PLAYING CHESS WITH DEATH

And the dude has some nasty breath.
That's where we are, folks. Every game is a playoff game. We came into this week trailing (I mean, trailing) the Zoo for the fourth and final spot in the playoffs.
How did we respond?
We knocked off the first place team in the league, Bishop's Collar, by a 14-9 score.
What does that tell us, class? We can play with anyone and the season is just beginning.
Of course, that might be just one thing it tells us. But we simply can't know that yet. Hmmm. (I meant the whole chess thing to be a play off of Bishop's Collar, get it, Bishop's? But I couldn't figure out how to make it work. Sorry.)
Anyway, we win, 14-9, the first win for our Daily News/Pen & Pencil Club franchise since 2005 over the Philadelphia Business Journal/Bishop's Collar franchise.
The book was kept by Danny, so I'm a little light on stats. I do know that we trailed, 7-6, after two and, 9-7, after four. They don't score again and we add four in the fifth and three in the sixth to take control.
We beat the most fundamental team in the league by playing their game. We hit line drives for singles, mostly, and we played smart, efficient defense. That is how BC got into first, and it is the way to win in this league. There was not a single ball that gapped us or was hit over our heads. They played small-ball and we played it better.
Now, it must be admitted that the Collar seemed to be reaching some
sort of genetic wall during the game. Spence went out with a pulled something and then Money made his elbow the size of street lamp and, well, like we don't have complaints? Freaking Donlen schedules this frivolous thing during the season? Is that possible? And Clark doesn't schedule anything during the season?
Anyway, the book. What do I know? I know Mike Galan was 4-for-4, scored three runs, knocked in a bunch, and hit a double and a half in one at-bat. I know that Jon Snyder had a pair of hits and scored twice. I know that George Miller smoked a three-run home run to right in the sixth that probably won the game. T-o-r-i-g-h-t. You heard me. And, uh, they weren't expecting it.
I know that Nevins got aboard each time, but I can't tell if it was his fault. Dan Rubin and John Hall came off the bench for two hits each, and more toward the end of this sentence.
Beginning the new sentence, a shoutout to Julie Dugan for doing the 1st base thing, one thing you know is that lacrosse players can catch. Also, to Hickey/Yasiejko for splitting SS which was something like a quicksand. And, MVP, to Ellen Kenney for her foul pop catch in the sixth. Huge play.
What else? The book has few answers. The focus now is on "ART." Yes, Art. We have to beat them on Tuesday. If we don't, it will be very disappointing.
Go To Manager's Corner.

NEW ZOO REVUE

Loved that show. Great if you're stoned, although the hippo could be a little scary.

Apparently, we played as if altered against the Zoosters, losing 15-10. Sorry I missed it. Life intruded on softball once again.

GM Chris Brennan filed this one:

"Sports, and writing about sports, are often fraught with clichés. Some of them are even true. Today's cliché: We win or lose as a team. The P&P lost 15-10 as a team last night to an undermanned but determined bunch from the zoo. Every player, those who showed up and those who didn't, played a role. With only one woman on the field, we were forced to take an automatic out each time the top of the batting order came up. We were also limited to nine players in the field. This is no excuse, of course, since the Zoo had numbers problems of its own and only had nine players. They made the most of it, with three guys swatting long balls with runners on base. Our infield was porous and our outfield overworked. Our bats were uneven, starting the game OK but then going silent at clutch moments. The automatic out can't even be put to blame since it was only responsible for the ending of one inning. Now we're neck-and-neck for the fourth playoff spot with these Zoo people. Next week is a new week."

I'll let all of that lay where it is. Veterans will recall that we split with the Zoo last season as well and still made the playoffs. So, let's not panic until the order to panic is given. (See Manager's Corner.)

STORY TIME

I was in a meeting the other day and the guy in charge said, "We need more stories. We've got lots of articles, but we need more stories." This struck me as brilliant -- except on the off chance that I might have to produce some of them.

It got me to thinking, though. This blog, a wonderful repository of life as we know it, to be puzzled over by later lifeforms who study our ways and can't fathom the concept of no-umpire softball, has a lot of articles. But it doesn't have a lot of stories.

Just to prove I'm down with the concept, this week we get a story. (Oh, I know. Some of you tuned in because you wanted a recap of our game Tuesday against the Tap. No. Actually, you don't.)

Where was I? Ah, yes. The story.

The fellow whose picture graces the post is Dan Rubin, great writer, great softball player, great friend. For the purpose of the post, I will overlook the Northwestern cap. (Matheson sporting Big Ten rival Michigan.) At least it's not the goddam Red Sox hat again.

The last time the Pen & Pencil had a softball team, before it was reborn in 2007 from the ashes of the proud Daily News team, Dan Rubin and I were rookies on the squad. You want to know how long ago this was? Rubin looked like Axl Rose. Hair down to his ass. I kid you not.

Mike Sokolove was the pitcher. Sal Paolantonio was the left fielder. Bob Rosenthal was on the team, and Fred Mann and Bill Eddins and Mike Missanelli. Hell of a team, actually. We played in a league with roofers and plumbers and such on their fields way up on Ridge Pike. And, let me tell you, when you got into an argument with the roofers, it wasn't like having a piss-off with the Art Museum boys.

Anyway, that's a few seasons in the past and it's good to be out there every week (crises permitting) with all of you still wearing the spatula proudly. That's the end of the story.

Now... we sucked against the Tap. Lost 14-7. This one got away from us. We needed to play better defense and gave them too many extra outs. On the other side of the book, we stranded a zillion runners.

Bright spots? Ellen Kenney was not, in fact, paralyzed when third baseman Jeremy nailed her in the lower back on a play at first. He also played spoilsport by snagging an absolute smash line drive off the bat of Ellen on her next at-bat.

We did find a shortstop. Thank god Donlen is out of the country and can't read this. Tom Hickey said, "This space is mine," and it will be hard to get him out of there.

Let's see. George Miller hit a foul ball for a home run. Kate Fagan bunted for a hit. Well, it would have been a hit, except there's no bunting in the Center City Softball League. But it did wake them up for a time.

It didn't wake them up as much, of course, as when Commissioner/Savant/Keeper of Book Ron Goldwyn stopped the game to accuse the Tap of batting out of order. Like loudly. Like going over to their bench. Like a couple of minutes later saying, "My bad."

I don't have the book, but I think that's the inning they scored seven runs. If it isn't, it should be. Would make for a better story.

THE FEW, THE PROUD, THE PEN & PENCIL

While some of us were too busy watching those adorable Boston Red Sox in Citizens Bank Park, and some of us were stewing in the press workroom at Boston Banknorth Fakeorama Garden, the rest of us were getting the job done against the mighty Dung Beetles of the Academy of Natural Sciences.
This was a needed win. It broke a four-game schneid and pushed us firmly toward the second half of the season with some upward momentum.
Interim skippah (as Kerry says) Chris Brennan had just 11 brave recruits for the game, but apparently used them well. He filed this report:
"A scrappy bunch of P&P show-ups -- let's call them the distilled spirit of the team -- took on an ANS team flush with players but not so much with runs. With a solid 11 players, the P&P beat ANS 10-1. The bad news: pitcher Mike Galan had a sweet shut-out into the bottom of the 7th but his trusty infield, which had been snagging sharply hit balls all night, faltered for just a moment. Galan produced offensively too, going 3-4. After getting off to a slow start, the club started producing hits. George Miller piled up a little insurance in the seventh with a three-run homer. Defensively, Kate Fagan wowed both teams with a scoop at second that left her no time to pull the ball out of her glove and toss it to first base. So Fagan employed the jai-alai method, tossing the ball WITH her glove for the out. A fine defensive game as well from Tom "My, those are some tall black socks" Hickey and Brian "Cleats At The Altar" Donlen."
These guys think sports writing is easy until they try to do it. Well done, all. We convene with our usual quorum next week, hopefully.

TEAM TURMOIL

Go to Europe for one lousy week and everything falls apart. What's a deadbeat manager to do? I wish I had better news right now, but can't think of any. I'll be missing Tuesday's game vs. ANS because of the Boston Celtics and much of the rest of our roster will be missing it because of the Boston Red Sox. None of this makes sense.

Anyway, he's GM Chris Brennan's report on our loss to the South Philly Tap Room:

"This is probably a story best kept short. We fell behind to the SPTR, which played a smart game of hitting sharp grounders through our infield to load up the bases for a few of their players who had the talent to smack balls to places in the outfield we were not currently located. Final score: 19-8.
Provisional management accepts full responsibility -- I'm looking at you, Ron -- for putting together a batting order that didn't exactly balance out our talent from top to bottom. After Ron's departure, I didn't make matters much better.
The club hung in there on a wickedly humid day, pulling within one run mid-game before the Tap Room broke it open again. Highlights were Nevins 3-4 and Yasiejko 3-3."

Wow, that was terse. GM CB gets a chance for redemption against ANS and I expect a better report.

VICTORY IS SOMEONE'S

Yes, the mighty Franklin Institute tasted defeat for the first time this season.

Sub manager Ron Goldwyn filed this report while the skipper is doing whatever he is doing abroad:

Franklin Institute gets beat! They're no longer undefeated, no longer invincible -- humbled if not humble! Still drinking PBR in those mediocre uniforms. And we played them in the same week it happened!

Full disclosure requires the admission that it was the South Philly Taproom on Tuesday, not the P&P on Monday, that administered said defeat (8-6 in you're keeping score).
Monday at Edgely 4, under gorgeous spring-summer skies, TFI won 19-6.
The game was not as close as the score indicates (we plated three in bottom-7 but left the tying run standing behind the bench, laughing and drinking beer with some horny dog).
Two of the first four batters in Inning One hit long home runs. We held them to two more homers the rest of the way. But it was 9-0,the traditional forfeit score, before we'd batted in the second.
Stars on a nonstarry night -- Brian Donlen, three hits (a double), Tom Hickey three hits (a triple), George Miller two hits (2 rbi), Dan Rubin two hits.
Julie Dugan made two spectacular grabs of long flies deep to right, setting an example that none of her male counterparts in all the rest of the outfield could match. Kate Fagan made her P&P debut an impressive one with several keystone sack gems and a single.
Point of personal privilege. Author and manager-in-waiting Ron Goldwyn singled sharply to third in his first AB of the season and retires, again, hitting 1.000.
The semi-mighty P&P does it all over again Tuesday June 10 on Edgely 8, our favorite old field by the refreshment stand, against the giant-killer SPTR's. We're the home team. It's dollar-and-a-half dog night, if the hot doggie lady happens to repair of if we roast a mascot.

THIS TEAM UNDER CONSTRUCTION

While we await Ron's official report on Monday's loss to Franklin Institute -- I gave him the book to keep since it was radioactive -- just a few words about who we are and what we do.
We like to have fun and play softball. I think that despite the score on Monday, whatever it was, we still enjoyed the process. We dropped some balls and missed some pitches we should have hit and, although I can't confirm this yet, my sense is the sun will rise over the fertile highways of New Jersey tomorrow morning and set over the steaming cooling towers of Three Mile Island tomorrow. Maybe this is perspective. Maybe it is experience. Maybe it is the fact that I'm getting on a plane for Paris on Wednesday and leaving you losers behind me.
Nevertheless, we are 3-3 this season and the losses have been to the two best teams in the league. I firmly believe we are the third-best at this moment, that we will make the playoffs and could make some trouble once there. We have a very nice team and do like to drink the occasional beer. This is not something to be overlooked, lo though these days look dark.
The management will miss, regrettably, next week's game against South Philly Tap, a very winable game, and will see you in two weeks against the unpleasant Dung Beetles of the Academy of Natural Sciences. Please, as always, get your running in, and remember why we do this. And when you remember, please remind me.