Yesterday was the playoff game for the B-league teams in the Oakland Engineers' softball league. Though we lost the final playoff game, we had a great season, evidenced by the fact that we actually made it to the final playoff game for our B-league. It was my first time ever playing softball (or even baseball), which turns out to be much more fun to play than to watch! Though the sport was new to me, the technique used to transmit power from the body's core through the arms and bat to the ball was very familiar, as it's the same technique used in swimming and couple dancing, where power is transmitted from the body's core to the water or to one's dance partner, respectively.
We played all our regular season games in West Oakland, right in the middle of gangland. The fields and parks are nice, but the surrounding neighborhoods and projects made for a sometimes-frightening experience, especially when games would drag on till dark and we'd hear gunshots in the distance. None of us ever saw anything disheartening in the area, but gang-related crime is common there, so hearing shots was always frightening. After the games in West Oakland, I'd skate back to the nearby BART station, incuring such cautionary comments from my teammates as "common, dude, this ain't Malibu...". Though I knew safe routes along which to skate to the station, the area does have a lot of crime, and my teammates' worries are not unsubstantiated. 40 years ago, West Oakland was a rich suburb of downtown, and still has the large old homes to prove such. Sometime since then, however, the area descended into poverty and crime. This was likely due to the closing-down of Oakland's WWII steel and shipbuilding (Kaiser) industries, the "white flight" of the 50's to the suburbs that was accompanied by the invasion of Oakland with flyover freeways that divided neighborhoods, and the abandonment of the once-extensive transit systems that until that time kept this area well-connected with the rest of the Bay Area. Regardless, the area is still home to the largest port in the region; with all the commerce and jobs created by the port, why is the area still so poverty stricken? Why do gangs hold a monopoly on the area's youth?
On the bright side, however, I did meet local softball coaches, who organized the area's kids into softball and soccer teams, keeping them off the streets and out of reach of the gangsters who would otherwise lure them into another life. Men like these coaches are hope for a brighter future for Oakland and us all.
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