St. Patrick's Day has for twenty years been a day of reckoning for the ski school and the ski patrol — a day of retribution and a period of ruthless settling of scores — as they battle for the coveted title of champion of the annual St. Patrick's Day Ski-Softball match.
Risking life, limb, and the possibility of incessant mocking, a Telluride Watch reporter joined the St. Patrick's Day fray this year, as a player for the 2003-04 champs, the Telluride Ski Patrol. This is her story.
For most people, St. Patrick's Day is all about drinking beer, eating corned beef, and wearing green. But in Telluride, and especially among the ranks of the Telluride Ski School and Telluride Ski Patrol, St. Patrick's Day means much, much more. For twenty years, this has been the day when these two otherwise nonviolent tribes don masks of passion and wear their loyalties on their sleeves to compete against each other in the annual St. Patrick's Day softball match on skis.
Most Telluride locals are aware of this annual tradition, as it has been a beacon for many years' St. Patrick's Day celebrations. From the outside, the game appears to be a friendly match between two ski resort departments, a game that is enjoyed by many spectators but then soon forgotten in the post-St. Paddy's haze. But under the guise of holiday entertainment rests a much more dangerous dragon. Only a few chosen members of these two groups truly sense the magnitude of this annual event. For them, reputations are made, respect is lost, and either elation or heartbreak balances on the line. These are the hidden secrets I was able to unearth this year, playing for the ski patrol in this perilous contest of softball on skis.
This year, the ski school entered into the melee hoping to mend the embittered broken pieces of their reputation, which was crushed last year when they lost to ski patrol in a 16-4 blow-out. But the ski patrol team, whose behinds were still smarting from the embarrassing spanking they took at the hands of the ski school the previous year, were also determined to take the win in 2005. Pre-season training thus began earlier this year, with ski patrol players pumping up their arm muscles with daily mug-lifting sessions, and ski schoolers practicing their moves on midget-sized skis every day on the mountain.
The ski patrol team's training regimen this year fell under the talons of manager Jim "Bud" Greene, who demanded that all interested players attend grueling post-sweep practices, and for the first time in ski patrol history, a St. Patrick's game try-out. Manager Greene put aside my poor performance from last year — where I struck out twice in a row and was immediately benched — and I narrowly made the cut to play catcher.
Poor game performance is simply not tolerated, on either side. There are stories of ski patrollers who, in the heat of battle, made gross errors and overthrows that resulted in ski school runs. Those ski patrollers remain the laughingstock of the organization, forever banned to the sidelines and never again brazen enough to show their faces at Stumper Stadium field.
Passionate game-time intensity is not absent from the ski schoolers side either. Historically the underdog, members of the ski school team have spent years listening to the incessant heckling of ski patrol director Gary Richard, who has never spared an opportunity to recall past ski school defeats or ski school on-field debacles.
With so much riding on this this year's game, both teams decided on certain borderline-deceitful game tactics, all in the name of a 2005 victory. The ski school sent two good-looking ladies and a tall bottle of Jameson's Irish Whiskey to the ski patrol bench in the first inning in an effort to upend the mental capacities of the Patrollers (many of whom have reputations as habitual companions of Mr. Jameson, as well as Mr. Patron and Mr. Beam).
The ski patrol, as I innocently discovered, had a plan of their own. Unconfirmed sources suggest that steroid use was involved — I have no comment on that. But members of the team insist that their game plan was simple. This year, players actually knew how to play the game. In an overwhelming show of support for the ski patrol team, almost a dozen patrollers created a Telluride Town League men's softball team last summer. Although the Lizard Loungers tended to spend more time lounging on the bench with the keg than actually winning games, many of the team's players eventually learned where to throw the ball and when to run the bases. They brought these skills to last Thursday's St. Paddy's Day match against the ski school.
As all the hype and propaganda came to a head Thursday, and my career as a ski patroller flashed before my eyes, it became clear that one team's tactics far outweighed the other team's scheming in pure potency and effectiveness. As it turns out, ski patrollers can actually play softball while under the spell of Mr. Jameson. In the first inning the ski patrol jumped to an 11-0 lead thanks to the hard hitting talents of Patrol pitcher Mike Young, Brian "Carp" Carpenter, Erik Aura, and Jason Rogers.
Ski School, looking dashing in their new green uniforms, wasn't about to open the flood gates just yet, however. A scoreless second inning instigated by the undulating pitching methods of Schooler pitcher Mark "The Flying Pharaoh" Dressie kept the Patrollers sweating in their boots. The Schoolers' Matt "The 'Fro" Frasier, sporting a new "get jiggy with it" do, smacked one out to right field to help get the Schooler ball rolling, putting the team on the scoreboard in the second.
It was a short-lived comeback however, as the Patrol's Kim and Gary Richard, Craig Prohaska, Emil Sante, and new team recruit Jake "The Cowboy" Christian knocked the ball far and wide in the following innings, forcing a changeover on the pitching mound. But even closing Schooler pitcher Linda Peters couldn't quiet down the Patrol offensive, and the score continued to climb out-of-control despite at least one demoralizing Peters-deliver strike-out of the Patrol's Matt Steen – who may unfortunately join the ranks of the fallen on next year's Patrol roster.
Schooler Bill Sheppard tried to do his part for his team, allowing closing Patrol pitcher James "Gus" Guest to give him a free walk to first base more than once in the final innings, but Sheppard's coy offensive push proved to be too little, too late. The Patrol ended the match with a dominating 34-11 score, and likely won't let the Schoolers forget their over twenty-run surplus anytime soon.
Patrol team manager Greene had this to say about his team's officious 2005 victory: "Thanks to the ski school for the lovely ladies they sent to our dugout, serving up copious amounts of Irish whiskey. The trail of tears leading to the ski school locker room after the game proved two things, however: Their game plan failed miserably, and Patrol and Jameson is a winning combination."
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