Life Plays Hardball. Question Is, Can I?

One must confront one’s mortality. And what better way for fiftysomething guys to do that than to oil up their baseball gloves and play a little hardball for the first time in years.

I don’t need to be told the clock is ticking. But when an old friend included me on a computer message list that invited a bunch of 40ish and 50ish guys to play baseball sometime in the next few weeks, I didn’t do what I should have done: Hit the delete key.

Instead, I started pondering.

Hmm. I haven’t even played softball in five years ... I don’t exercise ... My cholesterol is in the high 200s ... I need to drop 15 to 20 pounds of blubber ... After climbing three flights of stairs in the county courthouse, my legs lock ...

Yes, playing baseball all day under the summer sun is just the ticket.

So, I’ve sort of tentatively maybe somewhat agreed to show up on some upcoming Saturday to see what’s left of the once-glorious skills that seem to have been temporarily misplaced.

I wouldn’t come out of retirement for just any game. It’s the eighth annual H & L Hardball Classic, named by friends Messrs. Hill and Landsbaum. I haven’t seen either one in years and can only hope and pray they’ve aged as poorly as I.

Even though it’s the eighth annual classic, we haven’t played one for 10 years. Why they want to revive the tradition hasn’t been spelled out. Landsbaum offered no clues in his invitation, although he did insist on at least one practice for some of the players, “since if we fail here or someone dies, we can call off the plans for the game al-

together.”

He reveals more than he realizes. At some deeply buried level of his psyche, he wonders what the rest of us aging relics wonder: Is it really over? Which internal messenger is true -- the one telling us that we’re still graceful and strong, or the one telling us that, no matter what we visualize in our minds, our bodies no longer can deliver on the promise?

Not exactly a death wish; more like a day of reckoning.

I must be honest: I can picture scooping up a ground ball and rifling a throw to first base. I really can. But then I remind myself that I haven’t bent at the waist since 1998. Or swung a bat in 10 years. Does that bode well for me? I would think not.

Landsbaum is a sly one. Trying to appeal to our sense of nostalgia (he knows we haven’t lost that), one of his e-mails reminded us of some “classic moments” from games gone by.

From the ’93 Classic, he noted that fellow Times staffer Davan Maharaj, a cricket player by upbringing, “gave up five runs on one hit and walked three consecutive batters after insisting he could pitch without bending his elbow.”

You have to wonder whether 12 years will have improved Davan’s control. Wouldn’t surprise me a bit if Davan is sitting at home right now, wondering that very thing while practicing his form in front of a mirror.

Is this why women think men are dopes?

Seriously, is there a female counterpart to this kind of behavior? What will we old goats prove to ourselves if, by some miracle, we can still catch, throw and run with even a passing resemblance to our former selves?

That we’ve beaten time? That we’re the ageless ones?

I can’t believe any of us wants to go out there and trip over the chalk line or stand there, frozen, as a pitched ball hits us in the coconut.

We must believe that we can still do it. Or is it just that we love baseball, and, in our minds, playing it still seems so doable?

What better place to find out, once and for all, than at the H & L Hardball Classic?

I’m already mentally projecting to Game Day. I’m visualizing and actualizing. I’m pawing the ground at shortstop and needing the answer to whether I’m truly washed up.

And when that first grounder comes at me, its vague outlines looking like an approaching torpedo, I’m confident I’ll have my answer.

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at dana.parsons@latimes.com. An archive of his recent columns is at www.latimes.com/parsons.