Pen & Pencil Club Clinches Playoff Berth!!!

Yes, it’s been a long wait, but the Pen & Pencil Club softball team is back in the Center City Softball League playoffs, which only took a 30-14 win over Old City/NCC on Tuesday evening and a semi-strange reshuffling of the entire CCSL universe this season.

Not that we’re complaining, and not that we don’t intend, once invited, to make ourselves lengthy guests in the postseason. We’re in and we’re going to stick around.

Well, 30 runs. The Management is in its sixth season and this represents a record during its (his) tenure for offensive production. Those who have followed us closely are not surprised by that, but we also put up that number in five innings, going scoreless in the sixth and seventh innings, which is kind of remarkable.

Let’s reflect a moment on making the playoffs, which touched off a wild celebration and led to the popping of champagne corks – oh, all right, cork, singular, and it was fucking sparkling wine and not real champagne, but fucking sparkling something or other.

We have clinched at least third place in our division, whatever its name is, and are probably headed toward a first-round showdown with our old friends/foes from the Bishop’s Collar. That will be a great one, but that is down the July road and not to be played just yet.

The new divisional split of the CCSL worked against us this season – no surprise – but we should all feel good that we overcame the forces of evil and made the postseason despite having the cards stacked against us. Now we make them sorry for letting us hang around.

As for the clinching game, Old City was coming off a narrow (sorta) loss to the Collar the night before and was looking to set some records of its own. Well, we helped the expansion franchise set a new record for runs (14) and runs in a single inning (8), and on another night things might have gone differently.

We led 13-0 going into the bottom of the third before surrendering the above-cited 8-spot, which was a combination of good Old City hitting and some dodgy P&P fielding. That briefly made it a game, but only until we scored 12 in the top of the fourth and added five more in the fifth to lead 30-8.

At that juncture, the game had lasted at least two presidential administrations and we moved quickly toward a conclusion, lest sundown and gunfire from Diamond Street precede the final out.

Highlights? Well, we got four hits from Kerry O’Connor and Mike Galan, and four more from Steve Lynch, including two home runs. Three hits for Russ Krause, George Miller, Dan McElhatton and Brian Donlen, including a pair of bomb triples. Among the ladies, Sheila Ballen and Kathy Matheson had two hits each, as did Liz Gabor. At least, I think so. The book is not usually this crowded with hits.  And we hit it a lot, scoring 19 runs combined in the third and fourth innings. Let’s keep doing that in games to come.

So, we’re in, and we are in with three regular season games left to play. Let’s have some fun with those and get ready for the big games to come. This wasn’t our last taste of champagne. Hopefully, Leroy won't slobber on the next bottle.

A Black Eye For The Whole Team

Well, not really. Our 11-3 loss to the Catahoula Orcs wasn’t that bad, but it did provide an excuse for the headline and for the photo of our own Lizzy Gabor, who underwent an Uglyectomy less than an hour after the game. She was playing soccer at the time, which is totally unrelated to our Center City Softball League, but, hey, it was the best art I had.

(Liz promises, by the way, that she will not miss any of our games because of the facial repositioning. Or, at least, she won’t be any later than usual or forget any additional equipment.)

On to the game!

Catahoula, for those unveterans among you, used to be the playing portion of the Franklin Institute roster. In the most recent offseason, the non-playing portion of the Franklin roster demanded that, in the future, they, well, you know, play occasionally. Since the non-playing portion was also the only portion that had any connection to the Franklin Institute, they won – and haven’t won since.

That’s the way the Catalites tell it, anyway. The truth is that Franklin, after five straight championships, lost in the World Series to the Tap Room last year. And because of that, the whole world had to blow up! And so it did, which led to an unsafe cooling of the earth’s core and the fucking divisional setup in the CCSL, which blows. Somehow, we added two more teams and play fewer games. Go figure that one.

Anyway, the Catahummus still can’t beat the Tap Room, which would be a lot funnier if Little Al & The Imperials were the least bit likeable. Such is not the case. Also anyway, we still can’t beat the Real Franklin/Catamongas, or at least we couldn’t on Monday at lovely Edgeley 8.

It was an interesting enough game. They scored three in the top of the first and then hung around to see if they needed to score more. It was still a 4-1 game in the top of the fifth when the Orcs added three more and, after we scored two in the sixth, four more for good measure in the top of the seventh. The top three batters in their lineup – Matty, Nick and Ryan – scored eight of their 11 runs, which is pretty predictable. It was a surgical win, for the most part.

True highlight was Russ Krause nailing a runner at the plate with a great throw, and also a great tag by Chris Yasiejko. In the field, we did fine, and a hardy welcome back to Brian Donlen, who was also welcomed back by Edgeley 8, which tried repeatedly to put a ball in his throat.

Offensively, we just didn’t hit at all. Score three and you lose, no matter who you play. Nevins had three of our 10 hits. No one else had more than one. We brought just 32 batters to the plate in a seven-inning slow-pitch softball game, which is hard to do.

It could have been a little better. We left the bases loaded in the third, but put just six runners in scoring position all day and got three of them home. Oh, well. Wasn’t our night. Wasn’t Lizzy’s, either, apparently.

TAPPED OUT

Postponed on Tuesday night vs. South Philly Tap Room because of a high moisture content. Rescheduling will be passed along when we have it. Missing out now is too bad because we are playing very well and ready to knock them off. Our chance will come again, perhaps a couple of times this season and we can't wait. As you were.

I Am The God Of Hellfire And I Bring You....YAZ!

Well, where to start? Inverted pyramid doesn’t really work here. Inverted pyromaniacs, perhaps.
I have it on good authority that Hoagiefest did not end Tuesday/Wednesday until approximately 6 a.m. for the last stragglers. Reports are mixed on whether any of the Red Inks were still in the mix, but I fear Captain Yaz might have still been leaping the flames. We’ll find out on Tuesday if he got singed, or, like Icarus, melted his wings when he flew too close to the fire pit and deep well of gin, vodka and Nubian sweat on Dairy 2. Ah, to be young again.
Anyway, the annual festival of prepared meats and artisan Italian breads was an unquestioned success, which is slightly more than you can say about the softball results for the Pen & Pencil Club. We split our games this week, losing in extra innings to Bishop’s Collar and then winning, somewhat closer than necessary, to the Franklin Orphans.

Let’s start with the most recent stuff, which is so much easier for me to remember. We beat the Orphans 12-7, and if we had been missing one more player perhaps, or if Liz’s dog had taken a bit longer to weedle, then we might have actually been in trouble.
As it was, we cut it close enough, tied 3-3 in the bottom of the fourth. The Franklins gave up 25 runs to Art and 24 to the Fleisher and, well, it’s been a tough go for them after being set adrift by the Catahoula Runaways.
This was a team hungry for a win and we were a team that can drop a turd in the punchbowl now and then. As it turned out, we scored eight in the bottom of the fourth and that was enough to put the game away.
That’s a good thing, because we didn’t score again. On the evening, we had 20 hits and Franklin had 20 hits. Our good fortune was to bunch them together and the Franklin was unable to do so.

We got three hits from Marcus Hayes and Dan McElhatton, and two hits from Liz “On my way” Gabor, Keith Craig, Steve Lynch, both home runs and a total of four RBIs, Chris Brennan and Mike Galan.
Highlights were the triumphant return of Jon Snyder, the fence climbing of Lynch, the run scored by Ellen Kenney and damn near everything that necessitated putting Craig in the outfield. Good win and then Hoagiefest, which made it even better.
Working backward, we lost on Monday and that sucked. It was a big game for us, against the Collar, and we were in nice position to come away with a win. Alas.
We led 6-1 heading into the bottom of the fifth and lost the game, giving up two in the fifth, two in the seventh to tie the game and, alas again, a run in the eighth to lose it.
What you notice is that we didn’t score during that span, which didn’t help. What might have also hurt along the way is that we left runners in scoring position in three innings. We’ll see the Collar again, probably twice, so we’ll have a shot to get even.
In that game, we got two hits from Russ Krause, Mark Nevins and Lynch, and had just 14 hits overall in eight innings. That ain’t enough, and after taking a 4-0 lead after the first inning, we went to sleep and had just 14 batters in the next four innings. Had a chance to take charge and didn’t. Oh fucking well.
This coming week, we play the Tap Room and that will be interesting as always, but last week came with fire and it came with provolone. That’s always better.