I LIKE IT, BUT IS IT ART?

The Pen & Pencil Club emerged from a sustained period of introspective scheduling to whomp up on the Art Museum by a 24-10 count on Tuesday night and improve its CCSL record to 5-1.

This one-sided victory was as welcome as it was unexpected, considering that the Art Museum has been a pain in our asses for about three years and that’s from the school of Realism not Impressionism. We played them twice last year, went extra inning both times and split the results, and the games were as contentious as that sounds. (Particularly since we should have won both, but for a willful misunderstanding of the tag-up rules. Yes, Ray. I’m still talking about that.)

Well, it’s a new year and a wonderful new divisional system in our fine league and we only play Art once and – given the circumstance – that’s a darn shame. Manager Bucco told me he lost one player because the guy got married or bought a house or something and then Jeremy is out with Dengue Fever and the next thing you know, you’re down to seeds, stems and Whiskey Frank. On balance, however, tough shit.

We started well (and scored in every inning of the game, as a matter of fact), and held a 9-2 lead entering the bottom of the third when we had one of those Pen & Pencil Innings in which we thought it would be great fun to give the other team somewhere around six outs. Which we did. And the other team thought it would be fun to put up six runs. Which they did, making it a 9-8 game.

Unlike other years and other games, we shrugged and went right back to scoring runs, getting three in the fourth and then an ocho in the fifth to make it more comfortable. Art, meanwhile, exhausted from running around the bases, scored just two more in its final four at-bats and brought just 16 to the plate in that span.

The game ended in total darkness as a twister rolled in from Kansas and I was quite certain that all of us were about to pay some kind of divine retribution for whatever Lynch has been doing lately.

In the scorebook, four hits for George Miller, Chris Yasiejko and Ira Hayes (including a home run over Bucco and a double), three hits for Russ Krause, Steve Lynch, Dan McElhatton and The Management. We used 13 players total and everyone got at least one hit, 32 hits in all.

A very nice win, and now the grand plan of the Catahoula Refugees is revealed. The new divisional alignment appears more lop-sided than ever. Whatever happened to Art in America? I don’t know. Some guy bought a house.

Hoagiefest!(TM) is Tuesday!

Next week we have games Monday (big one vs. Bishop’s Collar) and Tuesday (vs. Franklin Institute, followed by Hoagiefest!™). For the uninitiated, Hoagiefest!™ is an annual league-sponsored party organized by Social Chair Phyllis Demo. We supply beer and the league supplies fabulous hoagies from Sarcone’s and we all meet at one field and it’s a lot of fun until the gunfire breaks out. Don’t tell Ron. He ate all the hoagies last year.