Smile If You Love Softball

At about 2 o’clock in the afternoon on Monday, our own George Miller was not smiling and was not loving softball and definitely was not loving his dentist who, according to George “went in a little too deep” in the process of repairing a filling.
George wasn’t all that keen on playing against Franklin Institute on crunchy Edgeley 4, where the chill wind blew across the open field like a jolt of electricity into an open nerve socket. Unfortunately for George, however, he signed up and he had to show up. On another day, sometime after Rubin’s “My Thoughts About Myself” class finishes up at Penn (RUBN301, in the catalogue); after Clark recovers from his honeymoon; after Snyder’s co-workers stop calling in sick; after Craig gets his car fixed; after Donlon works through the massive pile of fake work on his desk; after, oh well, after all that happens and more, then perhaps George would have been given the night off. But not this time. Not when we had the bare minimum of 12 participants on hand and soon to lose Eddie, who pulled something in his calf to short-circuit a two-hit game.


Winning pitcher and a home run.

 No, George had to play and, with support from Mookie – who sat at his feet in left field to comfort him – play he did, going 4-for-4, including a two-run home run. He scored three runs, made every play in the field and we romped away with a 21-5 win over the Franklin Institute. I am scheduling George for the dentist every week.
George was not the only hero on Monday. Homers and three hits each for Mark Nevins, Stick Lynch and Chris Yasiejko. Three hits for Russ Krause, who also struck out batting lefthanded. Two hits for Kerry O’Connor, Tommy “The Intern” Rowan, Chris Brennan and, of course, Eddie Cascarella. Both Kathy Matheson and Ellen Kenney got a hit and we got around the bases pretty regularly, until it was too cold to keep doing so.
We started out leading 10-2 after one inning and it was 19-2 by the end of the third. That’s about where we threw out the anchor and started playing to beat sunset. Made it, too, although we were outscored 3-2 in the final three innings.
Masterful pitching for Yasiejko. Franklin brought only 32 batters to the plate in seven innings. Big inning was two-run sixth when the Force batted seven and scored twice, but that was aided by a couple of errors. Otherwise, solid play in the field. A pair of 1-2-3 innings and, yeah, it was really getting cold.
Back at them next Monday at Lake Belmont vs. the National Constitution Center. Please schedule all dental work and pedicures for another day.

Even If We're Just Dancing In The Dark

Sometimes on the old P&P, that seems like what we’re always doing; dancing along, trying to play some softball, but really just totally lost.
It looked that way for a while Monday when the exciting renewal of our ancient rivalry with Bishop’s Collar appeared to be short-circuited by bad ankles, bad backs, allergies, work assignments and all manner of other roster-reducing trouble.
When the stragglers finished straggling in, we had 12 players exactly, including designated sub Mike Trout, who is on-call this season, along with our own softball intern Tommy Rowan, for just such an emergency. Trout’s video, “How to Hit High Fly Balls to Left Center,” is available on demand, by the way.
We also had the Management in the outfield, which is always perilous, and Russ Krause at shortstop because he could run backward but not forward. I can’t really explain that one.
We also had Ron Goldwyn as our designated hitter, which is fine, particularly when he got two hits and kept the lineup moving. Nevertheless, against a team that went to the league championship round last season, it didn’t seem like a good spot for us.
But – what do you know? – we danced in the dark all the way to a 20-9 win over the Collar, which had a couple of roster issues of its own. (Like no Phyllis, which made everyone very, very sad.)

We’re now 3-1 on the season and would be undefeated if we could have held an 11-0 lead against the Fart Museum. That’s the way it goes with our dancing sometimes, though.

Against the Collar, Mark Nevins thumped E. “Coli” Kolach for a 5-for-5 day, including a double, three home runs (at least two of which were fair) and eight runs batted in. He also scored five runs and the first four hitters in our order (O’Connor, Krause, Miller, Nevins) accounted for 17 of our 20 runs.
Elsewhere in the scorebook, George Miller had four hits, and three hits each for Kerry O’Connor, Chris Brennan and the Management. Two hits for Ron and winning pitcher Chris Yasiejko. Two sacrifice flies for Trout. We totaled 28 hits, played good defense and if there can be such a thing as a routine win over a good team, this was it.
So, let’s keep on dancing and see where it goes. It goes back to Edgeley 4 on Monday for a game against the Franklin Institute. A little more leeway with the available roster would be appreciated by the Management.

Beauty and the Beast

That headline was supposed to be a play on a week in which the fabulous Pen & Pencil softball team got a win and suffered a loss. It turned out to be merely an excuse to use that picture, which is actually probably the best thing to come out of the second week of the Center City Softball League season.

We lost Monday to the Art Museum Nine and then won by forfeit Tuesday over the There’s A Hole In My Green Tambourine And All The Players Got Away team. If I tie is like kissing your sister, then losing in the last inning to the Art Museum coupled by winning a forfeit is like kissing Leroy’s hind flanks. Bleh.

Let’s start with Monday, Doctor. I’m conflicted and there are issues I must resolve.


Solidly against sportsmanship.



General Manager Chris Brennan gives the Management a stern talking-to regarding sportsmanship each spring. He is solidly against it, except in rare cases involving fraudulent sportsmanship exhibited in a game that is clearly over. But, more to his taste, is officially over.

At 6 p.m., which is the league starting time in the month of April, the Art Museum didn’t have a full team. In fact, there was Ray and his 5-year-old daughter with the bad jokes. Maybe a few more.

He said he had a ninth person coming and could we wait a while and…so the ninth person showed up at 6:20 p.m. (which I have to say is how long Ray gave the Tap last week, and then lost to them, so maybe it’s karma) and, yes, good sports that we are, we played the game because – come on, they’ve got nine people – what’s the worst that could happen?

Try this. We go out to an 11-0 lead after two innings and lose 16-15, with the Art scoring five in the seventh when the Management thought it was a bright idea to start pitching.



It wasn't his fault, except it was.



I am firmly convinced that we would have won the game regardless if Art had 11 players show up instead of nine. Now, this takes some complicity on our part not to take advantage of the gaps between three outfielders, but it also allows the good Art hitters, all of whom arrived, to get many, many at-bats. Rice, Darkness and Whiskey Frank (who was Gin Frank this evening, showing his versatility) combined to go 13-for-15 and drive in nine of the runs. Darkness had five RBIs, which you won’t find in the Art blog because Frank can’t read a scorebook.

Anyway, they had that going for them. I’m not sure what the hell we were doing at the plate. We had 11 runs and 11 hits in those first two innings. Four runs and seven hits in the last five innings. That should be impossible against a team that has three outfielders, but we seemed to manage it easily. Nine of our last 15 outs were made in the infield. That’s just fucking silly. THERE ARE NO INFIELD OUTS IN THE CCSL. But we pulled that one off, too.

As for the last Art at-bat, the Management will take that one, but I’d still bet against that game-winning hit. Not that it matters.

Welcome back, New Kid Keith Craig, who works at the shore now (I think he’s at Thrasher’s) and will make the drive all season. Also big P&P welcome to Kerry Cali O’Connor, who was born on the Management’s birthday (December 2^nd, if you want to put it on your calendar) and attended his first game on Monday. Better he should get his illusions about this team out of the way early.



Lot of red in second game of week, on both sides.



From the scorebook, we have Russ Krause with a 4-for-4 day, including a double and a triple. Two hits each for Kerry, Mark Nevins, George Miller and Chris Brennan. That’s the highlights, folks. For the second straight year, Krause scored from third base on a line drive out to the infield. We played decent defense, compared to the Zoo opener. Uh. That’s about it.

On Tuesday, raring to avenge that loss, we took to the majestic plateau of Dairy 2 to meet Team Green Tambourine, which, it turns out, is actually named after the Lemon Pipers tune. Sounds all right to me. I mean, they could have been Team Ode To Billy Joe or something.

Come to find out, they didn’t have enough players at 6 p.m., either. But sportsmanship didn’t have to come into play this time. They wouldn’t have had enough by 6 a.m. So, it was a forfeit and we split up and had a good scrimmage. Jon Snyder, Stick Lynch, Dan Rubin and the Management climbed into the Tambourine and I think we won. Hard to say. We didn’t keep score and finally stopped playing when Leroy was the only one who wanted to go out for another inning (and take a big, ol’ hairy dump).

Big P&P welcome to Inquirer reporter Mike Newall, who made his debut and was one of the last three players to leave the pitch-dark field, so he can stay. Everybody got a lot of swings and had a good time and Brennan learned that pitching isn’t as easy as it looks. Jon Snyder took this cool video of Rubin lining a ball just off the tip of Kerry’s glove at second. My favorite part of the video is when Dan drops the $200 team bat in front of him, steps on the handle and almost trips. Just kidding, Danny. Don’t step on the bat.

That was the week. We’re 2-1 on the season and ready for anything except sportsmanship.

Squat If You Love Softball

Well, who knows? It might have been the squats, which were led pregame by General Manager and Director of Martial Squatting Chris Brennan. Aside from hamstrings, quads and sphincters, it couldn’t hurt. Right?
Something worked, although it took its sweet time Tuesday night on crunchy Dairy 4 as the Center City Softball League season opened for the Red Inks of the Pen & Pencil Club with a nail-biting, frost-biting 18-17 win over the Philadelphia Zoo.
If you want to be absolutely Zen about the whole thing – and we assuredly do not – then this game was won in the top of the first inning when Zoo sent its second batter of the season to the plate.


McElhatton's uniform. Words fail.

 The first batter of the season had rudely hit a home run over George’s head in left field, which meant that not only was the Management’s ERA infinity, but the possibility of the final score was the same thing.
The next batter lashed a line drive over Management’s left ear, but he was unaware that Squat Master Zen was playing second base at the time. (Close followers of the team will have many questions about that, but it had something to do with starting with nine players on the field because we were short of a vital chromosome mix and because Donlen had mistakenly sprung back rather than sprung forward at the Daylight Savings Time thing, which, we all admit, can be confusing. In any case, yes, Brennan was playing second base.)
But, aha, like a crouching tiger he attacked the Zoo with a backhand stab of the line drive and there was the first out of 21 for the evening. The Wild Animals did not score again in that first inning against our non-traditional defense – which included only three outfielders – but had they, say, scored just two more runs, then we would have lost 19-18 or something.
That’s if you choose to be Zen about it and forget that we still would have been owed an at-bat in the bottom of the seventh, which we wouldn’t have gotten because it was too fucking dark and then this game would have been completed sometime in June and Brennan wouldn’t have been the hero.
Anyway, back to reality. We got street legal and outfield worthy by the second inning and found that we had a real game on our hands. It was 3-3 after two innings, 6-5 us after three innings and then the Zoo put up a six-spot in the top of the fourth to take an 11-6 lead and it got a whole lot colder right then.
To be fair, although the Zoo is much improved and hit the ball well, we were forgetting some of the small intracacies of the game, such as fielding, throwing and catching, and on the basepaths that don’t-run-on-popups thing kept luring us into being doubled off.
Nevertheless, we came back steadily, had some better innings in the field and trailed just 14-12 entering the bottom of the sixth, which meant we were two down and had two at-bats coming to just one for them. We only needed one, scoring six times in the bottom of the sixth and then survived the top of the seventh as the Zoo put the tie run on third and go-ahead run on second with two outs.


Crouching Tiger springs against Zoo.

 The final batter rolled back to the Management, who poofed the throw a little bit, but Brennan – massive, rippling quads leaping to the task – went high to corral it for the last out. Cue the darkness.
The scorebook, kept masterfully although illegibly by Ron, shows a 4-for-4 for Stick Lynch with two doubles and a home run. Mark Nevins, George Miller and Dan McElhatton had three hits. Two hits each for Chris Yasiejko, Dan Rubin, the Management, Liz Gabor, Ron Goldwyn and Brian Donlen. Kathy Matheson reached twice and had a big hit in the three-run fourth with two outs to turn over the lineup and make the inning possible. There were also some very good plays in the field (and some that sucked), and George and the Management each struck out, which is very embarrassing, and only funny when you win.
So, we did that, amazingly enough. Big Welcome Mat for Tommy Rowan, a former student of George’s who is our Designated Beer Drinker/Roster Rookie and will be filling in as needed. He got a hat, shirt and beer and seemed happy enough. I spelled his name “Rohan” on the lineup sheet, and it will be there all year, so unfortunately he has to change his name.
Doubleheader next week, playing both Monday and Tuesday. Let’s keep hope alive.