The No Preference Pirates

Pirate Plate, ready for the new season.

The Church of No Preference has been active in the church slowpitch softball league for several years. We're having some practices in preparation for the coming season. We're not bad for such a rag tag religious team. We finished first three years ago and the last two seasons we've been close to winning it all. So, we think, but don't pray (we leave things in the hands of luck) that we can finish number one again.

The league is made up of religious sects in two divisions. The No Preference Pirates are in the Non-Traditional Division along with The Unitarian Uniteds, The Druid Trees, The Indian Medicine Wheels, The UFOologist Saucers, The Hari Krishna Krishnas, The Scientology Actors, and The Atheist Thinkers. The top two teams along with the top two teams from the Traditional Division make the playoffs.

The Atheists are our nemesis seems like every year. The other two teams to figure to be in the running are The Druids and the Hari Krishnas, but anything can happen in a religious league, miracle finishes do happen.

The Traditional Division consists of The Catholic Crosses, The Baptist Preachers, The Sunni Sand, The Mormon Mountains, The Buddhist Buddhas, The Shiite Shooters, The Lutheran Lambs, and The Jewish Koshers. The Sunnis and The Lutherans are probably the two top teams with The Buddhists and The Catholics on their heels. I hope we don't end up in the playoffs against The Sunni Sand, they play aggressive slowpitch.

We have some pretty good players. Our pitcher, Dan Corns can really slug the ball, and he gets the ball over the plate. At second base we've got KF Nibla who hits for good average and has no preference about playing shortstop either. I play firstbase or hit designated hitter. Our catcher is kind of odd, but he just seems to do good things by accident, his name is Mack Coffee. The outfield has good power with George Bearbutt, Barley Marble and Bob Smith who we call The Decider.

Rounding out the team at third base is Rock Roy, the shortstop Henry Hawkins, and the designated hitter Sven Nailer and rotating at the other outfield spot are Les Houng and Foley Crump. Several other players get into the game, we play our full roster fairly equally.

The first game of the season is in a few weeks and we had our first practice a few days ago. We were looking rusty, but it was a bit cold and it was tough to get warm playing. Swinging the bat caused some stingers. Our first game is against The Scientology Actors, and we beat them a few times almost every year. They just don't seem to have much concentration on the game. Following them we play the tough Buddhas and then the equally rough Uniteds. The Buddhas have this big fat guy who hits cleanup from a crosslegged position and has led the league in homeruns three of the last five years.

Well, I'll let you know more as the season progresses. If you want season tickets or souvenirs just leave an email to get the schedule until we can get it posted to this website. We don't have many seats at Pirate Park but we do have "lawnchair hill" spots that go on sale the day of the game. Watch for further updates.