What it's like to watch a game as an Alabama softball dad | Hurley

Alabama softball had not lost a game all season. Then I sat with the dads. Behind the Alabama dugout along the third-base line the afternoon of Saturday, March 14, a group of Crimson Tide softball fathers gathered as No. 6 Alabama hosted No. 9 Arkansas in its first SEC home series of the season. They don’t always sit together during games, but for this one, they came together to watch their daughters take the field. Three and a half hours later, Alabama had its first loss of the season, a 14-9 blow to the tied-for-fourth-best start in program history. If I’m the reason, I owe them an apology. I got a different perspective of a softball game. It sounded different, too. The dads' claps are...