Playing on de Blasio’s Softball Team

Dear Diary:

Andrew Kelly/Reuters Mayor Bill de Blasio shows off his sporty side on Super Bowl Boulevard.

I hesitate to give this away because it gets such great traction at parties, but the timing is too perfect: I played on the same softball team as the new mayor.

Bill and I (I think a first-name basis is still O.K. given all the sweat, dust and crushing defeats we suffered) were teammates in the summer of 2005 on the 78th Precinct coed team in Brooklyn. Our home field was Dimattina Park in Carroll Gardens.

“What’s he like?” guests ask.

“Always upbeat,” I reply, starting with the political side of his personality. “He made you feel like you were his best friend.”

“Could he play?”

“He was good enough,” I tell them. “But what I remember most is that he was always on his cellphone, back when that kind of thing wasn’t so common.”

“You mean in the dugout?”

“Yes. And in center field. You’d see him chattering away while waiting for fly balls.”

It didn’t occur to me until after the election that perhaps the coach played Bill in the wrong position. After all, he did come out of left field to win.

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