YO HA HA I'M ROUNDING THIRD

With a nice grind-it-out 13-2 win over the Please Touch Museum on Tuesday night, the Pen & Pencil Club is off to its best start in the Center City Softball League in five years.

 We stand 4-1 after five games, tied with ancient rival Bishop’s Collar in whatever the real name of the division might be.

For this great start, we can thank teamwork, we can thank skill, and we can thank the schedule maker, who allowed us to slip into the bathtub slowly – after that first cold plunge against the Tap Room – and now we are acclimated and ready to scrub some grime from our tarnished legacy. (I really hope this writing doesn’t carry over to the day job.)

First things first. Against the Memorial Ballers of the Touch Museum, we fielded the minimum number of men and very nearly the maximum number of the fairer gender. This made the bench smell a lot better, but it also meant we need some real efficiency from the offense and in the field.

After a kind of slow start – sort of like that lawnmower that you have to give a few tugs – we proceeded to mow down the opposition. (I’m not kidding. If I turn this shit in at the paper, they will fire my ass so fast I’ll be out the door before we’re sold again.)

We scored twice in the top of the first, then went to sleep for a while and it was a 2-2 game entering the fourth inning. With us, you never know, so it was a little nerve-wracking to be tied in the middle of the game against a team that has not won a league game since Week 12 of the 2010 season. (I know. It’s very sad that I know that.)

There is a suspended game this season pending in which Touch holds a lead over Franklin Institute, but no official wins in the book and 18 losses since the last victory.

And that last victory, you ask? Of course, it was 20-4 over the Pen & Pencil Club. So, you might want to mess with karma, but I’d prefer to score some runs. (I do not mention the Touchies poor record to embarrass them. Just wanted to make the point. As for why I have this stuff at my fingertips, it’s a real problem, nothing less.)

Anyway, we scored three in the fourth, took another nap, and drifted into the sixth inning holding a 5-2 lead. At that point, we put up some runs and made it look like a different game, scoring four times in each of our last two at-bats.
The truth is that it was a good game and the Please Do Me’s fielded the ball very well and just had trouble stringing together hits. Our scorebook, as fielded by Ed Cascarella, is very interesting. I think we had 22 hits, which is good, and I’m almost positive Russ Krause and Steve Lynch had four of them each, including a homer for Stick. It looks like Mike Galan had three hits, as did Dan Rubin, and two hits for B.J. Clark and Keith Craig. I apologize for any oversights. Kathy Matheson had a solid single into center field, advanced on a pair of hits and scored on a sacrifice fly by George Miller.

The real highlight was our fielding. The outfield was perfect, with a bomb over Yaz’s head the lone exception and that one was a function of the pitcher-catcher interface. Galan/Clark, Craig, Julie Dugan and Rubin were solid around the horn. (I’ve always wondered about that term. Could it come from the sailing term for going around Cape Horn or Cape Cod or whatever it is? If anyone knows, tell me.)

Now things get interesting and the schedule gets tougher, starting with a big game against the Art Museum next Tuesday and then we get Bishop’s Collar the following week, and then the Tap Room again and then the Catahoula Refunds. The Franklin is thrown in there some place as well, but we could easily find ourselves at .500 after 10 games if we don’t A) Show Up (and I mean that literally), and B) Play Well. (It’s always that second part that has hung us up in the past.) We’ll hope for better this time.