We now know that the good news about the new era of wood
bats in the Center City Softball League is that it can produce close, taut,
exciting games, and we also know that can be the bad news, too.
The bad news bears repeating. (See what I did there?) There
won’t be many instances of building up big leads and coasting to wins this
season – as if that’s ever been our method. So, catching the ball and making
the most of our offensive chances is more important than ever.
Tuesday was a dandy example as we held on for a 5-4 win over
an Art Museum team that got the tie run to (almost) third base in the seventh
inning and had its 2-3-4 hitters lined up to turn things into a dreary evening
for us.
But the forces of good prevailed even though we brought only
15 batters to the plate in our final four innings of offense. The win evened us
at 2-2 on the season.
Let’s get right to the highlight of the game: Chris Yasiejko’s
moustache.
Yaz has decided to go all Rollie Fingers on us, although he
chose not to wax the handlebars that have sprouted above his upper lip. I can’t
say for sure if he has waxed anything else. More on that another time.
Along with pitching the final six innings, Yaz was our top
hitter for the evening, going 2-for-2 and scoring two runs, including the
winning run on a line drive home run to center field in the fourth inning that eluded
Brian Rice and everyone else.
Ten batters had hits for us, but George Miller was the only
one, aside from Yasiejko with multiple hits. Careful arithmetic means we had
just 12 hits total. All of them were singles, with the exception of the homer
by Yaz and another struck sharply inside the left field line by Jon Snyder to
lead off our three-run second inning. Chris Brennan had the other two RBIs in
the inning with a bases-loaded hit when we really needed one.
The P&P scoring began with a single run in the first
inning courtesy of hits by Russ Krause, Kerry O’Connor and Miller.
That was all we got, but fortunately all we needed, too. The
sixth looked promising, but Rice finally caught one, making a diving grab of a
Miller line drive, and then, after a Mark Nevins base hit, the Arties turned a
double play when Jeremy Darkness backhanded a shot by Steve Lynch and was able
to double Nevins off first.
We had some stellar defense to earn the win. Krause tracked
down a shot by Leadoff Lisa to begin the game; Donlen ran into the fence to
snare a foul ball near third;Yaz started a spiffy 1-6-3 double play; and the
game ended when Miller fielded a two-out grounder at short and – unsure if he
could get the speedy LL at first – threw to Donlen at third for the tagout on a
runner who neither slid nor surrendered, but was indeed out.
Well, it wasn’t easy, but we never surrendered, either, and
have now dragged our sorry butts back to .500 again. It’s possible we should
all grow moustaches, at least the guys. Whatever works.
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| Kind of a Zapruder-like quality, eh? Good thing we didn't need the run. (Photos by Jon Snyder) |
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