JUST A PLAY OFF

Yeah, yeah, yeah. A play here, a play there. A catch, a pitch, a swing, a bloop, a bad step. Any of those. That’s how it looks after you lose a 14-13 game to begin and end the postseason run.

The truth is that the Art Museum, which beat the Pen & Pencil by that lone run on Tuesday night on the unforgiving plateau of Dairy 2, would have had the same regrets and the same thoughts if the score had been reversed – which it easily could have been.

Both teams were pretty good, neither was perfect, and the Arties would have gone home thinking about the ground ball that went through the wickets or the right fielder who fell down. Instead, it was us reliving the bad bounce in the outfield or the 1/32 of an inch difference between where the ball struck Dan Rubin’s bat for the final out of the game and the spot that would have propelled it over the outfield for a three-run home run.

That close.

And what has all that perspective taught us, class? That losing really sucks. But we have learned that hard

lesson before.

Anyway, that’s the season. We got the exact matchup we wanted with the Art Museum because we knew it was going to be a great game and it was. Every time we play the Arties, the game goes that way. They get to go off and play Catahoula now and we get to pursue whatever it is that we do until next season.

Let’s chew it over a bit, shall we?

We jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the top of the first with a bunch of singles and runs batted in by Mark Nevins, Chip Proctor and Brian Donlen. Not happy with success, we opened the door a little in the bottom of the inning and The Management gave up five straight hits at one point as the Dusty Hall of Artifacts came back to take a 4-3 lead.

The bottom of the order rose up in the second inning as we scored twice more to regain the lead, 5-4, with four hits, including RBIs by Jon Snyder and Russ Krause. The inning ended on a line drive by George Miller that Ray somehow snared on the mound, preventing at least one more run.

In the top of the third, following a good running catch by Proctor to shut out the Arties in their at bat, we scored four more to take a 9-4 lead. Chris Yasiejko’s run-scoring double capped off that rally, and there was an RBI triple for Rubin and a two-run single by Donlen in the run.

Well, it sure looked good there and continued to look good as we held the Museumites to single runs in the third and fourth and then added two runs in the top of the fifth for an 11-6 lead. A Steve Lynch triple followed by singles from Nevins, Proctor and Rubin provided those runs.

And wouldn’t it have been a nice story if the game stopped there. Regrettably the bottom of the fifth gave the Artistes three more runs, and then, as the sun decided to slip behind the trees and make seeing the ball a lot easier, the Home of the Rocky Statue won the game with five runs in the bottom of the sixth. It was a  slo-mo horror reel with all the runs coming with two outs. The big blow was a three-run home run to right field by Adam, who had cleverly disguised this ability by going to the left side in each of his three previous at-bats. So when The Management cleverly gave him an outside pitch, hoping he would try to pull it and pop up, he smacked it deep into the night and the pitch wasn’t so fucking clever.

Down 14-11, we rallied in the seventh. Krause led off with another line drive through the box that Ray claimed, so that wasn’t very good, but we had back-to-back hits from Miller and Lynch for one run, then a

run-scoring groundout to the right side by Nevins. Proctor and Donlen then got singles to put the tying run in scoring position and the go-ahead run on base, but Rubin’s deep drive to the oddly-dressed Frank in right-center turned out to just not deep enough.

Oh, fucking well. We shook hands and drank some more beer and cut down the festive playoff bunting and considered our sins, which were many.

Overall, we had 23 hits to go with our 13 runs, which should have been enough. Lynch, Nevins and Donlen had three hits each. Krause, Miller, Proctor, Rubin, Yasiejko and Snyder had two hits each. Nevins and Donlen each had three RBIs. There were only four extra base hits. A triple and double from Lynch, a triple from Rubin and a double by Yaz.

It was plenty of offense, but just not enough luck on the defensive side to get the popout or close play when we needed it. Exactly half of the Art’s 14 runs scored with two outs. Only three of our 13 runs came with two outs, and we left five in scoring position. That is very unfortunate. But it happened.

We might have deserved better, but you get what you get, not what you deserve. Onward. There is some planning for a friendly or two, probably on a Saturday, probably in September. And the CCSL All-Star Game is Tues., Aug. 5. That’s always a good time and the All-Star rules are pretty loose. Everyone is an All-Star!

Onward. See you soon. More information as it arrives. Great season, and next time we make that play. Chris, who gets the beer bill?

Photos by Jon Snyder and Chris Yasiejko.

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.

WE MIGHT HAVE YOU THIS TIME

Yes, we finally found a way to win a game and surprisingly enough, it involved hitting the ball and catching it with regularity. Who knew? If someone had told us, we would have tried it.

We beat the South Philly Tap Room 15-4 on Tuesday at Dairy 4 to break a five-game losing streak and

even though the Tap was playing a slightly depleted lineup, we’ll still take it. We’ve been there ourselves this season.

The win improved our playoff seeding although it’s impossible to tell exactly how yet. Depending on a few things, we could finish in a three-way tie for sixth with the Tap and the Green Tambourine, and we hold

all the tiebreakers there, so that would mean a first-round bye and no playoff until Tuesday, July 22. Otherwise, we still might open Monday, July 21 with a play-in game. So keep the week as free as possible.

Let’s start at the beginning. Since our last update, we played Catahoula twice before the Tap game and that was as much fun as usual. The Cajun Dogs beat us 20-9 and 10-4 and even though the scores were different, the games were pretty much the same.

To beat Catahoula, we have to play nearly flawlessly in the field and not give extra outs and extra runs. We missed “flawless” by a lot in both of these games.

In the first game, the Hoagiefest preliminary at Dairy 4, we made two errors in the first inning and the Refugees jumped out to a 6-0 lead. We scampered back to tie the game 8-8 after three innings, but then allowed five more runs in the fourth, aided by five errors, according to the scorebook. That’s a lot. Catahoula got another seven runs in the sixth and, well, we weren’t keeping up very well.

The P&P scored just one run and brought only 18 to the plate in our final four at-bats. We did get four hits from Steve Lynch, three from George Miller, Mark Nevins and Chip Proctor, two from Chris Brennan and a home run from Chris Yasiejko.

Then came Hoagiefest, which was fun and lasted until 1:30 a.m., according to those who weren’t going to leave until the cops showed up. Very good hoagies, courtesy of Sarcone’s and Phyllis, and the usual amount of controlled burning of the Dairy 2 infield.

We got Catahoula again on Monday at Edgeley 4 and, just to prove it wasn’t a fluke, gave up five unearned

runs in the first, two more in the third and I think their final three runs in the fifth were earned, but you can never tell. Nick hit a home run to left field in that inning that was Elmeresque, about as far as you can hit a ball with a wood bat. So, I’m pretty sure that one was earned.

Who the hell is this Neilson guy?

On the P&P side of the sheet, we didn’t score until the seventh inning, which was a little late. We had just four hits, all singles, in our first six at-bats, and finished with only nine hits for the game and one extra-base hit, a double by Lynch. Donlen had two hits. Nobody else had more than one. Lynch got tagged out at the plate by Casey on this ridiculous behind-the-back swipe and that was annoying and then we left.

OK, the Tap game. We were bolstered by the return of Julie Dugan and B.J. Clark and had our regular super sub Amandah Povilitus on hand for the first part of the game as well. For one of the few times this season, we were able to field what might be our best defense and it paid off. Ron’s scorebook doesn’t show an error, although there was at least one mental one when the Management forgot that to get an out at first one has to actually run over to the bag.

A rare highlight from our two games against Catahoula
was this Kathy Matheson liner over Renardo and into CF.

That lapse allowed the Tap to chunk around and get three runs in the bottom of the first to tie the score, but we scored five more in the third and three in the fourth and Chris Yasiejko only allowed one more run on the mound.

Among the highlights were the first successfully executed rundown play in P&P history, some nice running catches by Russ Krause in left and the packing up and exiting before that nasty storm blew through.

The scorebook shows three hits for Miller and Donlen, who had a double and a cone-aided triple; two, including a home run, for Nevins, Proctor, Clark and the Management. It was a good, crisp game for the P&P and hopefully is the start of more of the same.

In any case, it was the end of the losing streak, which had gotten to be a real drag. Two of those losses were by one run and another was by two runs, so if you choose to look at it positively, we are just a handful of runs from being where we are supposed to be.

I look at it like none of that matters. When we have our team, we’re going to beat people in the playoffs. It’s that catching and hitting thing that has been tripping us up.

Obligatory Hoagiefest shot. (Photos by Jon Snyder)

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.