AT LEAST SOMEBODY'S HAVING FUN TONIGHT

Yes, there’s nothing to liven up an otherwise dreary evening at Edgeley 8 like the arrival of several hundred high school students, a few kegs of beer and a dress code that includes short shorts, sun dresses and skimpy halter tops – and that’s just the boys.

At least they had a referee. God knows what happened after the sun went down and the old men in their faded softball uniforms stopped leering at them like Aqualung. Well, actually, we probably know what happened, and we do not approve. Not one little bit.

As for the Pen & Pencil softball team, we did not approve of the proceedings on the field, either, as we lost to Bishop’s Collar 8-6 in a game that was close and well-played except for the parts that weren’t.

Here’s the math that should explain the outcome. Both teams scratched out 15 hits in the game. Both teams made 21 outs. There were no walks. We brought 35 batters to the plate.

The Collar brought 39 batters to the plate. Close followers of the sport know that means we gave the other side extra outs, in the form of a failure to catch and throw.

The Collar played mostly errorless ball. We sometimes played ball-less error. I just made that up.

Again, oh well. We did have the courtesy to get most of our problems out of the way early, and trailed 6-2 after two innings. We held BC to just two runs in their final five at-bats, but couldn’t do much on our end to solve El Colach on the mound.

We did put together a three-spot in the fifth to get back into the game, and were in position with the top of the order to slip ahead in the sixth, but the Collar had the bad habit of catching the ball, particularly a scalding line drive off the bat of Nevins that was snatched from the sky by Colach with this sort of a windmill

pass at it that somehow worked. I think if that ball went through we would have had tie run at second with one out and 5-6-7 coming up, but if we were 17 we would have been partying over by the port-a-potty, too. Ifs are for losers and Aqualung.

And, yes,  Colach got in the way of this.

In the scorebook, such as it is, George Miller was 3-for-3. Two hits each for Russ Krause, Chip Proctor (and a nice running catch in right field) and Chris Yasiejko. We just couldn’t string enough together. The top of the lineup led off in three innings and we got just three runs out of those frames, which isn’t nearly enough.

Nothing else remarkable to report, except that our game next Tuesday coincides with HOAGIEFEST! Yes, the annual league celebration of cured meats, fireworks and poor decisions will be held at Dairy 2, immediately following the BC-Tap game. We are playing conveniently at Dairy 4 vs. Catahoula and it will be a short jog (or quick drive) across the way to join the festivities.

For those who have not previously taken part, this is a great time. The whole league gets together – or at least the ones we told about it – and there’s no referee. Not that many sun dresses, either, but we’re not as young as we used to be.

At least Mookie can still bring the other team to submission. (Photos by Jon Snyder)

CUTTING THE SLICE A LITTLE THIN

Our always interesting, sometimes annoying, season continued Wednesday on the bleached plateau of Dairy 2 with a 13-12 loss to the first-place South Philly Nomads that was decidedly without toppings from our point of view

We got the tying run in scoring position with no outs in the seventh inning, but couldn’t push him a step further and, well, that was the story of the evening – close, but not close enough.

The truth is that we lost the game in the field. A little too sloppy. Too many extra outs for the other guys. The Nomads scored in every at-bat, which is too many. We held a 10-8 lead in the fifth inning, but just couldn’t put up a clean inning in the field and it cost us. 

A word about the Nomads, which recently became the Nomads, having decided that a successful pizza joint is a better sponsorship provider than the Fleisher Art Memorial. The franchise started in 2011 and was 7-20 in its first two seasons before leveling out at 9-9 last year.

They spiffed up the roster this time and the Nomads are 9-1, with their only loss being a one-run decision against longtime league hoodoo men Catahoula. So, this is a good team, but if we caught the ball better, we would have won this game. That starts with The Management, who was unable to pick up a simple ground ball and has not stopped thinking about it.

Anyway, the scorebook, kept ably by a village of poor scorekeepers, shows that all 12 of our runs were scored by the first five batters in our order. That’s not altogether unexpected, but a changeup now and then would have been fine.

Russ Krause had four hits, as did George Miller. Mark Nevins had three hits, and two each for Chris Yasiejko, Steve Lynch (plus a sacrifice), and Jon “The Ankle” Snyder. The rest of us kind of blew, but that happens sometimes.

That’s about it. We play the Collar on Monday and mosey on towards the postseason. If we have our full roster (keep July 21-22-23 open, please), we will be a dangerous team. There’s hasn’t been an unbeatable team on our schedule yet. Unfortunately, including us.

If the Fairmount Park Commissioner, doesn't want beer cans in the street, the trash can should be next to the cage.

WE MIGHT HAVE A PROBLEM, SKIP

Jon Snyder suggested the headline should be, “It’s Not The Heat; It’s The Humility,” and that would have been a good one, too, but we’ve had enough humility for one season already.

On a sloppy, muggy night at Edgeley 8, the Red Inks of the Pen & Pencil Club lost 6-5 in 10 innings to the Zoo. The loss broke an eight-game winning streak over the Wild Animals that stretched back to the 10^th game of the 2008 season. Last year, we swept the Zoo, but the wins were by one run and two runs, respectively, so maybe we had this one coming.

As has been noted here earlier, this is one wacky season in the Center City Softball League and there are some unpredictable results, because all the games are close…because the wooden bats have leveled things

Seriously, Courtney. We're usually a lot better than this.

out very nicely. The unintended consequence of all this leveling is that these games are gut-wrenchers, which makes it hard to get down more than seven or eight beers per game.

On the positive side, the Zoo game welcomed Courtney Sams to the fray and she didn’t even appear to be scared off by the outcome of the game, or the fact that we could only score a measly five runs in 10 innings. Hopefully, she won’t pretend to move to New Guinea or something to get away from us.

Onto the game. We played very good defense and led 3-1 going into the bottom of the sixth inning, but stumbled against the top of their lineup and allowed the two tying runs to score. It could have been worse, but Tommy Rowan snared a fly ball off the bat of team captain Chris Oberlin, the Management lucked into a running catch of a ball over his head and Brian Donlen shut the door with a man in scoring position when he recorded a nice 6-3 to end the inning.

Things brightened in the top of the seventh when we scored two more with help from Dan Rubin, Rowan, Ellen Kenney and Ron Goldwyn, but, alas, the ball blooped and squirted around in the bottom of the frame and the Zoo tied the game.

We played scorelessly to the 10^th and then the Zoo strung together four hits and that proved to be enough to get a run across. It usually is.

The tempting part of a game like this is to blame the conditions or the luck of the game. The Zoo got runners

Our line drives had a habit of finding gloves rather than grass.

on when balls plodded into the infield and stuck there, or slid through unusually, or proved to be impossible to pick up in the wet infield. But the truth is that all those things happened when we were at bat, too. The breaks evened out and it was just a close game. We had some better line drive outs, but they don’t give any prizes for that.

In the scorebook, we had just 18 hits in the 10 innings, and there’s aren’t prizes for that, either. Three hits each for Donlen and Rowan. Two hits each for George Miller, Steve Lynch, the Management, Kenney and Ron Goldwyn. We had 12 players arrive and 12 players played, so that was nice.

Now, where are we? Well, we are 3-4 and that’s not necessarily the bad news. As you know, the league fathers (and mothers) voted for an unbalanced schedule this season, so if you finished in the top half in 2013, then you get two games against top teams and one game each against the previously lesser teams.

Already this season, we have lost to two teams (Franklin, the Zoo) that were in the bottom half last season. That’s not good. Remaining on the schedule are two games against defending league champion Catahoula, one against the nasty Tap boys, one against the always-difficult Collar, one against the undefeated South Philly Nomads, and one more against the Constitution Center, which beat the Zoo by four runs the night after we lost to them and more than doubled the number of runs we scored.

Even the non-math majors among you will recognize this means our record this season will not necessarily be an indication of how good we are. It also means there’s a decent chance we will be taking part in the play-in portion of the postseason, and we don’t even get to go to Dayton for that.

Here’s something to put on your calendar: Don’t schedule anything for M-W, July 21-23. We could be playing once or twice that week, depending on whether we finish among the top six in the league or the bottom four. If we have our whole roster available, we are going to be dangerous in the playoffs, although perhaps only to ourselves.

Next game is Wednesday against those South Philly Pizza Eating Nomads. We owe them one. Let’s collect.

(Photos by Jon Snyder)

DON'T BOTHER ME; I'M WATCHING THE LIVESTREAM OF TAP ROOM AND THE COLLAR

The Pen & Pencil softball team got back on the sunny side of the street Tuesday night at Edgeley 8 with a 14-3 win over Green Tambourine, which did, in fact, bring a green tambourine to the game. The win brings us back to level after six games and we can peek above .500 next week with a win over the Zoo on Monday night. That would be nice.

It’s kind of a strange season in the old CCSL. We’re playing an unbalanced schedule for the sake of better competition for all and liberty for some, and that means the standings aren’t necessarily reflective of very

much. The good news is that every team makes the playoffs and everybody gets a sno-cone. So, we find out what’s what then (when everyone is on vacation).

Anyway, it was a well-played game against the jangly musical instruments, at least from our point of view. We had 22 hits to power the 14 runs, and, in keeping with the wood bat thing, all but five of them were singles. The Red Inks strung them together, though, scoring three runs in the top of the first, adding single runs in the second and fourth, then bunching eight runs in the final three innings to open some breathing room.

The Tambourines, who broke out either a CD boombox or an 8-track player for their walkup musical

accompaniment – a nice touch – were silent at the plate for the first five innings before scratching out a single run in the sixth and then adding another pair of runs in the seventh. P&P was nearly P&perfect in the field, holding the Tambos to just 11 hits, all singles.

It was a friendly game, which the GT’s needed, coming off a somewhat contentious 10-inning loss to the Art Museum the night before, a game in which the Impressionists invoked the six-ball-walk-rule (several times) to break a tie in the top of the 10^th, despite having gotten to the 10^th inning against a team that is now 5-20 in the last two seasons and was playing that particular game with nine players in the field, including women at both corner outfield positions. Oh, and it was top of the order for Art in the 10^th. Well, all you can figure is it must have been a very important game.

Anyway, we proved that it’s easy to be great sportsmen when you have an eight-run lead, which might not be news. We didn’t even get pissed when Dusty pulled the delayed-tag-up score from third to end the shutout bid in the sixth. Maybe a little, but you can’t blame a guy for trying.

In the scorebook, the Writing Instruments got 4-for-4 nights from Brian Donlen and Steve Lynch. Donlen’s bases-loaded double in the fifth was the big hit of the night to open up the scoring. Three hits each for George Miller and Jon Snyder, two each for Russ Krause, Chris Yasiejko and Chris Brennan, who had a pair of RBI hits, including a sixth-inning double. Management got the win on the flat place and didn’t walk anyone. We’ll leave it at that for now.

                                                        * * *

            Forgot one thing. Fleisher Art Memorial is now the South Philly Nomads, in deference to their new sponsor, the fabulous Nomad Pizza. Will try to change all references to reflect this, but if you look at the standings and say, “Who the fuck are the Nomads?” now you will know. They haven’t lost a game yet – we damn sure know they didn’t lose to us – and so they get to be called whatever they want for a while.