Sunday was a beautiful day in Poway.

If you weren’t there, the temperature was an ideal 78°, so perfect that neither wind nor cloud dare interlope. At Sportsplex USA, the sun was beaming down on the cut green grass melting tarrying dew, while freshly raked infield dirt lay waiting for someone to run amok.

Careening his way to the ballpark that afternoon was Neill Kovrig, a tall and lanky softball player making the weekly trek down the Interstate for the last time this season. Neill is a member of the Baja Betty’s “Sin Nombre” softball team, and while the team still had another week of games, Neill would be out of town. Sunday’s games, then, would be his last of 2010.

Role players

Neill is what you call a bench player, a reservist. Very often, depending on the importance of the games, he may not even find his way into the batting order that week, and frankly it’s a role his lack of confidence embraces.

In almost two years as a Betty, countless innings and even a tournament or two, Neill has yet to come to the plate and get a hit. If he isn’t caught looking at strike three he is swinging and missing at a ball that may or may not cross the plate. At times, when Neill is walking up to bat, it looks as though he’d rather be somewhere, anywhere else.

Still he comes, every week, from all the way in San Marcos. He comes to practices, to games, to team events. He is so loyal, so dependable, that if he isn’t there, just warming the end of the bench, cheering his teammates on in a game he knows he won’t be playing in, he feels as though he’s letting them down.

Keeping at it

And he works so hard. He’s always ready to go to the batting cages and he listens to every word his coaches tell him and he tries to apply their instruction. He grips the bat, but not too firmly. He keeps his weight on his back foot and tries to shift it forward with his swing. Over the last two years, he’s tried everything: choking up, standing back, stepping forward, and in practice sometimes it works. In practice, sometimes the complex operation that is Neill’s swing works; he will make contact with the ball and the ball will go forward.

But not in the games. In games, when he swings, if he swings, he misses. In two years, the two times in a game when he’s struck the ball, it’s been foul.

Still, there he was, pulling in to the parking lot at the Poway Sportsplex happily waiting to sit on the bench alongside his teammates as they tried to clinch their second division title in as many years.

Neill didn't start in that first game, and he didn't expect to. He never does expect to. His team fought hard, played smart, and despite a heroic effort from the Krush pitcher, Neill's team won the title. There in the dugout he sat satisfied, happy that his friends had earned another trophy.

Then there was a break.

Once more, with feeling!

His team wasn’t scheduled to play again for an hour. His coach and close friend Jeff Praught pulled Neill aside to the batting cages there at the park and the two worked. Once again they went over the basics: watch the ball, watch it all the way in, then see the bat hit the ball — all the things he’d been working on for two years but had never been able to put in to effect when it counted.

Sunday was a beautiful day, wasn’t it? Not too hot, the faintest of ocean breezes and at 3:00 p.m. the last games of the day were starting. On the field were the newly crowned champions playing a game that still impacted how the rest of the division finished, and who would (and would not) be joining them in Columbus at the Gay Softball World Series (GSWS).

Not only was it a game, it was a game that mattered, and Neill was starting.

The game began in typical Betty’s fashion. A few runners got on, a few came home. Aggressive base-running and some timely errors put the team ahead. But back came Fiesta Cantina, the team’s worthy arch-rival, with a few runs of their own.

I think I can, I think I can …

In the second inning, up came the Betty’s hitters again, and again a few more got on base and a few more came in. Now, with the bases loaded up came Neill — not at the bottom of the order, in the 12th spot, where he normally is, but right there in the middle, the number 8 spot, where he’s likely to come up at least two, maybe three times!

His coaches had debated about the placement, but ultimately settled on giving him a spot higher in the order because it was his last week. It was a sign of confidence to someone who readily admits to having almost none of his own.

Up to the plate he walked. His teammates’ expectations undoubtedly matched his own, but still they cheered and clapped. With two years of near misses, perhaps their encouragement lacked conviction, but it was genuine. He is, after all, a well-loved member of his team, indispensable precisely because he keeps trying. He is the little engine that could, even though he never did.

Cool Hand “Neil”?

Into the batters’ box he stepped, then adopted his angled, elbowey crouch, hands choked up around the handle of the bat, eyes forward staring at the pitcher, waiting; waiting for the first of three inevitable strikes that would most likely fall without incident.

The pitcher gripped his ball, heaved his pitch and Neill eyed it coolly as it passed over the plate and as if on cue the umpire barked “Strike one!”

The second pitch floated toward him and Neill again stared it down, all the way across the plate and again the umpire barked “Strike two!”

The third pitch wafted through the air, but this time Neill wasn’t going to be a pacifist in his own demise. He was going to swing! He gripped the bat, watched the ball inch closer, he breathed, flexed his wrists, brought the bat head around, watch the barrel come through the zone and there it was! The ball!

The bat hit the ball, the ball hit the ground, and the ball went forward, in a game! Neill dropped the bat and began to run, his knees and elbows flailing toward first base almost like a cartoon.

Run!

His fellow Betty’s on base were caught off guard, but they recovered. They ran. They needed to cover 65 feet in a matter of seconds. The ball was rolling quickly between the pitcher and the third baseman. When the third baseman got the ball, the runner closest to her had already advanced, so she looked at 2nd, the shorter throw of her two remaining options, but that runner too was already almost there.

The delay caused by the fielder’s indecision gave Neill just enough time to amble down toward first base so far that even a strong throw probably wouldn’t get him, and an errant throw would certainly cause the runner now at 3rd to score. So without a throw, Neill was safe at 1st, his first hit in a game, ever.

The occasion was not lost on his teammates. They cheered wildly once the bat struck the ball, and erupted once he was called safe at first. They were euphoric and the cheering continued from the dugout until finally, without prompting, they started chanting in unison “Ne-ill! Ne-ill! Ne-ill!”

The accomplishment was unprecedented, and for Neill icing on the cake that was his team’s 2nd championship.

But Neill wasn’t done.

In the very next inning, with almost the identical circumstances, lightning struck twice. Again he hit the ball, and again it went fair, and again the fielder, this time the pitcher, looked at all three bases before settling on throwing to first, and again Neill’s apparently deceptive speed made him safe, and again without a throw. He was 2 for 2 for 2. Two hits, in two at bats, over two very long years.

Sunday was a beautiful day, wasn’t it?

Roman Jimenez is the sports columnist for SDGLN. He is an award-winning journalist who spent most of his career covering crime and politics. After burning out, he became a media consultant for high profile science and technology companies as the founder of The Media Prose. Belying his massive frame, Roman's skills as an athlete are well known, playing tennis and softball regularly with all the quickness and agility of a pregnant rhinoceros. As a result, Roman has covered sports in our community for various outlets off and on for 10 years.