Friday, November 27, 2009

If nothing else, Marathon is a town that knows how to take care of its own.

The bevy of local charities always seem to be able to come together to find a way to raise the necessary funds to make things happen. Their hook: contests.

Sure, there are some that will just hand over a check to a local charity, but who doesn't like the chance to participate in some sort of contest that will determine not only who is the most generous, but who is the best at some arbitrarily chosen game of sport or intelligence.

I've entered five such contests this year. I lost the first four in awful, embarrassing fashion.

There was the golf tournament to benefit high school athletics that nearly caused me to throw my clubs into Boot Key Harbor.

There was the time I entered a chili cook off to benefit the Marathon Jaycees -- a contest that I was so confident I would win, that I devoted an entire column to bragging about my skills -- where I finished fourth out of five competitors despite being on the Jaycees board of directors.

I was shut out at a spelling bee that was held to benefit Habitat For Humanity, and run out of the room in a "name that tune contest" that raised money for United Way.

Needless to say, I was a little bit apprehensive about entering the inaugural Jaycees vs. Greater Marathon Chamber of Commerce softball game, which was held last Friday night to benefit Toyz for Keyz Kidz.

First of all, I never got beyond the tee ball level as a kid. I played lacrosse throughout my youth, eventually becoming a top-flight goalie, and won a MAAC Conference championship my freshman year of college. It's no big deal, really.

Secondly, in all of our practices leading up to the big event I confirmed time after time that I am awful at softball. Being embarrassingly bad at something is not a trait that I want displayed under the lights at Marathon Community Park.

Furthermore, the chamber team was busy stacking its roster with a litany of ringers. I know for sure that the chamber recruited several girls from the Marathon High School softball team. This shouldn't be surprising, since the high school softball team is one of the most influential and important businesses in the chamber of commerce. There were also some rumblings that NY Yankees pitcher CC Sabathia was wearing a Mike Puto mask in order to sneak onto the roster, but I could not prove it.

The chamber team was led by local business owner Stan Haines. Haines is the owner of Collector's Corner here in Marathon, a shop that makes all the custom trophies, plaques, T-shirts and hats you see around town. I mention this, because it will be important later in the story.

The game got off to a pretty exciting start, with both sides trading runs back and forth for the first six innings. The floodgates opened when the Jaycees came to bat in the top of the seventh. After a couple of key walks and some timely hitting put the game out of reach, the final score was 23-11 in favor of the Jaycees.

I'd like to mention at this point I was a key, if not the key, to the victory. I rocketed three solid singles on the night and also reached base on a fielder's choice. Without my two RBI, who knows what would have happened in the game. I also played a couple of innings at catcher, where my heckling skills threw the chamber batters for a loop.

Following the win, we were presented with a six-foot trophy that made the Stanley Cup look like a thimble. And guess who commissioned this tower of self-aggrandizement? Why, it was Stan Haines, proving that the only thing better than irony is deliciously-awesome irony.

Furthermore, there was a big crowd there, including several people who kind of recognized me. This is a crowd of people who now know I am a winner of the highest order. I spent a half hour signing autographs before security told me to stop writing on people's property without them looking.