EXTRA SPECIAL

(Editor’s Note: The first part of this account is from Dan McElhatton, who was either worried that The Management would not properly recount the game, or was simply tired of his prose, which is understandable.)

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 There is a beauty in this game we play. Largely the beauty is found in the beers chilled in coolers. But occasionally the beauty is seen in our willpower, our teamwork and, often times, helpfully grotesque fielding errs by the opposition.

On a cool Monday night, the last day of April, we saw all three. It ended with a walk off win over Fleisher Art Memorial (FAM). The Pen and Pencil is now 1 and 1.

It should have ended in the bottom of the 7th. Tied at 7s in the 7th – Yaz gets on, is followed by a bloop single, runners on 1st and 3rd, two outs, New Guy Keith Craig (NGKC or new guy with two first names) is at bat.

Management is confident. “This game is over,” and Management’s lackey confirms, “Yeah, he gets a hit”. NGKC smashes the ball into left field directly into the glove of one of the 13 players on FAM that sport unkempt facial hair. We are going extra.

Top 8, a FAM with facial hair who has no business doing so somehow triples, he scores a batter later – no more damage. 8 to 7 –bottom 8. Beauty happens.

Mark Nevins, a 4-RBI game and heretofore known as, You won’t like me when I am mad,” (YWLMWIAM), exhibits Gandhi-like patience and then proceeds to declare war on the ball and launches a rocket down the right field line – tie game off the bat.

Now the willpower. One out – Management is at bat, takes 800 pitches, is heckled by the bearded ones, finally swings and hits it to short, he busts up the line, the shortstop hurries the throw, Management takes 2nd on the overthrow.

Dan Rubin steps in, slightly exhausted from being “on assignment” (which apparently is much less glamorous than it sounds). Nevertheless, Rubin makes contact, a comebacker to the pitcher. Management dances off second, the pitcher looks at second but throws to first, and Management bolts to third. One of the bearded ones screams, “That’s three”. It was not.

The first baseman fails to eat the ball and throws to third. It is low. It is in the ground. Management darts for home…

Now they say championship seasons require a Miller – if we are to have one ours might worry less about trying to kill opposing pitchers and focus more on fair line drives to left.

The platoon at first of Brennan and Rubin worked well. DiNardo, who stated postgame he can’t see very well, nonetheless made an incredible Willie Mays catch. NGKC knows he needs to keep the ball down. Management’s lackey channeled an epilepsy patient on a high pop up – the spell ended in time – the ball was caught.

Julie Dugan – got no respect at the plate and got key catches in right. Yaz unfortunately said out loud he thought the FAM should be called “Charcoals and Paint.” Ellen Kenney as always, calming behind the plate.

…As Management sprinted for home the throw from third was high, the slide under the tag and the win secured The beauty in those coolers consumed. Thursday E-4 vs Old City Rising which is kind of a gross name.

++++++++++++++++++++

 All right. Thank you, Dan. That’s one way to look at it, although the Management’s days of dancing and darting are not all in front of him (it).

The truth is that running around the bases like that, trying to score from second on a comebacker to the mound, is kind of a dick move. We all played Little League with that kind of guy, usually the coach’s son. He would just keep running, and get caught in rundowns, and do dumb stuff and get away with it because he could. It’s not the way to play the game.

The first rule of base-running is that you do not get thrown out at third base for the final out of the inning. You particularly don’t do this if you happen to represent the winning run in extra innings.

The Management has no explanation why, already in scoring position, he didn’t stay there and let Mike Galan get the game-winning base hit, which would have certainly happened. The most likely upside of taking off for third in that situation would be to create a situation – if safe – where the winning run would score on an infield hit with two outs. Mike, I love you. But infield hits are not your specialty. So, the Management risked getting thrown out at third for little gain.

The only possible gain – and there was no way this was going to happen – would be if the first baseman threw the ball (which he should not do) and threw it where the third baseman could not catch it (no way, right?).

Incredibly enough, both of those things happened, and the Management was able to take off and get home and then we got to drink more beer. There is no real explanation, and if someone else on the team tried this, it would not be favorably reviewed. In any case, the P&P beat Fleisher 9-8 in eight innings, and it was an ugly win, but would have been an uglier loss.

As Dan mentioned, George Miller did what every great hitter wants to do – knock the pitcher out of the game. He did it, however, by nailing Tina in the right tit with a line drive that would kill a water buffalo. “That’s OK. Maybe it’ll get big now,” Tina said, as she limped to the bench.

We didn’t score that inning – karma? – and trailed the game 4-0 entering the bottom of the third. We scored six runs and then fooled around for the rest of the game while Fleisher did enough to force the extra innings. Then, stuff happened and, again, there is no real explanation.

The difference in the game was Nevins, who had two home runs, a three-run shot in that third inning, and the tying solo shot in the bottom of the eighth. The rest of us dribbed and drabbed and we didn’t catch the ball very well and didn’t string together many hits at the plate. Were it not for Tom DiNardo’s over-the-shoulder catch to start the top of the sixth, Fleisher would have gotten another run and then we would have lost in regulation. At least in in the theoretical world of the scorebook.

On the night, Nevins and Keith Craig had three hits. Author McElhatton, George Miller, the Management, Galan and Chris Yasiejko had two hits. We were 19-for-41 at the plate, compared to 17-for-40 for FAM, which is way too close.

But a win is a win and somehow it worked out this time, even if it was a dick move.

Onward.