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.