＜Japanese Version＞
　シニアソフトボールの全国大会向け県内選抜ゲームのシーズンがやって来た。次週末からの大型連休の４月２９日（月）にはネンリンピック前国大会県予選大会が始まり、我がチームも参加予定である。我々の年代のシニアチームは高齢者人口が多い世代だが、チーム平均年齢が７５歳台前後になっているのでどのチームも人数不足になっており、我がチームも十二・三名で苦労している。来週のネンリンピック前国大会県予選大会でもやっとのことで９名が参加出来ることになったのだが、この内の１名は２０年振りの再開なので筋力が衰えソフトボールを塁間投げられない状況になっていた。私は草ソフトボールでも試合をやるためには常識的に１チーム１０名は最低必要であると思っているので、チーム代表に県予選大会出場辞退を進言した。チーム代表は欠席者に再度交渉した結果１名が参加に変更となり、県予選出場が決まって有難いことだと思っている。練習量も少ない上、チーム員の実力も落ちているので準決勝辺りまで進めれば上出来だろう。

 

＜English Version＞
　The season for the prefectural selection game for the senior softball national tournament has arrived.　 The Prefectural Preliminary Tournament for the Nenrinpics Pre-National Tournament will begin on April 29th (Monday), which is a long holiday that begins next weekend, and our team is scheduled to participate. 　The senior team in our age group has a large population of elderly people, but the average age of the team is around 75 years old, so all teams are short on players, and our team is also struggling with only 12-13 players.　Nine people were finally able to participate in next week's Prefectural Preliminary Tournament before the Nenrinpics, but one of them has weakened muscles and is unable to throw a softball between the bases since it was the first time in 20 years. 　It had become. I believe that even in grass softball, a team should have at least 10 players in order to compete, so I advised the team representative to decline participation in the prefectural qualifying tournament. 　As a result of renegotiating with those who were absent, the team representative was able to change one person to participate, and we are grateful that we were able to qualify for the prefectural qualifying round. 　They haven't had much practice and the team members' abilities have declined, so it would be a great success if they could make it to the semi-finals.