Leave Him There, He'll Be All Right

Actually, when it comes to our history against the South Philly Tap Room team, things do not generally turn out to be all right in the end. In fact, when we get knocked down – or trip ourselves, depending on one’s vantage – we usually stay right there.
Heading into Monday’s matchup on surprisingly-playable Belmont 4, the Pen & Pencil Club softball team had lost 10 straight to the Tap Room. Our last win, in The Management’s first season as The Management, came on June 11, 2007, a 23-22 win on Edgeley 4 that was secured only when George Miller pulled down a smash into the left-center gap with the tie run on base and the winning run at the plate. (I know you are asking yourself who is going to keep these records and do this kind of research once The Management hangs up the clipboard and the aluminum scorebook with the field permits inside, arranged in alphabetical order: Belmont, Dairy, Edgeley. Here’s the answer: No one is going to do it.)
Anyway, yes, it was 10 straight losses and if you would like to know the aggregate score of those 10 games, or even if you don’t, it was 191-89, or an average loss of 19-9. We had some shots at the Tap, losing 21-20 in a 2010 game that had to be suspended and resumed, and then we lost twice in extra innings (8-7, 14-11) in 2011. Nevertheless: L, L, L, L, L, L, L, L, L and L.
Well, the Tap will have to start a new streak now. The Red Inks of the P&P held on for a 12-9 win on Monday. We bunched six runs in the decisive fourth inning to take a decent lead and then kept the SPTR’s scoreless in their final three at-bats.
It was an action-packed game, and a little too much of the action took place around the upper thigh area of The Management, if you really want to know. But the game highlight was obvious and you can see the full video of it here.

Unfortunately for us on this slide at the plate by Jon Snyder,
the gentleman in the right of the frame has the ball. A good
aggressive try in our six-run fourth inning, however.

 As it turned out, Brian Donlen did not kill himself accepting a three-foot flip toss from second base in order to force out Pam Hill for the final out of the third inning. Everyone will view the film with a different eye.
The shortstop claims he was about to raise his glove off the ground with the ball in it – after corralling it finally, that is – and at that off-balance moment Hill tripped him and sent him sprawling. Other interpretations suggest he might have tripped himself. But you decide.
In any case, we were trailing 6-5 when that out was made and needed to keep the Tap off the scoreboard any further. Motivated by Donlen’s courageous play, our offense came in and got those six runs that turned out to be the difference. Dan Rubin, Jon Snyder, Russ Krause, Ellen Kenney, Kerry O’Connor, George Miller, Steve Lynch and Mark Nevins strung together hits to get the runs – Lynch’s was a two-run home run to right – before Donlen hit a fly ball to Elmer in center because he knew we had enough.

Management's left thigh,
if you must know.

Our offense did a decent job of finding the holes in a Tap Room outfield that only had three occupents, and Rubin led the way, along with Miller, Nevins (HR) and Snyder with three hits each. Two hits for Kerry O’Connor, Lynch, Donlen, and The Mangement.
It was a really nice win, and would only have felt better if Al Heinle had not decided to follow up a first-inning home run with a line drive that left a large bruise on the pitcher. He got thrown out at first for that impertinence and struck out in his next at-bat. (Claiming something about the sun and his sunglasses.)
It was a typical Belmont game in that only one run was scored total by both teams in the final three innings, once that sun did dip low enough to make every at-bat seem like laser surgery.
A great win and a long time coming, if you consider six years a long time. That puts us at 6-2 on the season, with a makeup Tuesday against NCC on the way. Get your running in.

Scene 26: In which Elmer says to his pitcher, "Hey, Bruno. You just gave up a double to a guy in khakis."