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.