S. Texas, a veteran of WW I and WW II, moored at the park and an obelisk, the San Jacinto Monument, that happens to be taller than The Washington Monument (so much for bragging Texans). The rest is history.

Just think, my ancestors waited for nine years before they came to Texas!

The second Senior Softball tournament of the 2010 season, the real season, gets underway today in Georgetown, Texas. Stumpy and The Texans will play on today and Friday and the young guys, 50’s and 55’s, finish up on Saturday and Sunday.

With all Senior Softball Teams, hopes are high, with dreams of a National Championship, but only one in each age group will walk away with the spoils. This year The Texans are pumped for a good season having a good, experienced (at our age we have a lots of experience) nucleus and have added a power hitter and another pitcher to our talented team.

Who knows how the 2010 season will turn out? Who knows, because we play this game with a round ball and a round bat, on a square field?

With high hopes for a rerun of our 2009 championship, Stumpy and The Texans went to Winter Haven, Florida this past weekend and participated in The Tournament Of Champions. Our hopes were high, but our performance stunk!

We opened the tournament with a 19-4 pounding of a good Michigan team, then four innings into the game, the rains came, washing out the tournament for Friday. Saturday morning was cloudy and windy with the temperature between 39 and 41. Terrible conditions, but they were the same for both teams and an excellent team from Florida handed us two beatings, 11-7 and 13-8.

Better conditions on Sunday, not quite as cold and not as windy, but Oregon handled us 11-6, then we were embarrassed by Michigan, 16-4. This loss sent us home with our tails between our legs!

Next tournament is in Georgetown, March 18-21. With The Texans, hope still springs eternal!

Tomorrow, Thursday, Stumpy’s off to Lakeland, Fl. to play in The Tournament Of Champions. This is Stumpy’s team, The Texans, second straight visit to this prestigious event. Last year, beating Cape Cod, the team won the tournament and became one of the “best of the best” in Senior Softball.

The Texans qualified for this year’s Tournament of Champions by, last June, beating a good, Texas Greyhounds team in the rain shortened State Championship series, see [Texans Win State Again]. However, each game, each year, is a new challenge and this will be a good indication of how The Texans will stack up this year.

In the most exciting high school football game that I have ever seen, last Saturday, in Jones/AT&T Stadium, in Lubbock, the Goldthwaite Eagles, finishing the season at 15-0, won the Class A, Division 1, State football, championship! They beat the number one ranked, Canadian Wildcats, 29-25. Canadian had won back-to-back state championships, while Goldthwaite, state ranked number three, hadn’t won one since 1994.

Pundits, sports writers and those in the “know”, said that Goldthwaite, in their “old fashioned” wishbone formation couldn’t keep up in a scoring race with the high tech, spread offense of Canadian. But, football is a funny thing! Goldthwaite gained more yardage both rushing and passing than Canadian, and, and, passed for three touchdowns! Goldthwaite also had the edge in time of possession thirty-three and a half minutes to fourteen and a half! Goldthwaite lost no fumbles, suffered one interception and had only three penalties, while Canadian lost two fumbles, had two passes intercepted and had seven penalties.

Goldthwaite opened the season with a shutout victory over Collinsville and I forgot to take my camera to the game, so I didn’t mention it on Outdoor Odyssey. Sensing this could be a good year for the team, I didn’t want to jinx them, so I didn’t mention any of their games, but with eight shutouts, it was hard not to. These shutouts weren’t against “patsies” but state ranked, excellent football teams.

And, by the way, our Grandson, Colton, Goldthwaite’s middle linebacker, led the team in tackles for this big game, for the season too and, as a sophomore, was chosen second team All State!

Last week, Stumpy and the Texans traveled to Phoenix to play in the Senior Softball National Championships. Everyone arrived on Sunday, October 18th and was greeted by 101 degree, temperature. This was a new record for that date! Luckily a dry front came through during the night and our tournament was played in ideal weather, light wind and mid 80’s for the highs. This particular front dumped two inches of rain on central Texas!

The Texans haven’t been playing well lately, not driving the ball and not playing good defense, hence, we finished fourth with three wins and four losses. There weren’t many bright spots. Several players hit well; Jack, Eldon, Chuck, Gary, Phil, our MVP, and Stumpy, who had thirteen hits in nineteen at bats with ten RBI’s!

There’s one more tournament this year and it’s in Las Vegas in mid November, right in the middle of the first week of deer season, which means Stumpy won’t be there. After Stumpy’s injuries piled up this year; a pulled groin, kidney stones and facial surgery for skin cancer, he topped it all off with a “ruined” ankle, courtesy of a line drive. Running the bases, he thought he had jumped high enough for it to miss him. He jumped just high enough for it to whack his ankle. That was last Tuesday and he is still limping around!

Better luck next year!