Every American male should.....

I believe that every self-respecting man in America....

1) should be able to drive a stick shift;

2) should be able to balance a checkbook; and

3) for God's sake, every red-blooded American should know the basic rules of baseball and be able to run the bases in softball.

I played softball for the first time in about 6 years on Tuesday. I played as a sub on a team from one of the departments at work. I saw two baserunning gaffes that appalled me:

a) runner on 1st, 1 out; short fly to the right fielder - by the time the right fielder caught the ball, our runner on 1st was standing (not moving) on 2nd base;

b) runner on 1st and 2nd, 0 out; the batter hits a ball into the gap. We had some slow runners on base.... and the batter rounded 1st with his head down and ended up on 2nd along with the guy from 1st.

I don't mean to sound racist, but these were white men on our team - these were not some Pakistanis that recently arrived in the US 5 years ago. There is no excuse for this.

If you sign up to play softball, God Dammit,you should know how to run the bases. Freddie and Warren will know that by the time they are 7.

Me? Well, I never got to show off my baserunning. I went 0-for-4 in the doubleheader with 4 pop outs. Damn golf swing...