For two summers I ran a beer-league softball team. We were known as the Red-Legged Superbas. The name didn’t stick right away, but players would soon learn to honor it, and a few even came to pronounce it correctly.

We were not good by any measure. And losing was no fun. With all honesty, it was one of the most horrible experiences of my adult life.

I ran a team blog, and outside of the more typical postings (schedules, statistics and game recaps), I crafted a voice as the coach and general manager of the team, with musings on the game and, at times, even the broader sense of life.

My rein as coach was needlessly tumultuous. There was a near uprising near the middle, and I was even forced to suspend myself for one game toward the end. The players didn’t respect me for some reason. I was younger than most of them. I was a better player. And I wasn’t the most pleasant of human beings when we were losing (which was constant). None of this made for a good combination. An eruption of some sort always seemed imminent.

But I was able to keep the team together — without winning — and a lot of that has to do with the blog. It provided a narrative to our humble, grievous lives on the softball field. It brought people together.

This project collects the highlights of the blog — the posts I called “Coach’s Notes.” No one seemed to listen. And I cared too much.