SHIT -- WE WOULD KILL THOSE GUYS

Behold the 1997 Daily News softball team, champions of the Center City Softball League for the initial time in what would become a run of three titles in the space of five years. Oh, it was a proud time for the DN/Pen & Pencil Club franchise, one of the founding franchises of the CCSL for what that’s worth (not all that much).

You can pick out Tom DiNardo back there, and Ron Goldwyn – wearing some sort of fright wig – hiding behind Yvonne Dennis – and, of course, that skinny smiling young man in front is our own George Miller. Ah, yes. The ravages of time.

Sprinkled in among the rabble there are such luminaries as Marcus “Porn Star Mustache” Hayes, his soon-to-be-wife Shelly, Dave Davies (who we played against in our pre-season friendly vs. WHYY/Fake P&P), Mark McDonald, Gary Thompson, Don “Joe Sixpack” Russell and Jim Nolan. Sheila Ballen claims she took the picture. It was Nolan who recruited The Management to join the team in 2002, the season following the last championship and, well, we haven’t won shit since. There may be a connection there.

In any case, we dust this off because the playoffs (playoffs?) are upon us and it would be a fine season to return to glory – or at least the something approximating that. It’s been a somewhat trying year for the P&P. We finished with a 5-8 record and actually might not have deserved that. We managed to lose to the Franklin Institute (no offense, Buddy) and the Zoo (no offense, Chris), not that those results were flukes, but those usually aren’t losses for us.

George, still celebrating that '97 win.

We also beat the Tap once and Bishop’s Collar once and, in our only meeting, we pulled out a 6-5 win over the Art Museum. The Arties had the tie run on second in the top of the seventh, so that’s how close that game was. And – guess what? – we open the playoffs against the Museum Dwellers on Tuesday in the quarterfinal round.

In the last six seasons, we are 6-4 against the Art Museum. Three of the games were decided by one run, another three were decided by two runs, and two of the games went to extra innings. So, that’s what to expect on Tuesday, a tight low-scoring game, particularly as the sun sears into our corneas (cornei?) in the late innings at Dairy 2. Should be fun.

Anyway, back to our season. Like every other team in the league, when we struggled, it was because of the normal lifetime stuff like work, dental work, dental dams, something getting in the way. I know that with our full team, we can play with anyone and Tuesday would be a nice time to show that. It’s a tough path – Art Museum, the Nomads and Catahoula – if we were to advance, but maybe it’s time for another team picture.

To finish off the regular season, we needed win over NCC to clinch the sixth seed and avoid a Monday play-in game, and we got that on Edgeley 4 on Thursday with an efficient 23-5 decision that will hopefully serve as a good warmup for the postseason.

The P&P banged out 30 hits, led by five for leadoff man Chris Yasiejko, and three each for Steve Lynch, Mark Nevins, Chip Proctor, Dan Rubin, Courtney Sams and B.J. Clark. Two each for Smilin’ George Miller, Tommy Rowan and The Management.

It was a crisp game in the field. NCC scored twice in the first inning to take the early lead, but we were able to hold them to just 27 batters in their final six at-bats. Fourteen of the 21 outs were recorded in the air, which isn’t bad.

Onward. 

Five hits vs. NCC for Yaz in the 23-5 win that clinched our playoff seeding. Keep that going next week. And then, perhaps, the 2031 P&P team will run our picture on their blog. Every 17 years, why not? George will still be in the picture.