KEEP LOOKING, SON; WE'RE DOWN THERE SOMEWHERE

Well, it wasn’t the best of nights for the old Pen & Pencil Club softball team, as we lost 13-7 to the Franklin Institute on the beaches of Edgeley 4. It was our first loss to FI since the team fissured following the 2011 season. Previously, against this version of the Beating Hearts, we were 3-0 with a combined score of 46-16.

All that history was meaningless on Wednesday, however, as we fell behind early and were unable to get up. The Franklinites made the plays they needed to make and found the holes in our defense and potholes in the infield and won it fair and square.

We had our chances but were undone by a five-run first inning for the Institutionalists and then a seven-spot hung on us in the third when Franklin batted around. I meant to ask Buddy the last time FI batted around, but was afraid to hear the answer.

By the end of the fifth inning, after having trailed by 10, we struggled back to trail by six, but neither team

Yeah, Candy snared it.

scored in the last two innings. In fact, we held Franklin to just one run in its final four at-bats, but, alas, the damage had been done and it was time to drink beer and drive the car across the field. We even gave them the old, 1-2-3-Franklin after the game, obviously trying for our second straight Lady Byng Sportsmanship Jerkoff trophy.

For the record, since I keep these things and the league archives ain’t what they used to be, Franklin Institute was 2-33 in league play since Whitmarsh and Ventrola took the cool kids and went away. Both previous wins were over the Constitution Center, one in 2012 and one in 2013. Both of the wins over NCC were by more than six runs, however, so we’ve got that going for us.

Fortunately, because of the unbalanced schedule this season, we don’t see the Pirates of the Parkway again,

Even taking out their girls with body blocks didn't help.

having learned our lesson well enough.

Game details, you say? Thought you’d never ask.

Three hits for the Management, two each for losing hurler Chris Yasiejko, Jon Snyder and George Miller. We had just 14 hits total in our seven at-bats and brought four or fewer to the plate in four of those innings. Not good enough by a bunch.

The Franklins hit the ball up and down the lineup. I’m not going to try to separate the hits from the errors, but they all counted and 10 of the 12 in the Franklin lineup scored at least one run. That was annoying.

Ah, well. Onward. Next week we get to play the spinoff Franklinites, those Cajun dogs of Catahoula and it would be a nice symmetry to lose to one version of the FI team and then beat the supposedly better version the following week.

That game, Wednesday at Edgeley 3, is the rescheduling of our opener, which we graciously moved so that Nick could go to the Phillies opener. Just speaking for myself, I’ve had it up to here with being gracious for a while.

When all else fails, blame the scorekeeper. That book can't be right, can it? (Photos by Jon Snyder)

HONEY, DOES THIS MOUSTACHE MAKE MY BAT LOOK BIGGER?

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.

Kind of a Zapruder-like quality, eh? Good thing we didn't need the run. (Photos by Jon Snyder) 

WOODEN, YOU KNOW IT

Well, that was quite a four days in the life of the Pen & Pencil Club softball team, which included three games, two wins, a play no one had ever seen before, and the continuing education of our team in the nuances of hitting with a wood bat.
I think what we’re learning, more than anything, is that the new rules for virile men in the Center City Softball League, has leveled the playing field, even if it hasn’t done much to smooth out the infields. In our two league games, we beat Bishop’s Collar handily, 15-1 on Monday, and lost just as handily to Fleisher Art Memorial, 12-4 on Tuesday.

The games were mirror images. In the first, we hit balls that fell in and the Collar hit balls that were caught.
In the second, it was the reverse. It seems there are going to be fewer home runs, fewer gap line drives, and the premium will be on hitting the ball hard on the ground, making the other team field it, or dropping it sharply in front of the outfielders. We can do that, and we did it for the entire game against the Collar, but managed a measly 14 hits (none for extra bases) against a Fleisher team that had two very good fielders, at third base and left-center, and we insisted on hitting the ball to them a lot which proved a bad strategy.
Anyway, let’s start at the beginning. We played a scrimmage on Saturday against a team that I’m not sure has a name. It is a mashup on WHYY, Philly Mag and the some other strays from the club who petitioned for places on our crowded roster and decided to form a more perfect union on their own. They play in a Philly Sport & Social League in No-Libs and with some minor exceptions – Brennan holds grudges the way rottweilers hold pork chops – seem like a decent enough bunch. And we may visit this rivalry later in the season again. In any case, we didn’t keep a scorebook and we batted 15 in the order, and moved people around to positions on the field they had little business playing, and won the game by 10 runs, which was nice.
It was a pretty day, and there was still beer left, so we extended for another two innings and things got a little more ragged, but we still didn’t need our at-bat in the bottom of the ninth. A good time. Nevins brought Jackson, but remember, none of us can say anything to Anne about him wandering into the street that half-inning when we were in the field. Ix-nay on that.
Monday, we renewed our old battle with the Collar. This is the Management’s eighth season as The Management and during that time, we had compiled a 4-11 record against the Collar, which isn’t very good, although we did sweep them last season. In any case, the wins we have had weren’t by 14 runs, so Monday’s result was a surprise.
We jumped out to a 6-1 first-inning and the Collar didn’t score again, getting only one runner as far as third base. They had just 11 hits for the game, all singles, and we played very good defense, which was made somewhat easier because they hit the ball to us.
The fielding star was George Miller at third base, who had nine assists and one putout. According to scorekeeper Ron Goldwyn, we didn’t make an error. Close observers of the team 

The new George Miller going to right field, and making up
interesting ways to run the bases. (Photos by Jon Snyder)

know that is not usual.
Nevins and Miller were 4-for-4. Nevins had a remarkable nine RBIs, including a grand slam home run in the seventh inning for icing on the cake. Russ Krause and Steve Lynch had three hits each, which meant that 14 of our 22 hits came from the top four battings in the order. If we were to run into a game where we didn’t get that production, it might pose a problem, but that’s what we masters of plot call “foreshadowing.”
The highlight of the game from a historical standpoint came when we were at bat with the bases loaded in the second inning and the Collar managed to turn the first 5-3-2-unassisted triple play in the recorded annals of baseball, softball, broom ball, stoop ball, half ball, kickball, murder ball and sewer ball. Remember, I said “annals.”
Brian Donlen hit a shot down the line that was gloved on the backhand by Zee Longhorn at third. He looked at George, who had taken a tentative step off third, chose to step on the base, thus forcing the runner (Lynch) coming in from second and then threw to first to double up Donlen, conceding the run to George or simply as confused as the rest of us. The confusion deepened when George jogged toward home but took a right turn and exited the cage on the third base side. This rendered him out of the baseline and rendered us out of outs.
Look, the man had nine assists and was 4-for-4. In other years, in other games, we would have then lost by one run, because that is what we do, but, in homage to Passover, this was unlike other nights. On to Tuesday, and back at Edgeley 8 for the third time – we spent more time there than the dude walking the rat – and our game against Fleisher.
The history against Fleisher was solid, in a shaky kind of way. Fleisher, which is mau-mauing to change its name to South Philly Nomads or something like that, came into the league in 2011 and we were 6-0 against them. The team has steadily improved and now it’s a really good team. We have tried to lose to them before, winning two of the previous games by one run and two by two runs. But we never tried as hard as we did on Tuesday.
We fell behind 11-0 after three innings and it wasn’t because of errors on our part or spectacular effort on theirs. They hit the ball into gaps and openings and we did not. Their top four hitters scored 10 of their 12 runs. On our side, playing without a gimpy Lynch, our top four hitters had five of our 14 hits, which gets back to that foreshadowing.
Hitting star was Chris Yasiejko with a 3-for-3 night. Miller, Kerry O’Connor and the Management had two hits each. We hit into some bad luck. Nevins lined out deep. Jon Snyder hit two bullet line drives that were gloved at third. Oh, fucking well. We made 13 of our 21 outs in the air and that gets back to the wood bat thing.
Here’s some reading on the subject of hitting with a wood bat, and here’s another one. It gets back to the old rotational hitting Nevins used to talk about, forcing the legs to open up the body in order to pull the hands through, rather than swinging a metal bat with mostly upper body. And if you want to see a fat guy hit balls a long way with a wooden bat, this one’s for you. Onward. We see Green Tambourine for the only time on Tuesday. I don’t have much more to add to that.

(Photo by Jim MacMillan)

APRIL

The Pen & Pencil Club softball season got under way on Wednesday with an opener that was delayed by one week and then postponed for another day so that sufficient water could accumulate on the fine fields of the Center City Softball League.
The result was a very soggy Edgeley 4 (in a game moved from Edgeley 3 because our spiffy newly-permitted field was submerged) and a night that ended somewhat soggily for the Red Inks. We opened against our old nemesis, the South Philly Tap Room, which eliminated us hastily from last season’s playoffs. This time around, it was a better game, although a 19-10 loss when the sun finally set on Lake Edgeley.
The game marked the start for us of the Wood Bat Era in the CCSL, a safety precaution that requires the use of wooden implements for ball-striking for males 54-years-and-under. The Management, being legally qualified to park in the handicap zone, displayed his spirit for the game by using a wood bat, anyway, and was rewarded with an 0-for-3 day, including this unfortunate result that probably would have made it through the infield if aluminum-aided.

In any case, we lead the league, if in nothing else, in males who can wield weapons of mass destruction. Dan Rubin, who didn’t mind doing so, began his season with a mammoth home run to deep right field in the first inning to cap a six-run outburst that put us in an early lead.
Our first five hitters reached base safely and we had two RBIs in the inning from Brian Donlen, who doubled, one from Mark Nevins, and two on Rubin’s blast. We scored the final run that inning when Chris Yasiejko singled and later scored on a Tommy Rowan base hit.
Well, that was a good start and the game remained close through the middle innings. We had some empty innings at the plate and gave the Tap a few extra outs in the field, and that’s never a good combination. But we still trailed by just 11-9 after five innings.
We leaked oil badly after that, and couldn’t figure out what to do with John Benson, who had a 5-for-5 day. Their MVP might have been No. 2 hitter Robin Blair who got on base five times, scored three runs and tripled in her first at-bat.

On our side, leadoff whiz Russ Krause was 4-for-4, and three hits each for George Miller, Donlen and Yasiejko. Two hits for Nevins and Rowan. In all, we had 20 hits to go with our 10 runs, but the Tap trumped that with 31 hits, according to scorekeeper Tom DiNardo.
As starts go, it was one, and it does seem that we adjusted to the wood bats and that, judging by Elmer’s fly ball outs, teams that rely on mashing home runs (not our specialty, anyway) will find themselves playing a slightly different game.
We’ll see how that turns out as the season progresses, which it does quickly, with games Monday and Tuesday next week, our only doubleheader week of the season. News about that, and about our Saturday scrimmage versus P&P Lite in our next edition.

ONCE AGAIN

Test post for 2014.