Chamber Pot of Commerce
If there is one constant in the IOF it’s not that the Sea Around Us team will be taking meetings at their desks in an open office or that 90% of the faculty will be on leave/sabbatical at any given time, it’s that the IOF summer softball team will lose opening day. While inaugurating a new season yesterday the rebranded IOF team, now called the Red Sockeyes, lost a close game to an old enemy, the Commerce Cubs.
It was an inauspicious start for an upstart young team with more new faces and talent than previous years. Not unlike the new administration taking shape on the 2nd floor after Neil’s retirement, the IOF team was under new management. On the chopping block after four losing seasons, the team’s former skipper, Kristen Sora, read the writing on the wall and decamped to Vancouver Island with IOF’s entire stash of softballs and mitts faster than you could say “sea surface salinity”.
Thrust into a leadership role, new manager Jake Lerner and co-manager “Don’t forget you’re here forever” Dana Price faced an immediate roster crisis. Half the department was gone, bogged down in a trifling volleyball “tournament”, or “afraid of being included in department-wide sports update email.” After a veto from unelected but still President-for-life Jared Connoy and a rejection from “Walk Until You Feel Joy” Julia Mayer, the team found luck recruiting from other departments. The starting line-up featured three anthropology students, potentially the most ever assembled in one place outside of a lab meeting, with help also coming from Geography, EOAS, and Sam (Roshni’s boyfriend – Roshni was on the DL).
Short on gloves but high in spirit, the IOF took the field against a completely revamped Commerce Cubs ball club. The Sockeyes gave up three runs in the first inning after a ball slipped past Elsa Camins in right field like dried seahorses past a customs agent, but “Stupendous” Sam Cheplick staunched the bleeding with heads up plays at shortstop.
The offense failed to find its footing despite perfect pitching by Geography’s Kelsey “Mark” McGuire, but the defense kept the Sockeyes in the game. With two hot stops at second base, “Unsinkable” Nicole McHugh proved she can catch more than just microplastics in the Fraser River and, playing her first softball game since elementary school, “Life in the fast” Lane Atmore seemed just as comfortable securing outs at first base as she is analyzing herring DNA in Brian Hunt’s mysterious DNA lab.
Down 5-0 in the final inning, with the game threatening to drag on longer than a CIF video tribute for Neil’s retirement, the IOF put together a late rally. With two outs and runners on first and second, “Liable” Lindsey Paskulin beat out an infield hit by ZoomMSing down the baseline and “Illustrious” Angela Buttress followed with an RBI single. The offensive outburst was short-lived, however, and the IOF lost 5-1.
Not all players were upset with the opening day defeat. “I’ve always said that first games are like upcoming committee meetings for a stalled PhD thesis on urban zooplankton” commented centerfielder Ki Cho, who also tried pitching on the day, “it’s going to be disastrous, but it will also be formative.”
Come cheer on the Red Sockeyes next Thursday when they take on Microbiology at 5:30PM at Thunderbird Stadium!
Tags: IOF postdoctoral fellows, IOF Student Society, IOF students, softball, softball2025