News Staff Reporter
When I returned from spring break last year, I was approached by one of the prefects in my dorm last year, Jackson Holahan ’05, who asked me “You want to play P-Cup softball, Holden?”
“Um, what is P-Cup softball?” I inquired.
“What is P-Cup softball!? It is only the most important thing about life” he declared, “Can you catch?”
“Yeah, I am not too bad at catching.” I replied nervously.
“Good, you are playing right-center field tomorrow in our game.”
While President’s Cup softball was a very big deal to boys of all grades last year, the intensity and prestige of P-Cup softball has reached a new level this year under the guidance of commissioners Ryan Stewart ’06 and John Dillon ’06. Stewart wrote scouting reports of this year’s teams in The Press at the end of last year. A First Class conference was created for all of the players on each team to communicate information pertaining to scheduling, and to release yet another preseason scouting report.
P-Cup softball games have become as important to some students at Choate as their interscholastic contests. Last year, members of the participating teams wore whatever they wanted during the games, usually some form of comical get-up to amuse other participants and spectators. The conduct of players this year is a far cry from the more casual approach most took to P-Cup last year. Every team, whether it is undefeated Beaumont or winless Hill House, dons custom-made uniforms specific to their dorm.
While I value the results of golf tournaments or cross-country races far more than I do the results of P-Cup, when I stepped into the batters box to lead off for my team, the Mem-Atwater Zillas, I was as nervous then as I was at any point during the golf season. The game was not even a playoff game, and still the level of intensity was unlike any of the contests last year.
However, I am not sure I prefer the ultra-competitive and organized P-Cup to last year’s more casual version of the tournament. The league even has a website that posts a player profile as well as all the statistics one would find in the box score of a Major League Baseball game.
When I played for Hill House last year, it was irrelevant to me whether I hit a homerun or a pop fly, because the game was just about going out and having fun. This year, a poor performance earns you the last spot in the batting order or banishment to right field.
I commend Stewart and Dillon for the fantastic job they have done organizing the league and improving communication between teams so that people know when the games are, but in the same breathe I hope the intensity of P-Cup softball comes down a notch next year. I understand that some people absolutely love the intensity the games currently garner and would not find the activity fun without this competitive atmosphere. But I feel President’s Cup softball should be about friends playing a fun game together and enjoying the spring weather, not who wins the game. In the end it is only dorm softball, though some people forget that in the heat of competition.
