Apparently, Nevins Was Safe

Who knew? I figured he was just letting off steam for grounding out. But it turns out through the wizardry of modern photography that he was, in fact, safe at first base to end the fifth inning on Tuesday against the Art Museum. What a dope that first base coach was.

Big catch on little popup.

Well, we can laugh about it now and not worry that we missed out on a couple of runs that would have kept us from blowing another lead against the Farties. Because, amazingly enough, we took a four-run lead in the top of the first and never trailed. It got a little close, and we made it interesting in the end, but came away with a 10-8 win that not only avenges our earlier 16-15 come-from-ahead loss, but gives us the season tiebreaker (by one thin run) over the Keepers of Fine Art should we go 0-5 the rest of the season and they go 6-0. I bet the rest of you hadn’t thought of that.
The Pen & Pencil Club improved its record to 11-2 with the win as we head into consecutive doubleheader weeks, starting with Monday against the Zoo and Tuesday against Fleisher. If we sweep those, we can clinch a spot in the top half of the playoff bracket, but that’s what we in the looking ahead business like to call looking ahead.
Our bigger goal is to get one of the two first-round byes so we need just one win to advance to the World Series and so Russ has to explain to his wife why they have to leave Maine at dawn on the final day of their vacation to drive back home like a bat out of Bangor.


Like he never left.

 Back to reality and Tuesday night, it was entertaining, particularly after the lightning stopped rattling off the top of the batting cage. We led 4-1 after an inning, 6-4 after three innings and then added three runs in the fifth and one in the sixth to go up 10-4 entering the bottom of the seventh. Art rallied for four runs to make it close, including a bomb two-run home run by Adam, but that’s where it ended.
Play of the game might have come in that seventh inning when Krause ran down a short fly ball to left off Ray’s bat that appeared destined to drop just inside the line. Caught it at full speed and keeping that run off base might have been the difference.
Play of the game in not quite as dramatic a situation went to Steve Lynch for a sliding, rolling catch of a line drive by Jeremy Darkness that limited the Artistes in the first inning. Otherwise, the highlight was this near-death experience by Chris Yasiejko. This has a Zapruder film kind of quality to it. If only Andrea was wearing a pillbox hat as she ran down the baseline.

Ouch.

OK, from the scorebook, three hits for George Miller, who is now going to right field, having discovered it is there, and three also for Keith Craig, all beautiful line drives. Two hits and four RBI’s for Brian Donlen, and two hits and two RBI’s for Lynch.
Two hits also for Krause and Kathy Matheson. Kathy and Liz Gabor each singled in the fifth inning to make our three runs there possible.
A big P&P welcome back to B.J. Clark, who is finally returned from honeymoon, hernia and other infirmities. Hurry back, Ellen. The team needs salty snacks.

At least he took it well.

Calm Before The Storm

Missing a few players but no enthusiasm, the Pen & Pencil Club softball team improved its record to 10-2 with a comfortable win over the Franklin Institute by a score of 13-4 on Monday night at Edgeley 8.
We led Franklin by a single run, 3-2, after two innings, but put together a six-run third inning that included eight hits and protected the lead well from there. The Red Inks played good defense throughout, except when George, who was holding a Frisbee, a dog and a beer at the time, failed to come up with a rolling, diving catch in left field. Chris Yasiejko showed him the way on the following batter, coming up with a rolling, diving catch in right center that, without beer, disc or dog, he actually made.
We also pulled off a pair of double plays and didn’t let Franklin bring more than six batters to the plate in any inning. The Instituters spread out 14 hits, all singles.

No outfield assist.

On our side, we had 28 hits and left some folks on base, but overall a good clutch effort. Only four of our hits were for extra bases and that’s the way we want to keep playing, string together a lot of line drives and keep the lineup moving. Super softball intern Tommy Rowan was 4-for-4 to lead the hitting. Brian Donlen (2 RBIs), Mark Nevins (2 RBIs), Yasiejko and George Miller each had three hits. Dan Rubin had two hits, including a double, and four big RBIs. Also two hits for The Management, including a triple that left him very tired, Jon Snyder, Kathy Matheson and Liz Gabor.
So, 10-2 sounds awfully good and looks awfully good in the standings. We have been a little fortunate in our scheduling so far, though. Five of our six remaining games are against teams that are still alive for the playoffs, and all of those can beat us on a given night.

We would like very much to get the No. 2 seed in the league, which would give us that first-round bye and leave us just one game from qualifying for the championship round. To do that, we have to play well against the tough remaining schedule, starting with Tuesday against the Art Museum.
Those with good memories will recall that one of our two losses this season was to the Fighting Griffons. We led that game 11-0 and somehow lost 16-15. We make it look easy, however, as we stopped hitting completely and forgot how to field. So, we owe them one.
The Red Inks quest for that No. 2 seed was helped this week when Bishop’s Collar knocked off the Tap Room, leaving the Tappers 1 ½ games behind us. That margin can disappear quickly, though. We have another game against them, and also another left against undefeated Catahoula.
So, get your running in and get yourself out of any potential conflicts or problems and get yourself back to Edgeley 8 on Tuesday. As you were.

Blind pig, acorn.

Inside, Looking Out

The Pen & Pencil softball team improved its record to 9-2 with a solid win over the National Constitution Center on Tuesday at Dairy 2. There wasn’t a lot of drama, but good teams can win games without that. Not saying we are one, but that’s what the record says and that’s what the scorebook says, so who are we to argue?
We bunched 10 of our 17 hits in the third inning, batted around, scored eight runs and

pretty much put the game away there. The final score was 9-3, so we had only one run in our other five at-bats, but we did what we had to do, and that’s how they keep score in the end.
The Constitution Center was without Captain Brian, one of their best players – although he did text lineup suggestions from his honeymoon – but they hit the ball pretty well.
Our defense kept them from stringing hits together,

however, and it was one of our better fielding efforts of the season. Eighteen of their 21 outs were recorded in the infield, which might be a CCSL record. I don’t really have an explanation for that, except we made the plays, always got the lead runner and kept the force in order almost every time. It was pretty impressive.
At the plate, we tried to be as patient as possible and wait for strikes, but that wasn’t always an easy task. Brian Donlen, George Miller (3 RBIs), Keith Craig (2 RBIs),

winning pitcher Chris Yasiejko, Eddie Cascarella and Ellen Kenney had two hits each. That makes Ellen 6-for-6 in her last two games. Eddie ripped the ball sharply into left for both of his hits and fellow designated hitter Ron Goldwyn also hit the ball well, but into tougher luck. Steve Lynch was 1-for-2, but with a big two-RBI hit in our big third inning.
So, where are we, with seven games left in the regular season? Actually, in pretty good shape.
We are in second place, behind undefeated Catahoula, but a half-game ahead of the Tap Room, and we currently hold a tiebreaker against them. In a perfect world, we will hold onto second place and earn an opening-round bye in the playoffs. That would leave us just one win away from making the championship round. Likely opponents would be the Tap, Fleisher, Bishop’s Collar and the Art Museum. We either can or have beaten all of them this season, so there’s no reason it can’t happen again.
To get there, however, we have to have some more games like Tuesday’s. We have to make the layups and then play very well against the top teams that would like to knock us down into the middle of the pack.
So far this season, we’ve been able to get the job done. Personally, I don’t see what can go wrong.


Two first-base coaches are better than one, most of the time.



P&P, On A Roll, Hot!

A big win on Hoagiefest! night for the Pen & Pencil Club softball team, which improved its record to 8-2 with a resounding 19-13 win over the Bishop’s Collar.
This was a game with huge playoff seeding implications for those of you who think there are huge playoff seeding implications in the Center City Softball League. We are aiming, with some luck and good play, for one of the top two seeds in the regular season, which would give us a first-round bye. Failing that, a third seed would mean we avoid the Catahoula Orcs in the second round and have a decent shot at making the World Series. There is a lot of beer to be drunk before then, however, but another win over BC, which had caught fire recently, won’t hurt the cause.

We led this game 12-2 after two innings and 18-4 after four innings and coasted to the finish, but there is something to be said for getting a big lead on Dairy 2 before the sun begins to sear the corneas of everyone who comes to bat. We managed that and then played solid defense and limited the Collar’s attempts to get back in the game.
Plenty of kudos to go around in this one, and a reminder that big innings are a good thing. We scored 18 of our 19 runs in just three innings, getting six apiece in the first, second and fourth innings. BC plugged away, but never scored more than three in an inning.
For the game, we were 27-for-45 at the plate and the Collar was 26-for-47. That doesn’t sound like a big difference, because it isn’t. They had seven at-bats and we needed only six, so that accounts for some of it. Their hits were more spread out, fortunately.

We played some great defense and forced them to leave 10 runners on base, including eight in scoring position. That clutch play was the difference. We took advantage of our opportunities and had some long innings.
In the scorebook, Russ Krause and George Miller were 4-for-4, three hits for Steve Lynch, Mark Nevins and Jon Snyder, and two hits for Brian Donlen, Dan Rubin, Liz Gabor and the Management.
We turned the lineup over, played a solid game and it was almost a routine win over a very dangerous opponent. It was a very good way to start the second half of our schedule and that’s not even counting the hoagies.
We get back at it on Tuesday against the Constitution Center, once again on the arid strip of Dairy 2 and let’s keep it going.