SWALLOWS 2: KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE BALLS

Ok, so we didn't get to play a league game this week and that's a drag, but it would have been a bigger drag mud wrestling in Belmont 4, which was not only in standing water, but the natural clay surface had turned to goopy mud.

Now, those who have followed the decisions of the CCSL to add extra teams without adding extra field permits -- and cutting down on the margin for error for getting the schedule in -- will remember that the management was solidly against that decision and, not to be redundant, told the General Manager not to vote for this plan. Careful readers know what happened, and know all about LCBDPBJ (Low-Cut Blouse Day at the Philadelphia Business Journal) and my man's thoughts were not about the inner workings of the Fairmount Park bureaucracy.

Fine. That's water over the bridge as Tap Room Ogre would say. We must move forward. I have no idea when our scheduled game vs. National Constitution Center/Old City (yes, that will be shortened) will be played. The rain date picked out by the league office is July 3. I am not making that up. But we will find a day. Perhaps some Thursday. Sure why not?

Anyway, we did get to play a game over the weekend, an early season friendly with FourPlay (so named because it is the fourth team sponsored by Westbury Restaurant), which was the former Valanni Swallows, of the Philadelphia Gay Softball League.

Kerry O'Connor, who is on both rosters, played for our side on Saturday -- which was good, because we had only 10 players.

It was a very good scrimmage, probably went 8 or 9 innings and I would guess it was very close to a draw. We hit the ball well, fielded reasonably well and did not, as far as I know, lose any additional players to the other side of the field. 

Chris Yasiejko started on the mound and started us off with a three-run home run in the first inning and that set the tone. Good hitting also from O'Connor, Snyder, Rubin, Galan, the Management, Brennan, McElhatton, Kenney and Matheson.

Nevins came by with the kid and the dog, only one of which took a big, smelly, gooey dump almost directly on the FourPlay equipment bags. Nice, Chief. So Nevins walked around with a bag of dog poop and God-knows-what in the kid's pants. FourPlay moved its stuff and if that's a double entendre, I apologize.

Big hit of the game was by Al, who had a flower behind his right ear and crushed the ball into deep left field for an amazing home run late in the going. No offense in any way, but the guy has a unique home run trot. Kerry, try as he might, couldn't emulate that, but he'll be able to get some practice.

See you next week.

I GOT OFF THE COUCH TO WATCH THIS SHIT?

Yeah, it wasn’t pretty, but look at it this way: No one got hurt, it could have been worse and the season has only one direction in which to go. (At least two of those three are true. We just don’t know which yet.)
The Red Inks of the Pen & Pencil Club opened the 20th season of the Center City Softball League with a 27-8 loss to the South Philly Tap Room, reigning league champions, on Monday night and, man, it was a stinker.
The Tap Room batted around in three of their six innings at the plate, which is probably three too many and, regardless of how we played, it is likely we weren’t going to match firepower with the Tappies on this particular night.
That said, however, we played less than efficient softball. Some dropped balls, some balls that fell just out of reach, some of this and some of that. It added up to 27 runs and quickly offset our temporary happiness about scoring five runs in the top of the first to take an early lead.
The scorebook offers few answers, and not just because Ron kept the first few innings before having to hustle off for Kahn Jr.’s bail hearing. It tells us, however, that the Tap blasted away and then decided, having moved us back, to drop bloops in front of the defense. This hardly seems fair, but nevertheless. I tried, briefly, to tally earned runs versus unearned runs, but that got depressing. If you really want to know, I think the final score would have been a 13-8 loss if we played perfectly, but it would still have been 0-1 in the standings. So, whatever. We got it out of the way.
On our side of the book, I see two hits for Marcus Hayes, Mark Nevins (2 run HR), Steve Lynch (HR) and Chris Yasiejko (3 run HR!). Otherwise, meh. We scored five in the first and three runs in the six innings afterward, bringing only 25 batters to the plate in those six innings. Not good enough – and six assists or putouts for Benson – so we didn’t even get it past the mound often enough.
Whatever. Now a word about Ogre’s foul ball. Oh, my fucking God.
In the fifth inning, Tap Room Elmer hit a ball that Google Earth says went only 300 feet. I have never doubted GE, but I think NASA was tracking this thing. It landed beyond first base on Edgeley 3, which is just silly. George Miller gets points for retrieving the ball without his bike. It would have been a prodigious shot even with a legal bat, but this was a force of nature and, don’t know about you, but I’m glad I was there to witness it.
Genug. We play a friendly on Saturday against Kerry’s gay friends and then resume the CCSL sked on Monday against an Old City/NCC team that we should have better luck against. Let’s have some fun.

Opening Day

Well, we all survived the winter and those of us who work in the little white building on North Broad St. survived the unpleasant prospect of making the business better by being forced out of it.
With that aside, it's time for some softball and the season begins on Monday evening at 6 p.m. sharp against the defending champions of the Center City Softball League, our old friends, the South Philly Tap Room & Douchenozzles.
Nothing against Commissioner Ed and his fizz-whizzy scheduling machine, but just maybe it is a sign from God that we're going to find out about this season pretty quick. So, let's shock the world, or at least those knuckledraggers from the Tap Room.
As you can see from the standings on the right rail, the Center City Softball League has expanded this season, with Franklin doing the amoeba thing and splitting into two teams -- The Assholes Who Can Play and The Nice Guys Who Can't. Since Franklin does what it wants, that meant we had to add another team so we had an even number. (I do have to interject that general manager Chris Brennan voted to approve this plan at the annual league meeting and derm abrasion, even though I left specific instructions that we do no such thing unless we had another field permit in hand. The GM says he had every intention of following our plan, but was distracted because he was sitting next to Phyllis.)
Anyway, the National Constitution Center has rejoined the league, just two or three years after dropping out for the very good reason that their team never showed up for a game. The NCC is back and insists on being called the Olde City Rising Suns, which, of course, we will absolutely not do.
So, we play two games each against our division opponents and one each against non-division opponents for a total of 13 regular season games. This will take a while, particularly if there is any rain because WE DIDN'T GET THE OTHER FUCKING PERMIT. I sort of remember the postseason plan. It involves six of the eight teams, with the second and third place teams in each division playing while the top seeds get a bye and then on and on. Brennan approved this, too, and I can't jump him for every decision, particularly since it was Low Cut Blouse Day at the Philadelphia Business Journal, which they apparently have quite frequently.
This, believe it or not, is the sixth season at the helm for The Management. Time flies when you finish fifth. I have posted at right the photo that accompanied the press release when I first became skipper. Abe Lincoln's got nothing on me. You think the Civil War could age a guy? Try this job.
We welcome two new players, Liz Gabor and Keith Craig, to our roster. Both showed up (on time, a first for Gabor) for Friday's practice which was an overwhelming success because there was no beer left at the end and we could just dump out the ice and carry the cooler to the car with one hand.
Let's have another great season. If you haven't gotten your running in by now, it's too late.